New look and features improve the Michigan Medicine Help Center experience

When you visit help.med.umich.edu, you’ll land on a new login page instead of being automatically redirected to log in with your U-M credentials. Users now have the option to ‘log in with uniqname’ for full access to the IT Help Center, or ‘continue as a guest’ to search for knowledge articles and how-to videos without authentication.

“Providing a guest experience was an important feature to add to our Help Center,” said Emily Fuentes, Director of HITS’ Customer Success. “Customer research showed us there are unique situations where users benefit from the ease of knowledge access before authenticating - such as retrieving instructions to access a locked account or when onboarding as a new employee.”

If you select the ‘continue as a guest’ option on the login page, you’ll be routed to the Guest Help Center. Here you’ll be able to search for IT information and how-to articles, as well as see curated lists of articles, like those that are most viewed, top rated, or new and noteworthy.  

The IT Help Center page is where you’ll notice the most changes. You’ll be taken to the IT Help Center after selecting the ‘log in with uniqname’ option from the login page. The IT Help Center has all of the features you’re accustomed to in a streamlined layout, including starting a chat, submitting a ticket, scheduling a visit, searching for answers, or checking on the status of system services or your tickets. 

“With this page, we made an effort to streamline similar actions, such as submitting an incident or catalog request, or starting a virtual or live chat,” Fuentes said. 

Now, incidents and requests are simply referred to as ‘tickets’. When you select the ‘submit a ticket’ button, you’ll be taken directly into the service catalog. Your first option in the catalog is to submit a ticket for help, but you’ll also be able to easily see or search for other items you may need too, like software, hardware, or specific service requests. Accessing chat has also been streamlined. Whether you want to talk with a live agent or ask a question to the virtual agent, you will click on the ‘chat’ button in the lower right hand corner.