You expect to provide technical support to employees who use desktop computers you provide, loaded with the software you install. But what about employees who use their own mobile devices to get work done? Do you still need to provide them with support, too?

The answer is yes, especially when you have employees who don’t work in a company-owned location and who don’t have any company-owned technology. When they’re using mobile devices on your behalf, employees will expect you to provide support on your behalf, too.

Types of BYOD Support Required

The bulk of the BYOD support requests you’ll get fall into a few categories:

• Provisioning. Mobile users need to be set up with access. Their device may need to be granted permission to connect to the network. They may need help obtaining and installing corporate-approved applications, configuring a VPN, and connecting to printers.
• Access. Login ids and passwords are a constant support request, whatever the platform. Like all users, BYOD users may need help setting up their passwords. They may need help configuring devices to connect to Wi-Fi and email. Network problems may show up as “access” problems to mobile users.
• Security. Whether or not employees ask for help making mobile devices secure, you need to define policies, implement enforcement, and provide assistance that ensures user devices are safe and don’t introduce malware or other threats into the corporate network.
• Hardware and software problems. Mobile users may turn to help desks for support with hardware or software problems. For work-related applications, it’s reasonable that your team provides support. Problems with non-work applications and with the equipment itself fall outside the scope of BYOD support.

Challenges of BYOD Support

BYOD support has a few key challenges:

• wide variety of devices and operating systems. Because the whole point of BYOD is to let employees work with the devices they prefer, your support team may receive questions about many combinations of devices and operating system versions. It isn’t realistic for the help desk to be expert on all of them, and you may wish to use mobile device management software to limit the devices and operating systems allowed to connect to your systems.
• lack of control over the device. Supporting mobile users is also challenging because you don’t have full control over the device. With a corporate-owned device, you have full control over every application installed and every registry setting. BYOD means users get to customize their devices, and they may not want to change them just to use their devices for business. Some users may even jailbreak or root their device in order to have more control over it.
• not all issues are your responsibility. Users may come to the support team with questions about the device itself or questions about applications that aren’t work-related. Neither is really the responsibility of your team, but turning employees away brusquely may cause morale problems.

Prescient Solutions offers complete mobile support services and can help your employees with all their mobile needs. Contact us to learn why business in Chicago and Schaumburg rely on Prescient Solutions for their mobile support and other IT consulting and managed services needs.