1. Copyright © 2004-2006 – ESUP-Portail ESUP-Portail Helpdesk: user support at establishment-level Pascal Aubry IFSIC / Université de Rennes 1 Alexandre Boisseau Université de Brest http://esup-helpdesk.sourceforge.net

2. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Copyright Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#FDL

3. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail A survey French Working group Usage of helpdesks in our community December 2004, 120 responses

4. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Do you use a helpdesk?

5. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Why don’t you use a helpdesk?

6. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Are you satisfied by using a helpdesk?

7. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Would you recommend using a helpdesk? OTRS, Request Tracker, …

8. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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 to the hierarchy Making the work visible within the team

9. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail HUMAN PROBLEMS TECHNICAL PROBLEMS The main issues with helpdesks Installation problems User reticence Support team reticence Unadapted software Heavy usage

10. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail The main issues with helpdesks Ouch! Problems are not only technical… Is Esup-helpdesk another helpdesk? –Yes, but not only

11. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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

12. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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

13. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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

14. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Simplified example (University of Rennes 1) MATHCHEMPHYSCOMP Central Support Team PHILO MEDICINEPHARMAODONTO ECONOMY LAW Common Sciences department Common Health department Common Law/Economy department HEALTH CAMPUS OUTSIDE USERS SCIENCES CAMPUS LAW/ECONOMY CAMPUS

15. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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

16. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Simplified example (University of Rennes 1) MATHPHYSCOMP Central Support Team PHILO MEDICINEPHARMAODONTO ECONOMY LAW Common Sciences department Common Health department Common Law/Economy department HEALTH CAMPUS OUTSIDE USERS SCIENCES CAMPUS LAW/ECONOMY CAMPUS CHEM MATHPHYSPHILO Sciences support team MEDICINEPHARMAODONTO Health support team Law/ economy support team ECONOMY LAW

17. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail The external view of the helpdesk MATHCHEMPHYSCOMP Central Support Team PHILO MEDICINEPHARMAODONTO ECONOMY LAW Common Sciences department Common Health department Common Law/Economy department HEALTH CAMPUS OUTSIDE USERS SCIENCES CAMPUS LAW/ECONOMY CAMPUS

18. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail The internal view of the helpdesk COMP Central Support Team Common Sciences department Common Health department Common Law/Economy department OUTSIDE USERS SCIENCES CAMPUS LAW/ECONOMY CAMPUS Sciences support team Health support team Law/ economy support team HEALTH CAMPUS

19. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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, …

20. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Virtual categories Department A Department B web email Unix workstations Windows workstations administrative problems Self-service workstations Specialized workstations email web

21. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Virtual categories Department A Department B web Admissions Administration and Bursar's Office email Unix workstations Windows workstations administrative problems Self-service workstations Specialized workstations email web

22. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Central support team email Virtual categories Department A Department B web Admissions Administration and Bursar's Office email Unix workstations Windows workstations administrative problems Self-service workstations Specialized workstations email web

23. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Central support team web email Virtual categories Department A Department B web Admissions Administration and Bursar's Office email Unix workstations Windows workstations administrative problems Self-service workstations Specialized workstations email web

24. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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

25. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Rules example

26. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Ok, but how long will it take? Quite a while, but not always where it was expected t Technical implementation Communication Acceptation of the solution Reflection Organization of the support

27. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Setting up a helpdesk is a real project

28. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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

29. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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

30. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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

31. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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

32. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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

33. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Ticket monitoring for managers Often quickly filtered to /dev/null (SPAM) Highly configurable, by the users themselves

34. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Ticket monitoring for users Users choose which tickets they automatically monitor Ticket can be monitored individually

35. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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

36. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail A user interface for everyone A simple and intuitive interface –Used by both technical and non technical people –http://helpdesk-demo.esup-portail.org

37. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Visibility / Confidentiality Interest of visibility –Share solutions (knowledge database) –Prevent from several tickets for a single poblem 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 (service, ticket, action)

38. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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)

39. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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?

40. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Integration into the IS Single Sign-On –CAS (Central Authentication Service) uPortal by JASIG –Use of uPortal groups LDAP –search interface –Attributes retrieval

41. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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

42. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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

43. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail esup-helpdesk One component of the ESUP-Portail software Open source (LGPL) UML, 100% Java Collaborative development

44. esup-helpdesk ifsic-helpdesk 2001 Ifsic-helpdesk is running at IFSIC (University of Rennes 1) The very first textual specifications of esup-helpdesk esup-helpdesk is running at University of Rennes 1 UML specifications and coding Presentation at JRES’2005 esup-helpdesk is distributed by consortium ESUP-Portail Demonstration site is online Consortium ESUP-Portail is formed 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Presentation at EUNIS’2006

45. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail History of the project

46. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Open standards only XML rendering by Xalan/Xerces Full-text indexation by Lucene Web Services by Axis Data persistence by Hibernate –Runs on MySql, Postgres and Oracle –Optimization of database access

47. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Architecture Complex… JVM Tomcat uPortalesup-helpdesk web browser database JRE servlet HTTP XML Hibernate/JDBC HTML

48. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail The quick start package Fully operationnal environment Stand-alone application JVM esup-helpdesk-quick-start web browser database JRE HTTP Hibernate/JDBC HTML

49. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Déployment (May 2006)

50. 2004 2005 2006 2007 1.4.0 – first release distributed very first textual specifications 1.7.9 – ticket templates, LDAP search 1.4.4 – internationalization UML specifications and coding 1.5.0 – confidentiality 1.5.3 – esup-helpdesk-quick-start 1.6.0 – virtual categories 1.7.0 – Lucene indexation 1.7.6 – email feeding 1.7.7 – web services 1.8.0 – deep linking 1.9 – FAQs 1.10 – statistics 2.0 – Hibernate 3 3.0 – JSR168 You are here

51. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Perspectives New features –FAQs –Statistiques –JSR168 (portlet) Spring/JSF Internationalization

52. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail 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…

53. Copyright © 2005-2006 – ESUP-Portail Try it! http://esup-helpdesk.sourceforge.net