Deliver more effective support services to your users

24x7 Problem Resolution: Give your staff access to 24-hour phone support, seven days a week for business-critical outages on all Microsoft-supported products, including all Server editions, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office applications. Your organisation will also receive unlimited web support for Microsoft servers covered under a Software Assurance agreement.

Corporate Error Reporting (CER): Simplify problem resolution by enabling Microsoft applications and operating systems to automatically report crashes. This approach makes it easier for IT staff to monitor error information, control the reports sent to Microsoft, and more effectively manage fixes and resolutions. With CER, your ICT team will be able to:

• Identify which systems are failing and why
  
• Access up-to-date information and fixes
  
• Decide what to report and to whom

TechNet Plus: Reduce resolution times by providing your ICT team with access to valuable online support resources. Under the Microsoft Software Assurance scheme, you are entitled to access TechNet Plus Subscription content, TechNet Online Concierge Chat and premium content. As well as the Microsoft Knowledge Base, ICT professionals will be able to access utilities, drivers, beta-release candidate software and evaluation copies of the latest applications.

Extended Lifecycle Hot-fix Support 2006: If you have a Premier Support agreement, you can enter into an Extended Hot-fix Support Agreement (EHSA), as issues arise. The annual programme fee for EHSA is now included in the Software Assurance scheme for all five years of the Extended Support phase. This means you don't need to sign up for an EHSA within the 90 days of a product's transition from mainstream support to extended support - and you can sign up at any time during the Software Assurance agreement term.

Maximise skills development and productivity

Training day vouchers
As part of the NHS agreement, your organisation will receive training vouchers for selected courses from Certified Partners for Learning Solutions. These partners offer authorised instructor-led and online training, self-paced courses and consultative learning services to IT professionals and developers, leading to Microsoft certification. Computacenter will notify you of the number of training vouchers you are entitled to.

Elearning opportunities
By taking advantage of Microsoft’s online resources for on-demand training, you will be able to increase the skills of productivity of your staff.

Under the NHS Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, your organisation could be entitled to complimentary online education from Microsoft for applications, systems and servers as part of the Software Assurance programme.
These courses are designed for maximum skills transfer in minimal time and combine hands-on virtual labs and online assessments with expert advice.

Flexible and interactive training
The Software Assurance elearning programme offers self-paced, interactive training that will help your organisation’s staff get the most from their Microsoft packages and boost their productivity.
Elearning is particularly suitable for the NHS, as courses are available online 24x7 and can be taken by a member of staff based in an office, on a ward or even at home. 

Reduce IT support costs
As well as supporting your organisation’s employee development and efficiency goals, training can help to reduce IT costs.

By providing education to users as part of a software deployment programme, your organisation will be able to reduce the number of IT support calls and speed up the adoption of new Microsoft technologies.
The courses will also help your organisation’s IT team learn how to successfully deploy and migrate Microsoft technologies, thereby reducing any associated risks.

The products covered by the Software Assurance elearning package include:

• Windows client operating systems
• Information worker applications
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Microsoft Exchange Server
• Windows Server

To find out how your organisation can qualify for free elearning for these and other Microsoft products, please email nhs.microsoft.ea@computacenter.com

Technical tools to simplify day-to-day management

Windows PreInstallation Environment (WinPE): Simplify desktop updates with automated processes. Replacing DOS, this version of Windows XP Professional can run Windows set-up, scripts and imaging applications, enabling your IT staff to build customised automation solutions to speed up deployment.

Windows 7: Through enhanced data protection and improved application compatibility, you can build, deploy and manage a single hard-drive image that can be rolled out across your organisation. This will not only free up IT resources but also reduce costs.

Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs for Software Assurance: Take advantage of the same security and management capabilities as Microsoft Windows XP SP2 on your legacy PCs and operating systems with Windows Fundamentals. The solution allows for a limited number of workloads to be executed locally, including security software, management software, terminal emulation software, document viewers and the .NET Framework, and will help provide a smooth migration path to the latest hardware and operating system.

Virtual PC Express: De-risk the migration of legacy applications during an operating system upgrade with Virtual PC Express. The solution supports a single instance of a virtual OS running on top of the host OS during the upgrade and enables you still to access legacy applications - even when they can't be modified to run on the new OS.

Empower your staff with Microsoft’s Home User Programme

You can increase employee productivity by enabling your employees to work at home. With the Microsoft Home User Programme NHS employees can benefit from using the very latest versions of Microsoft Office software at home for free.

This programme is an employee benefit agreed between Microsoft and Connecting for Health, allowing your employees and their family to enjoy the latest version of Microsoft Office on their home PC or Mac for just the cost of postage and packaging.

Qualifying Microsoft applications include:

• Microsoft Access
  
• Microsoft Excel
  
• Microsoft FrontPage
  
• Microsoft InfoPath
  
• Microsoft Office
  
• Microsoft OneNote
  
• Microsoft PowerPoint
  
• Microsoft Project Standard Edition
  
• Microsoft Publisher
  
• Microsoft Visio
  
• Microsoft Word

For more information on how your employees can take advantage of this benefit contact Computacenter at nhs.microsoft.ea@computacenter.com or call us on 07801 453851.