t ation tha plement im It was an ore of an t to be m u turned o OPdesk st year, T e.

La adventur e Wilde Nienke d nt nia Consulta nd Tanza o Kenya a t travelled e at the n upgrad ut a to carry o ndation. frica Fou Via

TOPdesk

The founda tion ships d onated hardware to schools in K enya and Tanzan ia, and ensu res that the tea chers and s tudents can make o ptimal use of the equipment . Nienke rep orts on a rather uniq ue impleme ntation. TEXT: NIE
NKE DE WIL DE

in Africa
On Saturday evening, 12 September, I landed at Kilimanjaro Airport in Tanzania with a suitcase full of clothes as well as numerous TOPdesk manuals, mouse mats and weepuls. Id left home that morning on a three-week-long mission in Tanzania and Kenya for the Dutch foundation Viafrica. My role as consultant was to implement TOPdesk and train the users at their offices in Moshi (Tanzania) and Nairobi (Kenya). My travelling companion on this assignment was Viafricas bookkeeper, Bert Mosterd. I began working with Viafrica in May 2008. At the time, I set up TOPdesk Professional for use in their offices in Kenya and Tanzania, together with Joost Dam, the foundations managing director. The donated hardware, as well as the training for teachers, is set up to support local schools in IT education. This particular project is called CLASSworks and is carried out by two local departments in Kenya and Tanzania, which operate as independent branches. Viafrica uses TOPdesk to register information on the schools and to handle the schools or other clients questions and requests. The foundation also uses Configuration Management, and Stock and Order Management to keep track of the current stock and to see which hardware has been delivered to which schools.

16 TRAVEL REPORT

More recently, TOPdesk was not working as well as it should, in part because of staff changes at the foundation. The data in the databases were no longer up-to-date and the foundations managing director was having trouble keeping track of the stock from the Netherlands and calling up information about the schools. The local manager in Moshi, Erwin Groeneveld, also wanted to use TOPdesk more to access both operational information and information for donors.

WE WANTED TO MAKE IT AS EASY AS POSSIBLE FOR THE USERS AND OFFER THEM THE BIGGEST CHANCE FOR SUCCESS
Moshi, Tanzania
We were welcomed at the airport by Thomas Anael, Director and Sales Manager of the Viafrica branch in Moshi. Thomas has been involved with the foundation from the very beginning and set up the office in Tanzania, together with Joost. A sales department has since been established in both offices in order to reduce the dependency on donations from the Netherlands. On the way from the airport to Moshi, I tried to take in my surroundings. It was already dark, though, so aside from the lights of the local disco and an exuberant starry sky, there was little to see. We were taken to our accommodation, which was on the same grounds as Viafricas office. The house we stayed in is rented out as guest rooms because people come to Tanzania more often for Viafrica. After acclimatising on the Sunday, we began with the task at hand on Monday. Berts job was to help the administrative employees to brush up on areas of bookkeeping and financial administration. I had already prepared my part of the mission setting up TOPdesk, inventorying the hardware and instructing the users back home.

TRAVEL REPORT 17

SaaS and blackouts

After Viafrica had expressed its desire to make better use of TOPdesk, I travelled to Amsterdam on several occasions to discuss with Joost how we could best tackle the project. We soon realized that the current setup two TOPdesk 3 installations on location was no longer sufficient. To ensure that the maintenance of the application remains minimal for Viafrica, but they can still use it at the various locations, we chose a SaaS environment.

WHEN THE CHILDREN FIRST BEGAN USING THE COMPUTERS, I NOTICED HOW QUICKLY THE MAJORITY GOT THE HANG OF IT
Before leaving, I had already set-up the SaaS environment as much as possible using data from the previous implementation and a copy of the Tanzania database. I had two weeks in Moshi to set up TOPdesk further, ensure that the data were as up-to-date as possible and train the users in its use. Before embarking on this, however, I had to clarify exactly which processes they used at the foundation. Together with Erwin and Thomas, I looked at who will be logging incidents, which categorizations they will be using, which reports they wish to run, which items they want to track the stock of and how they want to set up Configuration Management. It soon emerged that the information Viafrica required was rather double. On the one hand, the offices want operational information such as which computers are at which schools and what has been sold in the last month. On the other hand, they need information for donors such as what has been done with the donated computers, which types of schools are being supported, how many students and teachers are at any one school and how many donated computers they have received.

18 TRAVEL REPORT

We decided to keep the set-up of TOPdesk as simple as possible. During the first implementation with Joost in the Netherlands, wed already decided to keep it uncomplicated. We wanted to make it as easy as possible for the users and offer them the biggest chance for success. In Moshi, we simplified the set-up even further. Any registration that had no added value, we simply left out. Consequently, we kept the tracking of stock to a limited number of items, defined even fewer categories and subcategories in Incident Management and minimized the number of mandatory fields. It took a few days before I reached a number of important decisions with the involved parties. And more obstacles were to follow. During the two weeks I spent in Moshi, blackouts were a regular occurrence. Although the power usually came back on within a couple of hours, it sometimes lasted the whole day. Add to this that, during the first week of my visit, we should have completed the implementation at five schools. That meant that the engineers were away for entire days and that Erwin needed the time to report on the implementations to the Dutch office.

IT IS AMAZING TO SEE HOW QUICKLY YOU ADJUST TO A NEW RHYTHM

A school bus full of computers
I also went along to an implementation at a school in Same, nearly a two-hour drive from Moshi. Viafrica not only delivers the computers and monitors for the rooms, but also sets up a server, printer and a network. Before qualifying for a CLASSworks implementation, schools must show that they have access to a classroom, teachers available and that they have organized security for the classroom. The school in Same had already collected the computers with a school bus, so it was our task to set up the network. We were then able to test whether the computers and monitors actually worked. Computers

TRAVEL REPORT 19

are always tested before being handed over to the schools, but when you transport 20 of these along dirt roads, some are bound to occasionally break. When the children first began using the computers, I noticed how quickly the majority got the hang of it. I reckon theres a digital generation up and coming in Africa too.

IN THE END, THE PEOPLE ARE THE DRIVING FORCE

On safari
It is amazing to see how quickly you adjust to a new rhythm. Each day in Moshi, we began with breakfast on our veranda and at around 9am, we walked to the office and began the working day. Everyone ate lunch together a delicious hot Tanzanian lunch that was prepared on the premises and consisted of rice, vegetables, sometimes beans and sometimes meat, lots of sambal and fresh fruit. Around 5:30 PM, we returned to our accommodation and sat on the veranda with a coke, beer or stoney tangawizi a local ginger soft drink. In the weekend, we went on safari to Lake Manyara and Tarangire National Park two beautiful parks not far from Moshi.

in Tanzania, nkes mission e result of Nie means we As th stem that that a now has a sy Viafric upporting re activities (s al with our co can de solutions) zations with IT ational organi educ e current can now see th ationally. We intern and each ing incidents is stock, outstand n moment. Th any give oyees tasks at al empl profession forward in the is a huge step We were really ols in Africa. support of scho th Nienke e support of bo essed with th impr entation. g the implem TOPdesk durin and

Nairobi, Kenya
We spent the final week working in Nairobi, which took a bit of getting used to at the beginning. Compared with quiet, rural Moshi, Nairobi is a swarm of cars honking their horns, music, souped up matatus and people who look as if they are in a hurry to get somewhere. In particular, the matatus, which are private vans that operate as public transport, were fun to see. They were all painted with portraits of rappers or movie stars, equipped with LCD screens, loud music for the passengers and neon lights. After a round of introductions, we were informed that wed probably have no electricity on Tuesday and Thursday. The entire country was experiencing

Joost Dam, ging Director Viafrica Mana

20 TRAVEL REPORT

a drought and because water energy makes up an important part of the energy, there was less available. In order to spread what little energy there was evenly across the various areas, the city was on energy rations. After taking a day to get used to our new surroundings and the new people, we began inventorying the hardware. That there was no electricity wasnt such a problem after all, as everyone could help move the computers, which were piled up against the wall. We inventoried and numbered them all and then I gave the TOPdesk training, which I did using cases that I had formulated with Erwin in Moshi. The idea behind the cases was to show the employees of Viafrica the benefit of TOPdesk. One example was that a client comes along with a computer that he says was bought from Viafrica. How do you check whether this computer is still under warranty? Or whether it really has been purchased from Viafrica?

Farewell
The following Saturday, we were sitting in the plane back home. On the previous evening, Id said my goodbyes to the crew Nairobi style with lots of food, dancing and music. Looking back, I remembered the differences I had noticed at first between the world that Id come from and the world where I was lucky enough to stay for 3 weeks blackouts, a different rhythm and of course a very different climate. But as soon as you get used to being there, which happens more quickly than you might expect, you notice the similarities between these two worlds. In the end, the people are the driving force. They too work hard, go to school, return home tired in the evenings and enjoy their free time in the weekend with friends and family. And now, they also use TOPdesk to handle daily procedures that little bit more efficiently. Nienke de Wilde has been involved with the TOPdesk implementation at the Viafraica Foundation since 2008.

e a TOPdesk appy to hav ing were very h We e were work ur office. W practical ssional in o profe ut the very k already, b back was with TOPdes ing and feed input, train ic iafrica and energet result is a V eryone. The k r ev inspiring fo with TOPdes yone works where ever ome a vital office it has bec activities r-support in their daily lso, the afte nes job. A yo esk part of ever azing. TOPd d still is am l ienke was an thank you al of N ns. We support mea knows what pen! ing this hap a lot for mak

neveld, Erwin Groe Manager ica Tanzania Viafr

TRAVEL REPORT 21