At IU, what is ITHelpLive?

At Indiana University, ITHelpLive is a UITS service you can use to get remote support from Support Center consultants for problems with your computer. ITHelpLive is paid for by the university and is provided for use by IU students, faculty, staff, and affiliates.

Note: Guest accounts will not allow authentication to ITHelpLive, but Guest account users may use all the other support options described in How do I contact the Support Center at each IU campus, and what are the hours and options for help?

Using software tools from the company CA (formerly Control-F1), UITS has built ITHelpLive to allow Support Center staff various levels of connectivity to your computer, from simple read-only connections that communicate the state of central components (such as Device Manager and the Windows registry) to full remote control by the support consultant.

You can access this service using your web browser Monday-Friday 8am-9pm; for instructions, see At IU, how do I use ITHelpLive? For information about system requirements, see At IU, what are the system requirements for ITHelpLive? Once a connection is initiated, you can choose the level of security and access you allow the support consultant. For more information, see In ITHelpLive, what are the security settings?

ITHelpLive is used primarily in its chat service capacity by Support Center consultants who monitor the chat queue. For more information, see At IU, how do I use ITHelpLive? However, phone consultants can also use the ITHelpLive tools as appropriate. To reach the UITS Support Center by phone, in Bloomington call 812-855-6789, and in Indianapolis call 317-274-4357.

Information from each ITHelpLive session is logged in Falcon, the system used to track technology support issues at IU. After you use ITHelpLive, you will receive email detailing the activities of the session for future reference.

Microsoft has built a similar tool, Remote Assistance, into Windows XP. UITS does not use this tool for the following reasons:

• This tool is available only for Windows 2000 and XP, which limits its scope.
  
  
• It doesn't have the range of diagnostic tools that CA SupportBridge (the software behind ITHelpLive) does.
  
  
• It doesn't have any ability to log events, whereas CA SupportBridge can provide a log of the events that occurred during the support session.