Archive for category help desk
Troubleshooting Tips: HelpDesk Setup
Posted by Olga Kouzina in help desk, howto on May 5th, 2010
Sometimes people get errors with HelpDesk setup (for Windows authentication enabled). Most of these errors can be eliminated by some simple troubleshooting actions :
1. Check for the highlighted sections in Admin -> General Settings:
2. Check HelpDesk web.config (it’s C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\HelpDesk\wwwroot\web.config by default):
3. Check Virtual Folder for HelpDesk:
4. Check Virtual Folder for TargetProcess:
5. Check TargetProcess Application Pool:
6. Add your user to IIS_WPG group if after step 5 Application Pool is stopped:
7. Check if Windows authorization is enabled for MS SQL Database, and if user is properly mapped with TargetProcess database.
See TargetProcess HelpDesk Installation Guide for more information.
Kanban: Why 3 States in Cumulative Flow Diagram
Posted by Olga Kouzina in customization, help desk on March 22nd, 2010
We have implemented cumulative flow diagram in TargetProcess v 2.15 as a tracking/reporting chart to get a quick overview of user stories in To Do, In Progress and Completed state:
Why we have only 3 fixed states for cumulative flow diagram while all the states for User Stories and other entities are customizable? We could have enabled showing the count of User Stories in all the customized states, be it 6 or 7 or 8 states. But the visual diagram would have been too clogged this way. We had to either follow the reporting stats meticulously, replicate all the states and counts in the digram and lose the visual UX of this chart, or to get it down to 3 basic states such as ToDo, InProgress and Completed (all the customized states are just a variation for those 3 states, one way or another) and retain a good info-design.
Some people asked us to enable more detailed views in cumulative flow digram and we will consider implementing this in the future.
You’re welcome to submit your requests on cumulative flow diagram and other features to TargetProcess HelpDesk or to TargetProcess UX Group.
Support Teamwork: Optimizing Flows
Posted by Olga Kouzina in help desk, performance, support on March 19th, 2010
We’re always working to improve teamwork of our Support and QA folks to better process support requests (quick reminder: you can submit your question/idea/request/ issue to TargetProcess HelpDesk or by email)
That’s how we decided to optimize some flows and eliminate Muda:
1. Some issues are related to performance. Support work starts with asking basically one and the same set of questions about their server configuration, CPU load, IIS version (see TargetProcess system requirements). Sending questions and answers back and forth takes time (sometimes days).
The solution we’d use so far is a documented form that our customers will be supposed to fill in as they encounter performance problems. Why document and not online form: it might take time to put together all the info about server configuration, and an online form can expire. In the future, we could write a utility to measure all the parameters for performance and generate an .xml file.
2. We’ve got a “Waiting for Response” state for the requests waiting on answers from customers. The rule is: if a customer says nothing after 2 days, we send a reminder. Then, if no response in another 2 days, we send a note that we’re closing this request. It takes time to sift through the requests with “Waiting for response” state, so we’d set up an automatic alert utility for that. Sometimes people don’t see our emails with questions. Maybe their spam filters are blocking TP notifications. But no emails - no support. Dear customers, please, keep track of all the notifications and comments from our HelpDesk.
3. Sometimes there’re issues that are impossible to reproduce. Our QA might spend hours with no success. All the info is in place, all the artifacts - but bugs wouldn’t show up. For such cases, we’d ask our customers to capture videos and attach video files to their requests. If video does not help, then the next step would be to set up an online meeting with customers to find the causes of problems.
You’re welcome to share your opinion: which flows/small things can be improved in TargetProcess support?
Customer Support with TargetProcess HelpDesk-Solutions
Posted by Olga Kouzina in help desk, whatis on January 27th, 2010
We’ve implemented Solutions in TargetProcess HelpDesk about a year ago but sometimes people still ask what’s the surplus value of this feature. So let’s look into it now.
If you’re dealing with customers and with their questions/requests, the questions are the same very often, so as a customer support person/account manager you have to type in same answers to same questions over again.
That’s why we implemented the Solutions feature. You can think of all the typical questions, put them in to HelpDesk as Solutions and save your time.
See the general workflow of TargetProcess HelpDesk if you haven’t used it up to now.
TargetProcess v.2.13 released: Help Desk improvements
Posted by Michael Dubakov in help desk, release on February 24th, 2009
Yesterday we’ve released TargetProcess v.2.13. The release is fully dedicated to Help Desk improvements.
In short, we’ve improved Help Desk user experience and made some actions easier. Some usage patterns:
Action |
Old way |
New way |
| Check for unprocessed requests | Navigate to requests list, sort by date. Then sort by last comment date. Filter out ideas to see just issues and questions. | Navigate to Issues Queue |
| Reply to typical request | Find similar request using search, navigate to it, find appropriate comment, copy this comment and add to the new request. | Click Attach Solution, select required solution. |
| Maintain conversation | Open request, try to find latest comment in the messy comments thread, edit comments to remove bad formatting and redundant information | Open request and read clean comments thread. |
New Help Desk Portal. Issues.
Posted by Michael Dubakov in UI, design, developing, help desk, usability on February 10th, 2009
Let’s finalize new Help Desk Portal concept. We are starting development next week, so you have a little time to provide valuable feedback 
Issues List
Contains all issues with filtering option. State of the each issue is highly visible. It shows whether bug created from the issue and when it will be fixed. Also if someone knows solution, he may attach solution to the issue right away.
Post Issue
When someone post an issue, Help Desk Portal checks on the fly whether similar issues already exist and display the list on the right. Moreover, it displays possible solutions (nothing special, just keyword search with results ranking). It will help to avoid issues duplication and in some cases will save people time.
New Help Desk Portal. My Requests
Posted by Michael Dubakov in UI, design, developing, help desk, usability on February 10th, 2009
Continue posting mock-ups of the upcoming Help Desk Portal. Definitely there should be a place where people may see all posted ideas, issues and questions. In this list user should focus on what is going on and get quick answers to the questions like:
- “Should I reply to something to help with problem resolution?”
- “When will the bug for the request XXX be fixed?”
- “Are there any interesting discussions around my ideas?”
The My Requests list has nice right column that shows exact state of the each idea and issue. Think support forgot about you and your problem? Just click nudge link
New Help Desk Portal. Ideas and Issues.
Posted by Michael Dubakov in UI, design, developing, help desk on February 9th, 2009
We are thinking about Issues and Ideas separation. They are quite different and needs separate lists, views, etc. based on our analysis. People have different goals when working with ideas and issues, and this should be reflected in the dHelp Desk Portal design.
What is important for person who looks at idea? And what is important for person who looks at issue?
| Idea | Issue |
|
|
Here is what we have so far.
Issue View
Idea View
New Help Desk Portal. Moving Forward.
Posted by Michael Dubakov in design, developing, help desk, usability on February 5th, 2009
Finally, I may share ideas/stories/requests that will be implemented in the new release of Help Desk Portal.
We have selected about 20 customers’ requests and improvements (all are reasonable and most of them improve usability). Here is the list that includes the most interesting requests.
- Search by ID
- View Help Desk Request Number (#) in Requests Lists
- Add a “Vote” mechanism to the request detail in the help desk.
- Filter by Project/Product
- Better Notifications (new comment added)
- Improve Help Desk User experience (Tag Cloud)
- Disable state change
- Filter by Request state (open/closed)
- Attach file when posting a request
- User profile management
- Customer should see all related user stories, features and bugs created from requests in one place
- Sorts: by last-updated, by last-comment, by votes
- Easy customization (promoted in the latest blog post)
As you may expect, we have own ideas as well:
- Separate ideas and issues
- Dashboard with recent requests, top requests, etc.
- Solutions (a part of self-service)
Some mockups should help you to get the new Help Desk portal look and feel.
Help Desk Portal Dashboard
Dashboard is a first page for the new users and it should be crystal clear what can be done in Help Desk Portal. Also it includes latest ideas and request as well as top ideas.
Ideas List
Ideas list obviously shows ideas. It is possible to filter ideas by state ad by tags, sort ideas.
This is a work and progress and your comments are welcome!
Developing TargetProcess v.3.0: New Help Desk Portal
Posted by Michael Dubakov in UI, design, developing, help desk, usability, v.3.0 on February 2nd, 2009
Help Desk Portal is quite important application. It allows our customers to interact with us. Also it allows customers of our customers to interact with our customers (weird assertion, but it’s true :). We’ve collected quite many requests for Help Desk Portal improvements and finally decided to push it forward.
Here is the first mockup of the home page. It is still a work in progress, so comments/changes/advices are welcome.
There are some ideas behind the Help Desk Portal re-design:
- When someone has a problem, he should be able to find existing solution easily (if any). If there is no solution, it should be straightforward how to post a request
- Ideas and Issues should be separated. They have quite different flows and expectation. If someone post an issue it should be resolved quickly. Idea can live in the backlog for years.
- People may use search or tags to find relevant ideas and requests.
The next step may be to add more social networking into Help Desk Portal (self-service is a great thing if you can encourage other customers to provide solutions and answer the questions). However this is just an idea so far.
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Agile Software
TargetProcess is an agile project management software. It is designed to solve distributed teams problems and support agile development processes.
Key Features
- Full Agile Project Management Support (Scrum, Kanban, XP, Hybrid)
- Productivity Tools (Tp.Tray, ToDo list, dashboards, Inline editing)
- Customizable Development Process
- Subversion Integration
- Integrated Bug Tracking, Help Desk, Time Tracking
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