ESUPPortail Helpdesk user support at establishmentlevel Pascal Aubry
ESUP-Portail Helpdesk: user support at establishment-level Pascal Aubry http: //esup-helpdesk. sourceforge. net Copyright © 2004 -2006 – ESUP-Portail
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium A survey • French Working group • Usage of helpdesks in our community • December 2004, 120 responses
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Do you use a helpdesk?
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Are you satisfied by using a helpdesk?
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Would you recommend using a helpdesk? • OTRS, Request Tracker, …
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium The main benefits of helpdesks Organization of the support team Quality of the support Knowledge database Making the work visible to the users Making the work visible within the team Making the work visible to the hierarchy
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium The main issues with helpdesks User reticence Support team reticence HUMAN PROBLEMS Installation problems Unadapted software Heavy usage TECHNICAL PROBLEMS
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium The main issues with helpdesks • Ouch! Problems are not only technical… • Is esup-helpdesk another helpdesk? – Yes, but not only
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Centralization and user-support • Everywhere we share – Centralized applications – Shared equipments – Shared services • Build the software round and close to the IS • …except for user support – esup-helpdesk remedies this lack
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Cutting the establishment into departments • Discrete enough – to respect the natural independence of departments • Communicative enough – to allow tickets to pass from one department to another one • Flexible enough – to take into account any existing support structures
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Mask the complexity from users • Universities are complex structures • This complexity must be masked to users • Users are shown only the departments they have to see depending on their profile and their localization
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Simplified example (University of Rennes 1) SCIENCES CAMPUS CHEM PHYS PHILO COMP Common Law/Economy department Central Support Team Common Health department MEDICINE PHARMA ODONTO HEALTH CAMPUS Common Sciences department ECONOMY LAW/ECONOMY CAMPUS OUTSIDE USERS MATH
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Virtual departments • Tickets can be automatically moved to another department • Give the impression of support proximity • Allow internal reorganizations without changing the external presentation of the helpdesk
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Simplified example (University of Rennes 1) SCIENCES CAMPUS CHEM PHYS PHILO COMP Common Sciences department Sciences support team Common Law/Economy department Central Support Team Health support team MEDICINE PHARMA ODONTO HEALTH CAMPUS Common Health department Law/ economy support team ECONOMY LAW/ECONOMY CAMPUS OUTSIDE USERS MATH
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium The external view of the helpdesk SCIENCES CAMPUS CHEM PHYS PHILO COMP Common Law/Economy department Central Support Team Common Health department MEDICINE PHARMA ODONTO HEALTH CAMPUS Common Sciences department ECONOMY LAW/ECONOMY CAMPUS OUTSIDE USERS MATH
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium The internal view of the helpdesk SCIENCES CAMPUS Common Sciences department Sciences support team Common Law/Economy department Central Support Team Health support team HEALTH CAMPUS Common Health department Law/ economy support team LAW/ECONOMY CAMPUS OUTSIDE USERS COMP
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Cutting departments into categories • Large support structures (universities) – Thousands of users – Dozens of managers in departments – Thousands of tickets • A flat structure is not sufficient • Any sub-division is allowed – By thema (email, courses, development, …) – By building, by operating system, …
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Virtual categories Department A web email Unix workstations Windows workstations administrative problems Department B administrative problems Self-service workstations Specialized workstations email web
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Virtual categories Department A web email Unix workstations Windows workstations administrative problems Department B administrative problems Self-service workstations Specialized workstations email web Admissions Administration and Bursar's Office
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Virtual categories Department A Central support team web email Unix workstations Windows workstations administrative problems Self-service workstations Specialized workstations email web email Department B Admissions Administration and Bursar's Office
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Virtual categories Department A Central support team web email Unix workstations Windows workstations administrative problems Self-service workstations Specialized workstations email web administrative problems email Department B Admissions Administration and Bursar's Office
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Implementing such a customized vision • Define departments and categories – Stored in the database – Managed with the web interface • Visibility rules – Centralized in an XML configuration file • Rules can be tested before use
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Rules example <define-condition name="staff"> <or> <attribute-eq name="employee. Type" value="teacher"/> <attribute-eq name="employee. Type" value="admin"/> </or> </define-condition> <rule> <condition> <or> <named-condition name="staff"/> <fqdn-ends-with pattern=". presidence. univ. fr"/> </or> </condition> <actions> <add-by-filter="STAFF"/> <add-by-label="CRI"/> <stop/> </actions> </rule>
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Ok, but how long will it take? • Quite a while, but not always where it was expected Technical implementation t Reflection Organization of the support Communication Acceptation of the solution
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Setting up a helpdesk is a real project
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Formalizing the competences • Map categories to competences • Define the members of the categories – i. e. determine who will follow up on tickets corresponding to certain competences • A real chance to detect weaknesses as well as redundancies in a support team
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium The main goal: user satisfaction • Quick, low-problem ticket input – offer pre-completed tickets – automatically assign tickets to managers – install a high-quality knowledge database • • • Good priority management Real-time follow-up of tickets Clear identification of a unique speaker for each ticket A universal and ergonomic interface The possibility of confidential exchanges
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium The input of tickets • Goal: have all the elements needed to resolve problems as soon as tickets are created • Steps: – Choose a department – Choose a category – Choose a pre-completed ticket • Example : – Mathematics → Printing → no paper
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium The automatic assignment of tickets to managers • Often the thing that takes the most time is deciding who takes charge of a new ticket – Assign the ticket at creation • Predefined algorithms respond to the most common needs – assignment to the first available manager, cyclical assignment, random assignment, … • Custom classes can be added – (simple) Java development – E. g. link to an external calendar
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Priority management • Without a helpdesk, by email – Several strategies: FIFO, FILO, SISO, …SINO – Essentially depending on the manager’s mood • The support service must be completely separated from the email inbox
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Ticket monitoring for managers • Often quickly filtered to /dev/null (SPAM) • Highly configurable, by the users themselves
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Ticket monitoring for users • Users choose which tickets they automatically monitor • Ticket can be monitored individually
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium A unique and identified speaker • No multiple and conflicting responses – Waste of time – Deplorable image of the support team • Faceless but not anonymous – Every action is nominative and logged
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium A user interface for everyone • • A simple and intuitive interface – Used by both technical and non technical people – http: //helpdesk-demo. esup-portail. org
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Visibility / Confidentiality • Interest of visibility – Share solutions (knowledge database) – Prevent from several tickets for a single problem • Drawbacks of visibility, need of confidentiality – Exchange sensible information – A good pretext not to use a helpdesk ; -) • Visibility and confidentiality are reconciled – Several visibility levels – High granularity (department, ticket, action)
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium The knowledge database • The essential contribution of the helpdesk – Users can find the solution of their problems without creating a ticket • FAQs can be added to tickets – More structured information • Full-text Lucene indexation (both tickets and FAQs)
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Making the work visible • To users – Exposing the work is appreciated – generally results in an overall improvement of the relationship between users and the support team • Within support teams – Share competences – Improve communication • To the hierarchy – Should I really explain?
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Integration into the IS • Single Sign-On – CAS (Central Authentication Service) • u. Portal by JASIG – Use of u. Portal groups and user attributes • LDAP – search interface – Attributes retrieval
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Supporting both local and outside users • All the support in one tool • Authenticate outside users with email/password – The password is sent on demand by email • Note: some use the email authentication only
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium A tool to support users or to supervise managers? • Statistics • Often the main motivation • Often the main reject reason • The risks are really minor compared to the benefits
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium esup-helpdesk • One component of the ESUP-Portail software • Open source (LGPL) • 100% Java • Collaborative development
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium History of the project
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Open standards only • XML rendering by Xalan/Xerces • Full-text indexation by Lucene • Web Services by Axis • Data persistence by Hibernate – Runs on My. Sql, Postgres and Oracle – Optimization of database access
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Architecture • Complex… web browser HTTP HTML Tomcat servlet Hibernate/JDBC database HTML XML esup-helpdesk u. Portal JRE JVM JRE
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium The quick start package • Fully operationnal environment • Stand-alone application web browser HTTP Hibernate/JDBC HTML esup-helpdesk-quick-start JRE database JVM
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Déployment (May 2007)
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Perspectives • Esup-commons – Servlet or portlet – Spring/JSF • Statistics
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Long is the road (to the helpdesk) • Most reticences come from support teams – You can not on the one side denounce the burden of user support and on the other refuse a helpdesk – This behaviour is however widespread • introducing a helpdesk application becomes much easier when it is encouraged by institutional policy • Helpdesks can no longer be ignored – Better choose it today…
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Try it! • http: //helpdesk-demo. esup-portail. org • http: //esup-helpdesk. sourceforge. net
Copyright © 2004 -2007 – ESUP-Portail consortium Esup-commons • • • The ESUP-Portail development framework Based on Spring + JSF + Hibernate/Ibatis Trainings (50 engineers) 3 deployment modes (servlet, portlet, quick-start) Esup-blank: a canevas to start new developments Developer facilities – Versionning control, exception handling, multiple database access, native i 18 n, asynchronous emails, batch commands, externalized authentication, LDAP and u. Portal access, data pagination, deep linking, RSS producer, web service integration…
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