What is it?
LITS funds one primary employee-assigned computer per employee when computer usage is required as part of a position's job responsibilities. Extra computers are procured and supported by LITS but must be purchased with department, grant, or research funds.
The options available to you depend on the kind of employment that you have at the College (permanent vs short term) and whether you have additional funds at your disposal.
| Employee-assigned computer types |
Funding source(s) |
Replacement cycle |
| A permanent employee's primary computer |
LITS will cover the cost of a base model.
Requests for upgraded models require supplemental department, grant, or research funds. |
4-5 year replacement cycle as outlined in our employee computer policy. Check your computer's replacement timeline.
If replacing with another upgraded model, supplemental department, grant, or research funding is required. |
| Short term employee's primary computer (usually a re-purposed machine) |
N/A - the cost of a re-purposed computer has already been paid |
Re-purposed computers are not eligible for new computer replacement. They should not be relied upon for critical tasks and are only available as long as they can meet security standards, generally 1-2 years. |
| Extra employee devices* |
Department, grant, or research funds |
Must be retired or replaced using department, grant, or research funding once they no longer meet security standards. |
*The Dean of Faculty and Financial Services have mandated a
limit of two total computers per employee purchased with College funding sources. Employees who have an operational need for having more than two computers assigned to them must gain approval first through the Dean of Faculty (for faculty) or Financial Services (for staff).
LITS should be consulted to provide planning, pricing, support and technical information to individuals and departments using grant, endowed, departmental, or other special non-LITS funds to purchase computing equipment in order to ensure that purchases follow current College purchasing policies.
Faculty who need additional computers for their research may find that a
lab/research computer fits their needs better than an extra employee-assigned computer.
Who is eligible?
Current MHC faculty and staff*
*If an employee works less than 20 hours per week, they may not be eligible for an employee-assigned computer. In these circumstances, the employee's department often has a shared office computer available for them to use as needed.
How do I get it?
Prior to submitting the request
- If you're requesting to replace an existing employee-assigned computer, first check if your computer is due for replacement.
- If you're requesting an upgraded computer model or extra computer, first make sure you have the correct Cost Center information.
- Then submit the request form
The computer request workflow process
Once you submit the computer request form, LITS begins a 5 stage workflow to fulfil the request. Each stage is explained below.
Stage 1 - Approval and Requisition
The LITS computer purchasing team will review the request and ensure that it is a request that we can fulfill.
If a computer needs to be special ordered, a quote will be acquired from a vendor and attached to the ticket. The requestor will then be asked to approve or disapprove of the quote. Once the quote is approved, LITS will proceed with ordering using the provided funding code(s). The Cost Center manager will need to approve of the purchase in Workday after the Requisition is submitted. The requestor will be notified when the order has been successfully processed.
Stage 2 - Allocation and Configuration
Once we have the equipment in hand (base models are usually already in inventory), the requested equipment will be allocated to the computer user (meaning we'll set it aside for them) and the requestor will be notified.
At this point, the computer will be configured for the computer user. In order to do that, we need their MHC Account username. If the computer user's MHC username doesn't exist yet, the computer request cannot move forward until it has been created.
Stage 3 - Delivery and/or Pickup
When the computer is configured and ready for the computer user, the requestor will be notified with next steps.
- On campus employees who are getting laptops will be asked to schedule an appointment to pick up the laptop from LITS. Monitors and other bulky accessories will be delivered.
- LITS will deliver desktops to on campus offices.
- LITS will ship computers to fully remote employees. Tracking information will be provided.
Stage 4 - Asset Return and Accounting
If the requested computer is replacing an existing employee-assigned computer, the old computer is expected to be returned to LITS within 2 weeks of the new computer being deployed.
- Computer users who pick up their new laptops from LITS are encouraged to drop off the old computer when they pick up their new one.
- Old desktop computers will be picked up when their replacement desktop is delivered.
- LITS will help remote employees ship their old computer back to campus.
During this stage, if you had requested a base model extra employee-assigned computer that we already had purchased and in our inventory, we will also charge an equivalent base model computer to your Cost Center Code in our next bulk order of base model machines.
Stage 5 - Escalated Asset Return
If the old computer hasn't been returned to LITS after two reminders, the request will be escalated to our "Escalated Asset Return" stage and management will be notified.
Hours/Availability
Most of the time we have base model computers in stock that can be ready in 3-5 business days.
Anything we have to order is subject to shipping and delivery time lines. Shipping times can delay our ability to prepare the computer for you by 2-12 weeks depending on the order.
Considerations when requesting a computer for a new employee:
In order to set up an employee-assigned computer, we need to have the computer user's MHC username. If you're requesting a computer for a new employee, you don't need to know their username when you submit the form, but we will need it prior to being able to provide the computer to them.
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