Moving a university to a remote environment requires immense time, technology and IT infrastructure. In early March, IT staff worked to help UWM departments create new, remote structures to serve the campus community. Now, Microsoft Teams has become a prominent part of our virtual environment, and several departments across campus have fully transitioned to remote call centers using Microsoft Teams.
One of the first call centers that transitioned to remote work was the UWM Help Desk. It was essential that IT support facilitated this transition for other departments. Replicating this system proved difficult; technical infrastructures that did not previously exist had to be implemented to ensure that calls coming into the central helpline were correctly routed to remote employees.
The services that the UWM Help Desk provided were essential to students, faculty and staff. Over the course of two weeks, changes and updates were implemented to ensure we could continue to help with individual technology needs, especially at a time when the campus community was transitioning to virtual learning and work environments.
IT staff tested and implemented this technology while ensuring to both provide continuous technical support and keep employees safe. They had successfully set up the very first remote call center for UWM. This work was replicated for departments across the campus, including the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Lubar Career Services, Registrar’s Office, Financial Aid Office and Bursar’s Office.
Although the implementation of these remote environments was not initially in scope for the project, Microsoft Teams is now fully available to UWM faculty and staff. IT staff across campus worked collaboratively to ensure that there was no gap in services among students, faculty and staff.
When Teams was first introduced to faculty and staff in February 2020, Chancellor Mone said, “UWM’s adoption of the Microsoft Teams platform will profoundly transform how we communicate and collaborate, helping deliver the benefits of digital transformation to our campus community.”
The response of UWM’s IT staff throughout the pandemic has reached the digital transformation we set out to achieve. To learn more about Microsoft Teams, please visit uwm.edu/teams.
