Always nice when a meeting is useful

Today, those of us who support and teach in technology classroom gathered for a lunch meeting.  Considering the time of year (the wednesday before spring break) it was a very well attended meeting.  The meeting focused on three general topics of discussion.

• How are rooms being used?
• What is or isn’t working?
• What is on the horizon?

It is very clear that the rooms are being used and that the main issue continues to making the technology as seamless with technology as possible.  Technical difficulties, 3rd party human intervention, and unexplainable events seem to be at the heart of many issues.  We have a few tangible that we can work on at this point and will undoubtedly add more to our list tomorrow morning when we debrief further about the meeting internally.

No matter what comes out of this I think the meeting was successful in helping to connect those interested in technology with the new faces of Technology Support in User Services and Instructional Technology.  The meeting reinforced my belief that we need to focus on the relationships and that will go a long way in an allaround reliable and user friendly computing environment on campus.

Perfection Closes off the Process…

As we continue to consider the options between Google Apps for Education and Zimbra as an online email, productivity, and collaborative suite, I have noticed more articles about Google and the innovation methods that they use.  Yesterday I came across an article from the NYtimes that discuses  Google Pulls the Plug on projects that are going no where. The article was interesting in an of itself because it is interesting to see some of the inner workings of Google be discussed more openly (I will let others decide if it is transparency or calculated public relations).

Toward the end of the article this quote has caused me to ponder a few times…

“Perfection closes off the process,” Mr. Jarvis said. “It makes you deaf. Google purposefully puts out imperfect and unfinished products and says: ‘Help us finish them. What do you think of them?’ ”

It is pretty representative of a significant change in providing technology.  The willingness to take something less than perfect (because it is free) and work with it through various beta releases. Or more so waiting for the “beta version” to be released as that will be a stable release.  It wasn’t so long ago that beta wasn’t good enough for anyone beyond the true technology geek but these days it is different.

In addition to this thought, I reflected on how I led the roll out of Web Help Desk (or do any project for that matter).  I spent enough time figuring it out behind the scenes to work out the required  processes and to know it well enough to say this will work, then spin it through wider and wider circles refining the basic processes and and making sure that additional required functions are ironed out, then we start using it.  As we use it we refine it asking for feedback and taking risks to figure out what we didn’t know (or think about)  and use the users to help shape the technology.  I am not sure if this makes me user centric or if I just work at things until they are successful.  I wonder what it would take for me to pull the plug on a project?

First Attempt at Setting A Deadline

Computing Services is implementing a new call and asset tracking system that we are struggling to complete the installation for a variety of reasons.  At this point many of the other large projects that seemed to get in the way are complete or far enough along that getting Web Help Desk running is a more realistic priority.  

As the time is right to focus on implementing our instance, I am going to try and apply some of the project management principles (for lack of a better word) that I started discussion with Ethan.  I hope that blogging this will do two things.  

1. Get the project done.
2. Give ethan, you and I something to talk

We will see if either of those get accomplished.  I think that will but we’ll see.

In the meantime I think the starting point is setting a date and working back from there with milepost to see if the deadline is realistic or not.  

So here is the line in the sand.

We will start using Web Help Desk on January 2January 5, 2009 as our asset and call tracking system.

Now to think about what needs to happen backwards from there to make things happen.  I will post that in future posts.

WHD – We Own It.

The work begins as we turn from evaluation to implementation.  Stay tuned for notes and news of our progress on this.

Thanks to Kevin H., Tim H., and the rest of the crew who helped on both sides of the process.

WHD – Customizing the Help Request Page (Assets)

I have started looking at the details now that it appears the issues we care most about seem possible.

In looking at the problem types and what kind of customization we can do on the help request form it appears that there are many options.

One option we can choose is depending on the problem type is whether or not to prompt the user for an asset number. It makes sense to request an asset number when a user is asking for help with a piece of hardware whether in a presentation space, lab or office. But is the asset number so important when a user is informing us of a problem say navigating a Datatel process?

Example of Screen for a Hardware Request -

Example of Screen for a Datatel Request -

You set this preference in Preferences -> Tickets – Problem Types -> Use Models

WHD – FAQ from Ticket

How easy is it to create a FAQ from a Ticket? Can you click a button?

At that point the FAQ needs to be approved but that is also fairly straight forward.

WHD – Closing a Log

Today I am playing with some of the user settings particularly how a user will log on and get updates through the self serve web interface.

We can configure the first screen to be one of four options three of them seem to be appropriate. For now I have it set to history.

This presents the user a complete list of tickets for the user to see status. The user can click on the ticket number and add updates through the user notes feature. The ticket can also be canceled through this interface.

Once the ticket has been address the technician can set the ticket to resolved.

This triggers a change in the user’s history window ( it also sends an email update to the user I think).

If the user were to click on the ticket number they will be asked if the problem was actually resolved.

The ticket is closed when the user responds yes.  If the user responds no they are prompted to create a new note where they can describe the problem that persists.  Answering no changes the status back to open.

WHD – Automated Workflow

Again trying to figure out some to the features of Web Help Desk. This time I am trying to find out if I we can automate ticket creation for processes that happen regularly and require signoff by various people through the organization.

The option that allows for this is Tasks. The Task Manager is accessed through the Ticket Tab.

Note that each step is a predetermined ticket with the ability to be assigned to unique technicians and auto created based on a variety of triggers.

Tasks can be scheduled or run per incident.

WHD – Messages

Is there a Whiteboard option like in Heat where we track who is in and who is out for the day? (Original Post Thoughts and Experiments)

Yes – But it is not a whiteboard. Web Help Desk has a Messages feature where you can

• identify audience the message is seen by
• messages can include links to FAQs
• Set start and end dates
• Messages are presented to the audience in a warning bubble (see above)
• Web Help Desk tracks who has read the message.

Thus, it is not a white board that keeps the notes always within the main window but when there is a message that needs to be viewed it is quite obvious.

The main use of the whiteboard currently is to track who is in and who is out. As part of the technician profile in Web Help Desk there is an on Vacation field which each tech can turn on and off.

When a tech is on vacation, a [V] is added to next to his/her name in the technician field. If a ticket is assigned to a tech on vacation the ticket creator receives a message saying such. If a backup tech has been identified the Backup tech is used instead. (What does this mean? I set up a tech with a back up tech and set tech to be on vacation but when the tech on vacation was assigned a ticket nothing noticeable happened. )

Looking More into Web Help Desk (WHD)

Before the break those of I showed Web Help Desk to more people in computing. It got decent reviews from most people including those that evaluated similar software last year.

To this point it seems clear that Web Help Desk has the following strengths

• Developed for multiple platforms including Linux
• MySQL is one option for the database
• There is LDAP/Active Directory integration (without an extra fee)
• Internal Asset Database
• Fully functional ticket creation(modification) through email or web interface
• Web Interface allows for details to be required to draw out necessary information creating efficiencies
• Works with handhelds and smart phones
• FAQ section can be built from scratch or problem logs
• Flexible Surveys and Reporting

There were some questions that came up that I need to look into further before moving forward.

1. Is there a workflow option where tickets are created and tracked based on completion of previous step in process? (yes)
2. Is there a Whiteboard option like in Heat where we track who is in and who is out for the day? (yes)
3. How is our asset information imported and maintained?
4. Can we track Software as an asset? If so how is it assigned to a user to a computer or can it be both?
5. Can a FAQ be assigned to multiple problem types? Passwords for instance can it be Password Help -> Datatel as well as Datatel -> Forgot Password
6. Can a ticket be added to the FAQ from the ticket creation screen? (No – but a FAQ can be generated in one click from the same screen one uses to update the ticket.)
7. Can tickets be lumped together in when a global issue is identified? Once a global issue is identified can new users be added to that ticket? (Yes – screen shots to come shortly)

I am looking in to these questions and working to figure out the integration with the necessary databases that already stores much of the user and asset information we use day to day. As I find answers I will post here. If you have experience with Web Help Desk please comment on your experience on this and subsequent posts.