How to get IT support : help@maths.cam.ac.uk

If at all possible please use our email address: help@maths.cam.ac.uk unless an emergency and then please use it-emergency@maths.cam.ac.uk (What is and is not an emergency)

Alternatively, please telephone the helpdesk on extension (7)66100 or visit B0.25. Bear in mind that due to the nature of IT support we are often not in the office but attending to some issue.

The helpdesk is manned by Deryck and Nabeel but please try to avoid emailing their personal email accounts.  Your email will be seen more quickly if sent to help@maths.

The person needing assistance should contact the helpdesk themselves if at all possible. Communicating via a middleman makes it harder for IT staff to obtain a clear picture of what is going on. If you do submit a helpdesk ticket on someone else's behalf, please cc them in your email to ensure that they are kept in the loop.

Information to include that will help us help you.

Core hours are 09:30 -13:00, 14:00 - 17:00, Monday to Friday (excluding departmental closures and bank holidays). During core hours, we aim to have someone answering the phone and reacting to email requests immediately.  We aim to reply to email requests within an hour or so; if things are busy, responses to some requests will be delayed. It's reasonable to expect to receive a reply on the same working day as the request, unless the request is sent very close to 1700.

Emails to theit-emergency@maths address are sent to our regular helpdesk system but also emailed to every member of the IT team directly. On average, this means that someone will see your ticket before the next working day's core hours, but we can't guarantee it. While many of the IT team often read their work email during the evenings, they are not compelled to do so, nor to respond to support requests. Any work done out of hours is on a 'best effort' basis.

Other sources of help

• The troubleshooting web page
• ask friends and colleagues. A lot of requests for help can actually be answered by your colleagues or others in your research group. Indeed, they may well know more than IT about the intricacies of certain software.
• training courses (online and offline)
• several of the research groups have a computer systems manager responsible for looking after the specialist software (and hardware) operated by the group. You should normally direct requests for help about group-specific matters to your group computer manager, but please feel free to ask the Computers Officers about general computing matters as we know everything about anything (or can find someone who does).