Ways to Self Service. Neil Gregory, MSc Manager: User Support Services Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Schweiz

Transcription

1 Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, MSc Manager: User Support Services Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Schweiz Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [1/33]

2 Agenda Introduction: The PSI Environment our Computing Zoo When does Self Service make sense? Identifying, Setting Up and Managing Self Service Areas Tools, Knowledge Bases, Usage of Wikis? User Self Service Tools: Intuitive to understand and use Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [2/33]

3 Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen Aare PSI-Ost Auditorium psi forum PSI-West SLS Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [3/33]

4 PSI: a brief Introduction A leading national multidisciplinary research laboratory (ca Employees financed through 3 rd party funding. Ca p/day on Campus) Solid State Physics and Material Sciences (44%) Particle and Astrophysics (15%) Nuclear Energy Research and Safety (12%) General Energy Research (12%) Life Sciences (17%) Synchrotron Light Source Switzerland (SLS) Technology Transfer User Lab (ca long and short-time international guest scientists) Education (Apprentices: 78 [8 in IT], Doctoral Students: 300, FH/HS Employees with Teaching Responsibilities: 75, Radiation School: 3000) Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [4/33]

5 Our Computing Zoo Many suppliers/architectures: Intel, HP, FS, SUN, IBM, SGI, Mac, Dell [ 4500 IP s, ca Clients, Teraflops, Petabytes ] mainly Intel, or whatever the guest brings along! Many Operating Systems on Campus (not necessarily supported): WinXP, Win2000, WinNT, Win9*, Linux(4+), SunOS, Tru64Unix, AIX, HP/UX, MacOS, VMS mainly WinXP Professional and Scientific Linux (Red Hat) as standard Numerous Applications: , WWW, CMS, DMS, Office, Graphics, Scientific, Visualization, Databases, Batch, High Performance Computing, Parallel Processing, Data Acquisition, Archiving, Open Source, Freeware, Shareware Number of persons present daily on the campus: ca from the workshop to professor, Staff and guests, computer literate and illiterate! Academic Environment, many languages & cultures main operating systems (OS) are in DE & EN but Chinese, Russian, Korean, Spanish too... Campus - Intranet, but also Internet (off Site) users Unattended 24x365 Operation and Usage Remote Pikett during Accelerator Operations Flexibility vs. Security Researchers and guests want freedom, security is for them just an obstruction Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [5/33]

6 Does Self Service make sense? Firstly, who are we doing this for? Are we doing it for the customer? Yes, for times when the service desk is not manned and of course they have to be pleased with the self service and want to use it. Other than this, probably not, the customer wants to talk to a real person! Are we doing it for the Service Desk and Second Level behind it? Yes, the real winners should be the Service Desk and Second Level Support and of course the business behind it all In particular: motivation and more time for more self service innovation! But primarily we want to continue to deliver a good service to our customers Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [6/33]

7 Why Self Service makes sense at PSI? Reasons for introducing self service aspects in the service PSI Small Team (3+1 ) for Computer User Support SPoC will not be increased Constantly expanding supported services, refining existing services Customers expect 24x7 Computing Service, Computer Service Desk is 10x5 Our service desk is free, a low budget item we can t charge our guests! Not a call center service but a knowledgeable SPoC solving >60% of the problems since years. With our On-Site Service Center HW team >80%! Strong web based environment and expertise in the well established team - we can respond quickly with innovative self service implementations Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [7/33]

8 Providing Effective Self-Service within the Service Desk Offer effective 24x7 customer coverage without increasing head count or costs Help customers help themselves Promote a self-learning culture by providing customers with the best tools, tips, tricks and knowledge bases to reach a solution Increase first call and preferably the zero call resolution! Improve customer satisfaction and reduce costs through the right selection of self-service tools Lessen current dependencies & beat increasing demands on the service desk Subsequently enabling a re-focus of some staff abilities (motivation) How? Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [8/33]

9 Service Desk Constraining Boundary Conditions At PSI: Cost is not an argument it shouldn t cost anything! Providing our service desk is very restricted by $ and size. We keep things simple and make all adaptations where necessary and possible ourselves Integration of the many exceptions (non-standards) with our standards At other companies: $ is maybe less a problem and the customer probably pays even if indirectly! Maybe staff with the necessary technical capabilities are not available Less trust and competency The freedom to innovatively develop and deploy is maybe more restrictive The unknown one: the customers? Will they play along and appreciate and use the self service offering? Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [9/33]

10 What is Self Service in a Service Desk Environment? Reduce the need for users to ask Users should find or be directed to suitable answers Browse Web Information Using Search Functionality Users are guided (by a workflow) to find their own answers Simple Guides/Categories to help lead the way these could be telephone or web based Users provide their own answers for other users (collaboration style) Users may collaborate (using web based technologies, Forum, Wiki) Ask questions Share useful information and answers with one another Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [10/33]

11 Generic ways to reach a Service Desk via telephone or a toll-free number (often through a call center) via via a website through a static FAQ (Frequent Asked Questions) system through submitting written questions through live chat system through live voices and video messaging or conference we use: 1.Web based Trouble Ticket System since Single Point of Contact Telephone 8400 WWW 39% Mail 27% Phone 33% Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [11/33]

12 What stops users using Self Service? Users simply often prefer to talk to a real person! Users think that calling the service desk is faster! The self service offer is maybe not in the same mindset for the users e.g. Telephone Based Call Center, Airlines, Telephony Typically the language menu branch is OK Maybe one other menu, after that users are usually lost and/or frustrated Web Based forms which don t lead you to your answer and/or trap you! Users don't like filling in too complicated forms From our TT experience - when they do, it is invariably wrong or incomplete Wrong decisions can often throw support off track as to the real problem Users should just explain the problem in their words and not diagnose Danger of a badly aligned self service, users might seek their gurus again! Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [12/33]

13 Familiar Frustration? Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [13/33]

14 Identifying, Setting Up and Managing Self Service Areas PSI is a strong web based environment: Team deploys web based Trouble Ticket (TT) system based on RemedyARS (since 96) We recently simplified TT input to: who has the problem and what is the problem Identify other workflows where self service ideas can be deployed Wear the User Hat when thinking about improving web information for users - New User Handout (pdf) and Marketing - User Self Help Web categorized by user types and their different needs Replaced signed paper requests with Intranet web based workflow driven requests: using Active Directory based authentication (via htaccess) - All Account and Registration Requests - Increase in Disk Quota Requests - Firewall Exception Renewals - Equipment Rental (New) - Software & License Ordering (Workflow programmed, documentation phase) - Wiki FAQ (In Test) Simplify Simplify Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [14/33]

15 Our Requirements for Self Service Tools/Workflows Clearly definable processes / workflows Centralize, Standardize, Commoditize and Virtualize (where possible) OS independency = support for Web Browsers from our Zoo (without plugins) Simple yet complete user input = automatic parsing required Web Programming: Perl, PHP with HTML / CSS and some Javascript Authentication = Active Directory + Apache Web Server.htaccess Reliable communication/transport = is a must, (home-grown PHP APIs) Databases: Oracle, MySQL, Active Directory, CSV Files Remedy ARS 6.3 Mid-Tier as Trouble Ticket (TT) Workflow Tool (Oracle Db, Reflector to feed Remedy) Trust and empower the Service Desk Staff with the necessary privileges competence Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [15/33]

16 4 Ways we (self-)service the Service Desk Alle WWW Applications e.g. TT,... +Deliverables: IP Address Browser Op. System e.g.mac(ides) +Deliverables: Address PHP2Remedy Mail API +Deliverables: Address Yes Service Desk as TT No Reporting: Firewall Renewals s Disk Quota Requests documented New Accounts, Registration Forward to Mail2Remedy Mail Reflector Phone Deliverables: Phone Number +Deliverables:... Direct Walk-Ins Remedy: WWW Entry & Trouble Tickets Walk-Ins Phone e.g. Software Orders Reporting: TT Logging & Statistics Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [16/33]

17 Computing Service Desk Home Page Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [17/33]

18 User Self Help Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [18/33]

19 Trouble Ticket Entry Form Parsable User ID Information The User Problem Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [19/33]

20 Software Ordering Schema Current Project Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [20/33]

21 User TT submission with Remedy ARS 6.3 Mid-Tier or any application submission becomes a TT Any WWW Application 1. User reports Problem IP/Browser/OS Information Web Front End PHP Wizard HTML/Javascript PHPtoRemedy API to TT@psi.ch 2. to Helpdesk or FLS forward to TT@psi.ch Remedy 6.3 Mid-Tier + Engine TT Feedback with Status Link Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [21/33]

22 Tools, Knowledge Bases, Usage of Wikis? Knowledge Base Publisher FAQ siehe Other Open Source Knowledge Bases: Firefly, Memento, CompStrm, Exteca Wiki, Twiki - What is a wiki? A wiki is a page or collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content (excluding blocked users), using a simplified markup language Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites. comes from the Hawaiian meaning fast includes Categories, Tag Clouds (key words - size proportional to quantity) PSI uses FosWiki based on TWiki not only as a strategic collaborative tool and for documentation, but in the near future as a the CMS (Content Management System) for our Web Site Authoring Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [22/33]

23 Knowledge Base FAQ: ETHZ-ID Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [23/33]

24 Wiki Based Computer PSI ask a new FAQ question tag cloud sizes quantity recently updated FAQs new: Sticky FAQs Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [24/33]

25 Linux FAQ Answer - Tagged Breadcrumbs Tags Search Categories Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [25/33]

26 Collaboration: Add comment to Wiki FAQs Why? New: Comment & FAQ Question now integrated to create a TT Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [26/33]

27 Pros: Cons: Pros and Cons of Collaborative Tools Additional support from keen users providing also knowledgeable answers Users can pose questions and in particular those which concern them PSI has a strong research culture, therefore the user support style = collegial! User feels he is participating Wikis are generically quite unstructured Categorization & Wiki Tag Clouds can help Don t lose those SPoC ideas integrate them The need to regularly control what s new or been modified Are these really authoritative answers? You can only use this really in an Intranet environment or where authentication is controllable Potential misuse of the campus Intranet wiki facility causing loss of/or misleading information or simply bitching about a problem. Decision: Wiki FAQ Request > Service Desk via TT Creation! Is this a new FAQ? Is this a User TT? The Service Desk moderates as SPoC Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [27/33]

28 User Self Service Tools: Intuitive to understand and use! User acceptability depends on providing tools which are easy to understand and use First, the user has to be informed of their existence and encouraged to use them A self service Culture needs to be developed and accepted If we have to sell the tools we have failed, they should really sell themselves! We need to have that Customer Satisfaction The more we invest in self service hopefully the more time we will have to further improve the investment and more motivation for the team Some users will always still insist on calling the service desk number, worse still they call us personally! Needs diplomacy, not always easy Our Motto still holds : Quality is when the customer comes back and not the problem Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [28/33]

29 Apropos Customer Satisfaction Sunny quote from yesterday: Das geht ja noch schneller als das Löschen des Files ;-) Auf jeden Fall besten Dank für die prompte Erledigung (was wieder einmal bewiesen hat, dass man ruhig die Priorität auf 'low' setzen darf) Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [29/33]

30 leads to a basic thought Computer Literacy Why try and train humans to be computer literate? Shouldn t we all simply program the systems to be human literate! Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [30/33]

31 Ways to a self-service Service Desk should be a K.I.S.S.! There are many ways to deploy a self-service Service Desk, the choice depends on your organization, your requirements & boundary conditions & also your customers Fits for us, we have managed to innovatively integrate our own tool modules and ideas in our environment with great flexibility with an almost on the fly development. Needs to be, one of our standards is non standards! Sure, K.I.S.S ( Keep It Simple, Stupid ) means design simplicity should be a key goal and that unnecessary complexity should be avoided But what a coincidence, K.I.S.S also stands for Key for IT Service Success so let s keep pushing for it though we have a long way to go yet Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [31/33]

32 Help yourself: An invitation to Automated self-service Knowledge Base Publisher ETHZ: References Other Open Source Knowledge Base Tools: Firefly, Memento, CompStrm, Exteca Wiki Foswiki / TWiki Wikis give ARM Holdings a leg-up Wikis im Firmennetz Gartner expect: "In 2009 half of all companies will use Wikis internally." Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [32/33]

33 Visitor centre psi forum: Presentation (.ppt/.pdf): ftp://ftp.psi.ch/psi_outgoing/gregory/w2ss.ppt (w2ss.pdf) Per year visitors 400 groups 20 Ausstellungen, 3D Filme und geführte Touren über die PSI Forschung Mini SLS: The new narrow beam tube Ways to Self Service Neil Gregory, , [33/33]