The meeting with the MBA candidates from SMU went well. The first big question was who SimpleTicket customers were. Here are my ideas:
We believe that corporate IT departments are the primary user of SimpleTicket. IT Departments with between 1 and 30 internal IT personnel (companies with between 25 and 750 employees).
The 2000 downloads to-date are likely early technology adopters (very few corporate IT departments). We feel as though SimpleTicket will not support the workflow of most IT support companies. Most IT department will wait for the hosted version to be released so they can play with the online demo.
February 17, 2006 |
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Tags: SimpleTicket , IT Support , simpleticket , smu , mba | Bookmark on del.icio.us | Digg It
I just finished going through the workflow with Kevin and I am very excited to say it works. There are a few tweaks required, but it works. We will be able to test in production all week, demo on Saturday (BarCampDallas) and release that night. There are going to be some missing parts:
- Stats - this section is going to be important for Architel so expect it soon.
- Search - I think everyone is going to need this section, we will be asking the community to complete it I suspect (or one of our Big in Japan developers).
- Client/Engineer Edits - adding or deleting clients and engineers is a fairly manual process now, we will be creating a simple new client wizard and engineer addition list.
The tweaks? First, there are a few auto-populate features that are necessary to make the software easy to use. Next, we need to streamline the ‘take ticket’ workflow to remove a step (i.e. deliver you to the update screen immediately). Finally, we need windows to close after an action is taken on them, right now the previews stay open after actions are completed. Anyway, congrats to Kevin - bang up job before the ‘end of the day.’
January 24, 2006 |
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Tags: SimpleTicket , Open Source , Trouble Ticket , Bugs , News , Rails , Architel , IT Support , Ajax , Ajaxian , Ruby on Rails , barcamp , barcampdallas , beta , Biginjapan | Bookmark on del.icio.us | Digg It
SimpleTicket has been developed using Ruby on Rails and as a result we are able to incorporate Ajaxian effects. The Ajax libraries for Ruby on Rails are quite extensive and we have tried to include effects when they add to the user experience. We have also taken note that not all users have browsers that will play nice with our effects so here is our Ajax strategy:
- Ajax in the backend. We have determined that the majority of IT support folks use a standards based browser like Firefox. Our effects help the workflow and are nice to look at.
- No Ajax in the frontend. Users simply hit a simple webpage, without the cool Ajax effects. Most of our end-users use IE and would have fits trying to get the effects to work with their browsers.
We expect that in the near future Microsoft is going to get on the clue train and release a standards based version of IE, but until then we are sorry buy your end-users won’t know how cool SimpleTicket really is.
January 7, 2006 |
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Tags: SimpleTicket , Open Source , Trouble Ticket , Rails , Architel , IT Support , Ajax , Ajaxian , Ruby on Rails | Bookmark on del.icio.us | Digg It
In part three of our description of the Architel workflow we will detail the pending and contacted que found in SimpleTicket. As previously stated, the workflow for SimpleTicket was developed to meet the needs of Architel, a small IT support company located in Dallas, Texas.
What is the Pending Que? We call ‘new’ tickets ‘pending’ tickets within SimpleTicket. Basically, the idea was that these tickets are pending - i.e. they need to be resolved. Pending tickets must be addressed within 30 minutes or an alert is sounded in our Network Operations Center. In our system pending tickets are not necessarily new. In general they represent new trouble tickets entered by end-users; however, in some cases they are not. When they are not new they are called ‘contacted’ in our system.
Why are their some tickets marked as ‘contacted’ within the pending que? Often an engineer would open a pending trouble ticket and realize that he needed more information from the end-user to begin work. He would call the enduser and when he could not reach them he would leave the ticket in his ‘open’ ticket que. More frequently than not, the end-user would call back and leave a message for the engineer (he would be busy working on other issues); however, there was usually someone else available to talk to the end-user. So instead of needlessly making end-users speak to the engineer who just happened to open their ticket (but not begin work), we decided to have the engineer place the ticket back into the ‘pending’ que only to mark the ticket as ‘contacted’. When they are placed back in the pending que they are not bound by the 30 minute rule. If the end-user calls back, whoever answers the call can pick up the ticket. Saving the end-user time and more efficiently using our resources.
January 7, 2006 |
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Tags: SimpleTicket , Open Source , Trouble Ticket , Architel , IT Support | Bookmark on del.icio.us | Digg It
SimpleTicket was written specifically for one company (Architel) who has very specific needs. I thought it might be helpful to describe our workflow to help you understand how SimpleTicket was designed. Agree?
First, it is important to realize that we have help desk technicians who can remotely resolve 3-10 issues for end-users per day. Endusers contact us by creating a trouble ticket in our system and our help desk technicians see these new ‘PENDING’ tickets. Our objective is to have each ticket addressed within 15 and 20 minutes. To address a ticket an engineer changes that status to ‘OPEN’ and determines how to proceed. If the ticket requires additional information from an end-user that ticket is placed back in the ‘PENDING’ que, but is identified as ‘CONTACTED’
In the meantime end-users are receiving emails indicating that we have opened their ticket and that we are working on the issue. Assuming we had to leave you a voicemail, we send you another email indicating we called and asked you to update the ticket yourself with the required information or to simply call us back.
Second, assuming that our ‘contacted’ end-user was able to reach the instigating engineer he could detail the various issues that face the him. If possible he attempts to resolve the issue immediately from his nice cosy chair in the NOC. If he can, he notes this in the ticketing system and closes the ticket. Next the enduser recieves an email indicating that their issue as been resolved and that their ticket is now closed (giving instructions for reopening it if necessary). 80% of the time this is the workflow. But in 20% of the cases we must dispatch an engineer to the client location to resolve the issue. The ticket is then moved into the ‘SCHEDULE ON-SITE’ que. Our engineers then visit the site, resolve the issue and then close the ticket.
Workflow Part I Diagram:
January 6, 2006 |
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Tags: SimpleTicket , Open Source , Trouble Ticket , RSS , Tags , Rails , Architel , IT Support | Bookmark on del.icio.us | Digg It
