Employment: YMCA National Centre, Lakeside
From June 2006 to September 2007
Job Title: IT Placement (IT Manager from June 2007)
This was a full-time placement during the third year of my university studies. My job was to maintain the IT network onsite, provide IT troubleshooting for staff and aid other departments of the company in various sized tasks and projects.
I worked closely with Citrus Lime, an outsourced IT support company to improve the quality of the network at the centre. This included maintaining and improving the performance of the servers, installing new hardware and software, improving the backup procedures currently implemented and revised the permissions of networked folders, account logons and email boxes using Active Directory and Microsoft Exchange Server respectively. I also undertook a project with the assistance of Citrus Lime to install a public access wireless network at the centre. Contact to Citrus Lime included telephone, email and fortnightly onsite visits.
I worked closely with the marketing department in producing high quality advertising material to promote the centre. I used Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Publisher to produce leaflets, posters, banners, forms and various internal documents. I created a new Intranet using XHTML and CSS to coincide with the company's recent re-branding.
I maintained the networked and stand-alone printers, making sure they were all operating correctly and printing to a good standard. This involved ordering and replacing toner and paper, clearing paper jams and calibrating high spec printers prior to large scale marketing prints. I also requested engineers to repair any major issues.
I was also involved in large projects undertaken at the centre from an IT perspective. I assisted in the set up and installation of Reztec, a sales and resource program created by iDynamics. My responsibilities involved making sure the server and PCs onsite had the hardware and software required to use the program. I assisted in the installation process, training and worked closely with the staff at iDynamics in troubleshooting post-installation issues.
I was in charge of sourcing the best price for new IT and AV equipment for the centre. I set up the new PCs on the network; installing and configuring relevant software. During my placement I also worked with the accounts department and studied the current IT leases and advised them on how the centre could reduce their IT expenditure.
After my placement was completed in July 2007, I became a full-time employee at the centre in the role of IT Manager. My duties included the functions that I undertook on my placement and also involved updating documentation of the IT function of the centre. This included sourcing future products that required updating including a new main server, PCs and software. My final weeks involved handing over the IT responsibilities to my replacement.