The CCSD tech department wants your event to be a hit! To ensure the best possible outcome, please consider some of the following!
Start With A Ticket
As with everything we do, start with a ticket (ccsdhelpdesk@clintonwis.com) and get your event on the list. In this ticket, be sure to not only provide dates and times but try your best to include all potential hardware and software needs. This can be things like:
Microphones
Audio/Video
Chromebooks
Accounts to log into certain services
Other Hardware (projector, mobile TV, speakers, etc.)
The More Notice The Better
The more notice the better! If you need a TV simply wheeled into a room, a ticket the morning of would suffice. If you’re looking for a few different pieces of equipment and setup, a longer notice is required (3-5 days) but the next step is key!
Meet To Test
Meet to test! Either the night before or day of we would like to go through everything with the user in charge of the event. In some cases a small misunderstanding in operation can create major issues in the overall event. By meeting ahead of time we can ensure that not only the technology works to your liking, but more importantly that you’re comfortable using it!
Examples of Tickets
Please be thorough in explaining your needs. Here are two examples:
A bad ticket reads: “We will need four chromebooks for a chess club event.” In this case, Four chromebooks with chargers will be dropped off where requested and the ticket will be closed.
A good ticket would look something like this: “Four chromebooks will be needed for a chess event. These will be used by students' parents so we will need four separate accounts for the parents to access the chromebooks. We will need chess software Chess-o-matic 5000 loaded on the chromebooks. If that is not available please reach out to discuss an alternative. That software will record scores and will be used to print off reports of the players skills ratings. We are available on Date x, y or z to further discuss and confirm the technology is satisfactory.”
In the first example we can see that there will be quite a few upset parents that were not provided accounts to log in. We also know that they won’t be able to print since we don’t support that. In the second ticket, because it was specified we can not only provide those accounts but also find you an alternative solution for printing.
Overall we haven’t changed a lot with how our procedure works. The biggest point we want to convey is how important a test run can be. In some cases a total technical failure might actually just be a setting change we could only be aware of in that particular environment. In other cases these can be simple things like how you’d like your screens oriented, where you’d like speakers placed, etc. and the best way of establishing all of these is to do a quick run through.
