Entertainment Track:
Integrating Beer Pub
Tracking Software
Sue Hales, Bucknell University
Rick Osterberg, Harvard University
Support Models Track:
Problem Tracking Systems:
One Year Later
Sue Hales, Bucknell University
Rick Osterberg, Harvard University
Applause!
Roadmap & Agenda
What is a tracking system?
 What are the advantages?
 Overview of different options
 What you need to think about
 Case study of two products
 Future plans
 What we learned
 Discussion and questions
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What is a tracking system?
Log walk-ins, calls, e-mails, visits
 Route problems to appropriate
individuals
 Report on Help Desk statistics
 Doesn’t necessarily include
knowledgebase

Do you want tracking?
Do we have all the answers?
Top 12 Reasons...
6. Prevent requests from falling through the
cracks
7. Track performance (department/staff)
8. Escalate “stale” tickets to get attention
9. Keep an accurate history of users
10. Track the different beers your staff has
tried
11. Gather statistics to be proactive
12. Improve internal communication
Top 12 Reasons...
1. Because you didn’t already have enough
projects to work on
2. Respond to “problem” users & parents
3. Reduce need for organizational knowledge
4. Because you always dreamed of
learning SQL
5. Increase ability for staff to cover each
other and hand-off tickets
Help Desk Software Options

Commercial Packages
– Remedy, Heat, Clarify, Apriori, McAfee
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Home-grown desktop database apps
– Filemaker, Access, FoxPro, 4D

More complex home-grown systems
– Web, SQL back end, Perl, C++, CGI
Pros & Cons:
Commercial Packages
Big $$ - Anywhere from $10K - $100K
 You get what you pay for
 Not necessarily tailored for your site
 Often not cross-platform
 Requires lots of in-house maintenance
 Powerful! Lots of features
 If you don’t have developers but have
lots of money, may be good approach

Pros & Cons:
Home-Grown Desktop Apps
Design limitations
 Speed issues
 Cross-platform issues
 Inexpensive
 Easy & quick development; modifiable
 Tailored specifically to your site
 Good prototyping tool
 No developers or money? Good approach

Pros & Cons:
More Complex Home-Grown
Requires back-end database
 Requires in-house development skills
 Long-term maintenance issues
 Usually web based -- free clients
 Tailored specifically to your site
 Possible integration with external data
 No money? Have developer? May be a
good approach

What you need to think about
Resources
 Features
 Workflow Analysis
 Design

These will drive your tool selection
Resources
What can you afford?
 Who will implement system?
 What technical skill sets are available?
 What external data can you use?
 What back-end systems are available?
 What client systems are there?
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Features
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Reporting and searching requirements
Need web interface? E-mail interface?
E-mail notification to staff? To users?
Automatic escalations?
Direct access to external data?
Scheduling of support staff?
Knowledgebase?
End-user/client access to system?
Inventory management?
Cross-platform requirements?
Clearly-defined scope. Don’t do it all in v1.0!
Workflow Analysis
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What is your support structure?
How/to whom are problems reported?
How are problems assigned to staff?
– by platform? application? department?
location? round-robin? hardware vs. software?
reporting method? combo?
What decisions should the computer make? Which
should a human make?
– e.g., who gets the ticket? should I send e-mail?
is it an emergency?
Design
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Table design
Usability/robust user interface
Minimize data entry
Automate workflow
Avoid hard coding specifics
What reports do you want to get out?
Security
Anticipate the unanticipated
K.I.S.S. principle
Don’t forget!!!
User guide/training
 Debugging and usability testing
 Volume and stress testing
 Programmer documentation/comments
 Communication with user base
 A computer cannot determine if a user
inputs a “helpful” description

Case Study:
Grand Central Station
Bucknell University
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liberal arts & engineering
located in Lewisburg, PA
3400 undergraduates
200 graduate students
260 full-time faculty
900 administrative staff
42 computer center
employees
Bucknell’s Computer &
Communication Services
Director, CCS
Technical Operations
8 FT staff
Systems Integration
16 FT staff
Client Services
12 FT staff
Microcomputer Repair
Network Management
Help Desk
Network Hardware
NT Administration
Liaisons (Admin/Fac Support)
Telecommunications
UNIX Administration
ResNet Support
Lab Maintenance & Support
Admin Systems Support
Instructional Technology
User Education
Administrative Systems
Mainframe Operations
Where do problems go?
computer problem?
Bucknel l-owned
equipment
Personal
equipment
hardware or software?
hardware or software?
software
hardware
support or repair?
support
Yes (with a few
exceptions); through
Liaison.
software
Yes, if the software is
on supported list;
through Liaison.
hardware
repair
Yes, if the software is
on supported list;
through Liaison.
support or repair?
support
Yes, if Apple or IBM;
otherwise, No.
Through Software
Service Clinic.
Help Desk only
(ResNet students
also have RCCs).
repair
Through Software
Service Clinic.
GCS Architecture
FileMaker Pro 4.0 clients (x-platform)
 FileMaker Pro 3.0 server (on Mac)
 85 users (not concurrent)
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GCS Files
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Tickets
Clients (~6000 records)
Departments (~65 records)
Staff (~125 records)
Dorms (~15 records)
RCC Dorm Assignments
Supported Software
PopUps
Holidays
Grand Central Station
Demo
GCS: Future Plans
Web access
 User submission of tickets
 Live links to administrative data
 Hardware work orders
 Auto-escalation of tickets
 Action items for tickets
 … many others ...
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Free (with restrictions)
Free only to higher-ed institutions
 Cannot distribute it to other sites
 Can freely modify (except for splash
screen)
 Can’t provide support
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– GCS-L for mutual assistance
Case Study: Hound
Harvard Structure
Harvard University
Harvard
College
Faculty of Arts
and Sciences
Law School
Radcliffe
College
Grad. School of
Arts & Sciences
Medical School
Other Grad
Schools
Harvard’s Student
Support Environment
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Support of students only
Network and non-network support
60-70 student/casual employees
– 45-50 students do residential support
– 4 students: Advanced Support Team
5 FTE in student support
~25 FTE technical staff
6500+2000 residential students (98%)
20 geographical student support groups
Harvard Support Model
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Sources of help
– Help Desk
– Help Phone Line (central)
– help@fas e-mail
– Residential UA (visit/phone/e-mail)
Residential UAs primary source of help
 Escalate to Advanced Support Team
 Escalate to technical groups
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Project Hound
Architecture
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Web/CGI/HTML interface (Stronghold)
– provides good cross-platform support
SQL back-end (mSQL now, Oracle soon)
 Perl (object-oriented)
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– good web/CGI interface, string handling
– DBI database package: portability
– well-known for future maintenance
Hound tables
People
 Tickets
 Actionlines (Tech Events)
 Appointments
 Userdump
 24 other auxiliary tables
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– join tables, lookup tables, etc.
Some Hound stats
Two students, 8 weeks to write
 2300 tickets, 11,000 action lines
 1600 people, 3400 appointments
 Code base: 23,000 lines
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– 4300 blank lines
– 2200 comment-only lines
– 4400 code lines with comments
– 12,100 uncommented lines
– 639,000 characters of code
Hound Demo
Hound: Future Plans
Port to Oracle!
 Public distribution
 Users interacting directly with system
 Better live admin data
 More automation
 Auto-escalation
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What did we learn?
Need to look closely at your workflow
 Solutions entered will not be
knowledgebase-quality
 Database performance is critical
 Staff is resistant to change
 User interface/ease of use critical!
 Don’t try to everything the first time
 Your school is different
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Resources
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Help Desk Institute
– www.helpdeskinst.com/bg/sections/sec4.htm
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Support Services Conference
– www.sbforums.com/ssce
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Service News
– www.servicenews.com
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Help Desk List (hdesk-l) web site
– www.duke.edu/~pverghis/hdeskfaq.htm
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Help Desk List (hdesk-l) Archives
– wvnvm.wvnet.edu/htbin/listarch.
viorexx?hdesk-l&listserv.202
With apologies to Monty Python...
I’m an RCC, and I’m okay;
I surf all night, and I sleep all day;
I wear cool T’s, I get free lunch;
I go to the laboratory;
On Wednesdays I fix printers, and have troubled disks to fix;
I wear cool T’s, I ping and pop;
I don’t like to take showers;
I always take my cell phone, and hang around in dorms;
I wear cool T’s, the job’s a breeze;
I get a beeper, too;
I want to be a hacker, just like my dear Papa.
Discussion and Questions
Remember: BOF at 4:00
Sue Hales - Bucknell University
Rick Osterberg - Harvard University