Hello,

  I'm looking for details on appropriate staffing levels for IT
departments in a Technology oriented company in Canada, better yet,
British Columbia Canada.

  More specifically I'm looking for how to calculate how many Helpdesk
staff a company requires per number of computers and servers they
have.  The size of company would be medium sized (around 200 computers
and 20 servers).  How many staff should a Technology oriented company
of this size have?  Examples of existing companies and their number of
Helpdesk (IT Support) staff would be quite useful.  The ideal answer
would include links to websites that touch upon this subject and
preferably offer suggestions on how to calculate the ideal number of
staff for this department.  The more examples the better

  By technology oriented I mean a company like a Biotech firm, or a
company that has a diverse amount of requirements per PC and a network
with numerous databases and software applications.

  I need this information by 4pm PST on Tuesday February 15th as I
would like to add examples to a presentation.

Thank you

Since your self-imposed time limit will expire in 25 minutes I will
offer some food for thought.

- I am not a Researcher - 
I know what you are asking but depending on numerous unstated/unknown
factors there is a huge range of what is "required".

Suggestion on how to calculate the ideal number of staff for this department

how many different software applications need to be supported
complexity of these applications
are these applications running entirely on the hardware (both servers
AND workstations) owned configured by the company or do some clients
run your applications on THEIR OWN computers of various configurations
 
knowledge-level of "clients"
whether the client are "internal" or "external"
whether the client pays for the support or it is offered Free, "as-is".

If clients are internal then *any* classroom training can do wonders to reduce
the load on tech support.    
If external then maxim "the customer is always right" means you have
to bend over backwards.
You will also have to decide how long you can keep clients in the hold queue.

If you can plug-in an average (modal) "support-call" duration, either by 
empirical measurement or by conjecture, and if you plug-in expected
rate of incoming calls (for each shift) and if specifies the targeted
TSR occupancy
percentage then one can compute the number of people you might need.
   
If you skimp on number of staff (e.g. by targeting 95% occupancy) then
there will be times when clients wait a long and variable time in the queue.
 

- I am not a Researcher -