Managed Workstation service boundary changes

October 16, 2017

Service boundaries have changed slightly. See below for details.

What and When

Beginning with adoption of the new FY18 rates (10/1/2017), the Managed Workstation service boundaries have changed. We still provide the same core capabilities, but down in the details, there are a few changes.

MWS rate changes:

  • Now includes 1 hour of complimentary hardware recommendation advice for each customer account. We’ll help find an appropriate computer model that meets your needs.
  • Now includes 1 hour of complimentary business needs IT consulting for each customer account. In other words, we’ll sit down with you to listen to the kinds of unmet needs you experience within your department. Based on listening to you, we’ll provide some recommendations about IT solutions that may help. We will use these engagements to discover additional capabilities this service needs to provide.
  • Now includes re-imaging a managed workstation that has been compromised with the current standard image.
    Note: If data transfer, additional application installation, special configuration, or travel to your site is required, that continues to be billable via the MWS Consulting rate.
  • Application packaging in most scenarios is now included.
    • If your application is appropriate for distribution to everyone at the UW, we’ll create the package for you at no additional cost.
    • In all other cases, we’ll provide the 1st hour of package creation at no additional cost. For most applications, this is sufficient.

Note: all application packages are subject to our documented application package support practices. If a released application package falls out of support, it will need to be refreshed or removed. Refreshing a previous application package is treated like a new application package.

 

MWS Consulting rate changes:

  • This rate can now be used to get assistance with computers which are not Managed Workstations. To qualify, these computers must run an operating system within our support boundaries (i.e. emerging, baseline, or containment). This assistance has a minimum charge of 30 minutes.
  • We’ve clarified our printer support boundaries. We will assist customers who need assistance setting up printer drivers or making a connection to a working printer. We do not provide assistance setting up printers or troubleshooting printers; we recommend UW Print Services for that.
  • We do not provide group management, nor are the subject matter experts on that topic, so do not provide this assistance; we recommend you work with the Groups Service.
    Note: this isn’t a change, but given past practices we believe it is worth restating.
  • We do not provide computer hardware repair, but we are willing to broker and facilitate repair services with your hardware vendor on your behalf.
  • We do not provide request fulfillment for IT services that are outside the Managed Workstation service or other services in the UW-IT portfolio. For example, we will not help you manage email services that are not provided by UW-IT. Other UW-IT consulting services may provide this type of assistance.

 

MWS File services rate changes:

  • Assistance troubleshooting access issues to your shared files within MWS file services is now included. Previously, this required the MWS Consulting rate.
  • Providing recommendations on permissions to your shared directory within MWS file services

 

More Info

You can review a detailed description of service boundaries at https://itconnect.uw.edu/wares/mws/design/what-does-the-managed-workstation-rate-include/.

 

Brian Arkills

Managed Workstation service owner