How To use the SW helpdesk

Although this page intends to be quite close as possible to the helpdesk functionality, there could be some discrepances due to the continous modifications and improvements in the helpdesk

How to enter

• [GridPMA] If you are included in GOCDB. Your certificate is checked with the one in GOCDB. However to avoid problems there is a local copy of the list of peole. This list is not updated periodically.

• [SWEusers] If you have a SW permission. You can ask for permission for this entrance if you need it and you are not within the GOCDB.

Since the helpdesk is syncronized with GGUS, once you have permissions with the SW helpdesk, your modifications on the tickets can be send to GGUS without having account there.

If you are a user

• Create a ticket: by default the ticket is created with VO and Site unspecified; if you wants to specify them, mark the VO and Site specific square, the lists for the options will be then available. After your selections, fill up all the other fields. Some complains could arise if some field is badly written or mandatory- it can happens sometimes if some new improvements are under the way . Afer that just click on the button Create Ticket ; you will get it listed with all your other open tickets created by you under the link My Open Tickets . Your task is finish, you will receive emails for any modification in the ticket.

• Reopen a ticket: you can not close a ticket, this is something allowed only to the supporters, however if you are not agreed with the solution for your problem once the ticket is closed, you can reopen it explaining why: just write your comment in the Update field and Reopen .

If you are a supporter

In principle, as supporter, you will receive tickets related to your competences; however most of the times the ticket will be related to some problems with the Site that you administrates. The first thing you must do is to change the status to In progress ; it is important to do that if you don't want to be tagged as Site with very late response time - maybe you don't know but there are some people looking on the response time.

Use cases:

• Modify a ticket: there are two main cases to modify the ticket: assigning to someone else or writting something. To send/assign the ticket to some other group you have again two options: chossing from the supporter lists (not quite well developped yet), and mainly the Site list - this is for me the most useful function- . Just choose the Site and click on Assign to Site , or Update Ticket if you choosed a new supporter from the supporter list. If you don't know what to do, just choose the Site SW TPM , the ticket will arrive to someone that will manage it.

• Send to GGUS: most of the tickets arrive from GGUS, they have been created at the SW helpdesk by GGUS, that means that you do not need to send to GGUS, and then for these tickets this option is not available: just look up on the ticket window, you will see to the left the ticket number in the SW helpdesk and to the right the GGUS ticket number. However some tickets have been created in the SW helpdesk and sometimes the ticket is related to something unrelated to the ROC_SW, in that case you can send the ticket to GGUS; that means that the token is now within GGUS and is a matter for the GGUS supporters -at the firs time it will arrive to the TPM team- , however all the updates will be send to the SW helpdesk and also some updates can be done from SW to GGUS; be careful when you update a ticket that is not assigned to you: as supporter you should have clear that you must try to help and not disturb the solution process. Obviously the button is Send to GGUS .

• Close a ticket: if you think the ticket is solved, you can close it. To do it it is mandatory to write something in the Update box. You have two ways to close the ticket: change the status to solved and Update Ticket or directly Close. The user that created the ticket will receive a notification with the comment you wrote.

• Close the ticket locally: this option is to close tickets that are only open within the SW helpdesk. For the rest do as in Close a ticket. I know the duplication is not the proper way, however sometimes it have an extra utility: suppose that, by an strange reason, the ticket is assigned/created from GGUS to the SW helpdesk and this assignment is not correct, later someone realize about the wrong assignment and assign to the correct Support Unit in GGUS, however still remain in the SW helpdesk and you can not close because then the ticket will be closed also in GGUS, and of course you can not send to GGUS because is already in GGUS, so the temporary solution is to close locally. (Yes, I could also enter to the DB and modify the field also...if I have connection to the server and permission to do it). However is something to think about.

• Reject, broadcast: these options are scarcely used... if you have some problems with them just let me know.

-- Main.amoros - 28 Nov 2008