Administrative Information System (AIS)

&
Support Service Technical Information
System (SSTIS)
 Session Objectives

• Discusses about AIS

• Discusses about Support Service Technical Information System (SSTIS)

 Session Outcomes

At the end of this session, participants will be able to

• Describe the use of AIS.
• Explain the role of Support Service Technical Information System (SSTIS).
 Agenda

• AIS definition
• AIS classification
• Banner system
• Support Service Technical Information System (SSTIS)
• Categories of Technical Support
 Introduction
• AIS group is responsible for information technology that support the core functions
such as
1. Admission
2. Functional aid
3. Registration
4. The business office
5. Human resource and
6. Payroll

• Additionally AIS provides custom applications that extend the capabilities of the
basic banner functionality and integrated system with database.

Definition
• AIS includes all information system that support the storage, retrieval and
maintenance of information of information supporting the administrative services.

• AIS do not include system that directly support the hospitals.

• AIS is classified into three categories
1. ERP System
2. ERP dependent System
3. ERP independent System
1. ERP system:
• These are systems that are directly supported by the Enterprise Resource Planning
system.
• Type of software that organizations use to manage day-to-day business activities such
as accounting, procurement, project management, risk management and compliance,
and supply chain operations. A complete ERP suite also includes
enterprise performance management, software that helps plan, budget, predict, and
report on an organization’s financial results.
2. ERP dependent System
these are systems that interact with the ERP system usually by extracting data from the ERP
for the purpose of reporting or entering transactions into the ERP system on a bulk or batch basis.
3. ERP independent System
these are system that support some administrative services but are not tied to the ERP
system
• ERP systems support administrative services including:
1. Information management
2. Human resource management
3. Financial accounting
4. Research accounting and
5. Supply service

• Now a days, the capabilities of these systems are continuously evolving through the
introduction of new and improved functions and new efficiencies in transaction processing.
Banner System

• Banner is a suite of products that contains

1. Human resource
2. staffs
3. Finance
4. Financial aid and
5. development

• Banner is generally available 24 X 7 except during scheduled maintenance,

upgrades or a need to restart the system.

• An email is sent to all Banner users when banner is going to be unavailable.

Banner Scheduled Maintenance
Banner Scheduled Maintenance is usually made last week of every month.

Login to Banner
Banner is at the centre of the administrative support solutions. However, the use
of banner is extended by additional systems and software, some of which are created
in-house.

AIS other tasks

1. Helps the admission office keep track of hospital records

2. Helps with financial aid
3. Support the programs
4. Works with the hospital policy
5. Maintains and supports the financial system which tracks all transactions and
generated financial reports
6. Maintains and supports the human resources (HRMS) system which is used to
recruit, hire and compensate employees.
Support Service Technical Information
System (SSTIS)
 Introduction
• Technical Support or tech support refers to a plethora of service by which
enterprises provide assistance to users of technology products such as mobile
phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical
goods.
• In general, technical support service attempt to help the user solve specific problems
with a product – rather than providing training, customization, or other support
services.
• Most companies offer technical support for the products they sell, either freely
available or for a fee.
• Technical support may be delivered over the telephone or online by email, live
support software on the website or a tool where users can log a call/incident.
 Introduction
• Larger organisation frequently have internal technical support available for their staff for
computer related problems.
• The internet is also a good source for freely available tech support.
• In addition, some fee based service companies charges for premium technical support
services.
Coverage of Support
• Tech support may be deliver by different technologies depending on the situation. For
example
1. Addressing questions directly via telephone call
2. SMS
3. Online chat
4. Support forums
5. Emails or Fax
• Basis problems can be addressed by calls while complicated/ hardware problems needs to
be dealt with person.
Categories of Technical Support
1. Call Out
• This type of support has been very common in service industry. It is also known as
“Time and Materials” (T & M) IT supports.
• The concept behind this type of support is that the customer pays for the material as
well as pays the technician based on their pre-negotiated rate when they have a
problem
2. Block Hours
• Block hours is basically a way to purchase a bunch of hours upfront at an agreed
price.
• The purchased hours to use either per month or year.
• This allows the customer to use the hours and Hessle of playing multiple bills.
Categories of Technical Support
3. Managed Service
• the company will receive list of well defined service on an ongoing basis, with well
defined “response and resolution times” for a fixed rate or flat fee.
• this include 24X7 monitoring, help desk, onsite visit by a technician when issue
cannot be resolved remotely.
• some companies also offer additional service like backup and disaster recovery and
vendor management in monthly price.
4. Crowd sourced technical support.
• Many companies and organisation such as Apple & Mozilla provide discussion
boards for users of their products to interact; such forums allow companies to reduce
their support cost without losing the benefit of the customer feedback.
• many independent website devoted to user discussions
Categories of Technical Support
5. Outsourcing technical Support
• with the increasing use of technology in modern times, there is a growing requirement
to provide tech support.
• many organisation will locate their tech support dept. or call centres in countries or
regions with lower costs. These are often referred as MSP (Managed service
providers)
• outsourcing allows them to maintain a high availability of service with a high level of
service at a low cost to the business.
6. Local Outsourced technical support.
• Many companies are worried about data piracy and therefore use a local IT support
company to avoid issues.
Categories of Technical Support
7. Multi-tiered technical support.
• Technical support is often subdivided into tiers or levels in order to better serve a
business or customer base.
• the number of levels depends on need, want or desire as it revolves around their
ability to sufficiently serve their customer or users.
• the reason for multiple tier is to provide the best possible service in the most efficient
possible manner.
• organisation success depends on the technicians understanding on their level of
responsibility, their customer response time commitments, and when to appropriately
escalate an issue and to which level.
Categories of Technical Support
7. Multi-tiered technical support.
i. Tier 1 or Level 1 technical support (T1/L1)
• This is the initial support level responsible for basic customer issue.
• Called first line support/ Level 1/ front end support/ support line 1.
• the first job of level 1 is to gather the customers information and to determine the
customers issue by analysing the symptoms and figuring out the underlying problem,
and attempt to solve the problem.
• level 1 should gather as much as information as possible from the end users for eg.
Error or warning message, any log files, screen shot, etc. this info is useful to analyse
the symptoms to define the problem or issue.
i. Tier 1 or Level 1 technical support (T1/L1)
• Support includes verification, resolving username and password problem,
uninstalling/reinstalling basic software applications, verification of proper hardware
and software set up and assistance with navigation around application menus.
• once identifying the underlying problem is established, the team can begin sorting
through the possible solution available. “using knowledge management tool”
• Level 1 team have basic knowledge of the product or service
• the goal of team 1 is to handle 70 – 80 %of the user problem before finding it
necessary to escalate the issue to higher level.
ii. Tier 2 or Level 2 technical support (T2/L2)
• this is a more in-depth technical support level than T1 and therefore costs more as the
tech are more experienced.
• called tier 2/ level 2/ support line 2 / administrative level support
• techy have high level of knowledge and are responsible for assisting tier 1 personnel.
• prior to troubleshooting, T2 will have a review on the work done by T1 and later
address the customer.
• If the problem is new for the team T2 they are responsible for raising this issue to T3
support group.
iii. Tier 3 or Level 3 technical support (T3/L3)
• this is the highest level of support responsible for handling the most difficult or advanced
problems.
• called as L3 / T3 / 3rd line support / back end support/ support line 3 / high end support.
• these individuals are expert in their fields and are responsible for not assisting T1 and T2,
but with R & D of solutions to new or unknown issues.
• T3 team analyse the code and data info from T1 and T2 and later address the customer.
• T3 group is responsible for designing and developing one or more course of action,
evaluating each of these courses in a test environment and implementing the best solution
to the problem.
• once verified it is delivered to the customer and made available for future troubleshooting
and analysis.
iii. Tier 4 or Level 4 technical support (T4/L4)
• While not universally used, a fourth level often represents an escalation point beyond
the organisation.
• this is generally a hardware vendor.
• work action based on service level agreement (SLA).
 Test your understanding

1. What is AIS?

2. Explain the role of Support Service Technical Information System

(SSTIS)

3. Name the different Categories of Technical Support

 References
1. R.C. Goyal, Hospital Administration and Human Resource Management,
PHI, 4th Edition, 2006.