Submitting a Support Request to SENS via SENShelp

You may submit a support request using the procedure described in the next section at any time of the day or night, but please be aware that we are not a 24-hour facility. SENS is typically staffed during normal business hours, 8:00 AM — 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday. We are on call for emergency situations, but most other forms of assistance will be processed on the next business day.

For much more information, please refer to our Assistance page, which gives more detail on the forms of help we can provide, and some of the conditions regarding our support levels.

How to submit a request

To submit a support request, please send an email from a University at Buffalo account (eg. username@buffalo.edu) to senshelp@buffalo.edu. It will help us process your request more quickly if we have plenty of information to work with. Here are some of the things that would be good to include:

  • Your complete name, address, and telephone number
  • The location of the computer you are asking for assistance with
  • The date and time that the problem occurred
  • The operating system you were using
  • The software you were using (if applicable)
  • A detailed description of what you were doing when the problem occurred
  • Any error messages that you think are related to the problem

If you are unable to contact us via the above procedure, our phone number is 645-3797, and we are located on the first floor of Bell Hall on the North Campus, next to the public computing lab. Our main SENS office is located in 103e Bell Hall,so that's a good place to start looking for assistance.

And, as stated on the Assistance page, please call 645-4690 or visit 104 Bell Hall and let the Director of SENS, Jason Lasker, know if you had difficulties contacting us.

About SENShelp

SENS uses a support ticket system to process support requests. We realize that many of the people we support like to talk to a real live human being when they're asking a question. Trust us, you will get to talk to a person, but submitting your request through SENShelp will make sure that it's addressed in the most quick and effective way. Here's why:

  • When you send in a SENShelp request, it goes directly to our automated support ticket tracking system. A designated person in SENS checks the system frequently from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. That means that your request will be looked at and assigned as quickly as possible.
  • The staff member checking the system is aware of SENS staffing -- who's out sick, who's in an all-day meeting, who's already got a backlog of 15 compromised machines to repair. We also know the expertise of our staff. That means that the person with the appropriate expertise who can get back to you the soonest is the person who is assigned the request.
  • Tracking the kinds of requests we receive as a department helps us make sure that we have adequate staffing in the areas that our users require support.