Frequently Asked Question

Technology is now an integral part to our daily and working lives, and we understand it is frustrating when it does not work as expected. IT Services receive a large number of reports for suspected faults with a University IT System every day, the IT Service Desk is the first point of contact for getting these issues resolved. To help each other, we have created this guide for reporting a fault as quickly and efficiently as possible:

Be Precise 

Some faults can be very sensitive to the data being entered, so it is really important that you are precise when you tell us what you did to trigger the fault. For example, "I filled in the form and clicked submit" does not have enough information to find the root cause of the fault. On the other hand, "I put $2.00 in the cost field and 'receipt' in the description and clicked submit" would, if the fault was the software not being able to process the '$' symbol, for example.

That said you must never share your password. The IT Service Desk will not ask you to tell us the password you used and you should never put it into a fault report.

Use the 3 What's

What Was I Doing?

Tell us what you were doing leading up to the problem or error message you are seeing. For example what you clicked on, or attempted to login to. If it's a website, the full web address should also be included and what route you took to get there.

What Happened?

Tell us what happened that you believe is the fault. This is usually as simple as "I got the attached error message" but sometimes it might be "nothing happened but I expected something to".

What Did I Expect To Happen?

Tell us what you thought should happen, which will also help us determine if any fixes we've made have been successful in resolving your fault.

A Screenshot Paints A Picture and Sets The Scene!

Attaching a screenshot is incredibly helpful when reporting a fault. Reports that contain screenshots are often triaged or resolved a lot quicker than reports that do not.

Screenshots can capture a lot of information, especially if you are unsure of what information is relevant to the fault. Any data you've entered and any error messages displayed can be particularly helpful to capture as a screenshot. Not sure how to take a screenshot? Follow the below guide:

To take a screenshot on Windows press the following keys on your keyboard:

Windows key and PrtScn (Print Screen)

This will take a screenshot of what is currently on your screen. The image will be saved in the "Screenshots" folder of the Pictures library

Alternatively you can press the PrtScn (Print screen) and paste the image into a Microsoft Word file and send it to us