Case Study: Imperial Valley College Provides Remote Support to Faculty
How one educational institute uses Splashtop to support faculty computers off-campus
Summary
The IT department at Imperial Valley College needed to find a way to remotely access and support their faculty members’ devices after COVID-19 suddenly shut down the campus. The team found that Splashtop SOS provided them with everything they need to continue managing their users and devices remotely.
The Challenge: Remotely Supporting Faculty Members’ Devices
Life at Imperial Valley College (IVC) revolved around being physically present on campus. Students went to classes, staff accessed their important files and applications on the internal IVC network and the IT team did most of their work in-person.
Jonathan Singh, Senior Enterprise Systems Specialist at IVC, described how the IT team operated before COVID-19 hit. “If someone called and said they had an error, our techs would go onsite because we were there,” said Singh. “We could show up and do whatever we needed to in person, so it wasn’t a big deal.”
The team didn’t have a robust remote access tool in place at the time because they didn’t need one. On the occasions that the IT team did access a workstation remotely, they did so by using TightVNC because it was free.
When COVID-19 suddenly shut down the campus at IVC, the instructors were able to take home their IVC laptops. However, the IT team couldn’t provide support to those laptops because they couldn’t access them in-person, and TightVNC wouldn’t work because the laptops weren’t on the IVC network.
The IT team tried Microsoft Teams as a first option, but that didn’t work.
“Once the COVID problem hit we were starting to do remote support exclusively,” said Singh. “We ran into an issue where every time we needed to install software we couldn’t because it was asking for administrative credentials. What happens in a Teams session is that the screen freezes when the prompt for admin credentials comes up. We can’t see it. And we don’t want to just tell them the credentials.”
Singh realized his team needed a new tool that could enable them to fully support their users remotely. “They weren’t able to come in with their IVC laptop so we could just download all the stuff and give it back to them. We had to figure out how to do all the downloads and installations remotely, and that’s where Splashtop really made a difference."
The Solution: Providing Effective Remote Support Across Networks
With Microsoft Teams and TightVNC unable to help, Singh turned to Splashtop for their SOS product.
“We started doing a proof of concept with Splashtop, TeamViewer, and a few others,” said Singh. “Our techs liked Splashtop the most because you can initiate the session with the local admin credentials. That’s a big deal as we had no way to override the prompt for admin credentials when the computer was outside our network.”
Among several features that help technicians perform day-to-day IT tasks while in a remote access session, The IVC team was especially pleased with the ability to connect with admin rights.
After trying out Splashtop, Singh’s team told him that they liked it the best out of all the remote support tools they tried.
“They’re using Splashtop for any type of remote troubleshooting,” said Singh, “They prefer using it over Teams desktop sharing because you get a full screen and you can just take over. It’s a lot more robust with the options you have. Teams is more a screenshare for presenting, rather than a technical troubleshooting tool. So that’s the advantage we get with Splashtop and why our technicians are really happy with it.”
Future Plans
Splashtop has since taken over as IVC’s preferred way of technical troubleshooting. With it, Singh says it’s going to make the IT team more efficient.
“It’s going to replace TightVNC for sure,” said Singh, “The idea moving forward is to get Splashtop on all IVC computers. It’s going to help our techs out because now they can stay at their desks and we can change the way we do things. We can have one person who answers phones and does quick fixes with Splashtop. And we’ll be able to better disseminate the work based on how long it’s going to take.”
Splashtop is the ideal solution for EDU IT teams in need of a solution to provide remote support to any faculty and student device, including Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and Chromebooks. Start your free trial now or learn more about how Splashtop’s remote access software can be used to support remote learning.
Details
About Imperial Valley College
Imperial Valley College, located in Southern California, is a college with an enrollment of about 12,000 students. IVC offers degrees in several academic courses to help its students in the community reach their academic goals.
The Enterprise IT department has 7 team members managing their devices and supporting faculty and staff.
About Splashtop SOS
Splashtop SOS is the ideal solution for IT to quickly access and provide remote support to any device the moment help is needed. Education IT teams can support any Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and even Chromebook device remotely. Quickly connect into a student or faculty device with a simple 9-digit session code.
Start your free trial now or learn more about Splashtop SOS.
Check out all Splashtop remote access tools for distance learning, including a solution for students to seamlessly access computer labs remotely (even Mac computer labs)!
