Copyright 2009 © Consortium ESUP-Portail JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 esup-helpdesk: a mature portlet for uPortal Pascal AUBRY University of Rennes 1 ESUP-Portail consortium

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 A French survey in 2004 Do you use a helpdesk? Why don’t you use a helpdesk?

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 A French survey in 2004 (cont.) Are you satisfied by using a helpdesk? Would you recommend using a helpdesk?

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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 within the team Making the work visible to the hierarchy

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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?

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 The main issues with helpdesks User reticence Support team reticence Installation problems Unadapted software Heavy usage

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Is esup-helpdesk just another helpdesk? Definitively not By and for the Higher Education User support at establishment-level –Close to the Information System (CAS/LDAP/uPortal)

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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 (LDAP/uPortal) –Their localization

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Virtual departments Tickets can be automatically moved to another department Give the impression of support proximity Allow internal reorganizations –Without changing the external presentation

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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 ( , courses, development, …) –By building, by operating system, …

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Cutting departments into categories

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Virtual categories Department A Department B web Unix workstations Windows workstations administrative problems Self-service workstations Specialized workstations web

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Virtual categories Department A Department B web Admissions Administration and Bursar's Office Unix workstations Windows workstations administrative problems Self-service workstations Specialized workstations web

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Virtual categories Central support team Department A Department B web Admissions Administration and Bursar's Office Unix workstations Windows workstations administrative problems Self-service workstations Specialized workstations web

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Virtual categories Central support team web Department A Department B web Admissions Administration and Bursar's Office Unix workstations Windows workstations administrative problems Self-service workstations Specialized workstations web

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Implementing such a customized vision Create departments and categories Define visibility rules

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Test the rules before applying them

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Statistics

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Statistics (cont.)

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Statistics (cont.)

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Statistics (cont.)

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Statistics (cont.)

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Statistics (cont.)

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 The main goal: user satisfaction Quick, low-problem ticket input Good reaction times High-quality knowledge database Good priority management Real-time follow-up of tickets Clear identification of a unique speaker A universal and ergonomic interface The possibility of confidential exchanges

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Quick and low-problem ticket input Goal: have all the elements needed to resolve problems as soon as tickets are created 2 steps –Choose a category –Fill a pre-completed ticket Links to FAQ WYSIWYG

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Step 1: choose the category

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Step 2: fill a pre-completed ticket

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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 a calendar

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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 indexation (both tickets and FAQs)

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Priority management Without a helpdesk, by –Several strategies: FIFO, FILO, SISO, …SINO –Essentially depending on the manager’s mood The support service must be completely separated from the inbox

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Ticket monitoring

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Ticket monitoring Often quickly filtered to /dev/null (SPAM) Highly configurable, by the users themselves Tickets can be monitored individually

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Ticket monitoring (for managers) Pre-defined policies –None, minimal, medium, assiduous, complete –For each department Daily reports

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Daily reports

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 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

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 A user interface for everyone Simple and intuitive –Used by both technical and non technical people

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Visibility / Confidentiality Interest of visibility –Share solutions (knowledge database) –Prevent from several tickets for a single problem 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 (department, ticket, action)

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Supporting both local and outside users All the support in one tool Authenticate outside users ( /password) Some use the authentication only

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Integration into the IS Single Sign-On –CAS (Central Authentication Service) uPortal by JASIG –Use of uPortal groups and user attributes LDAP –search interface –Attributes retrieval

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Internationalization 3 languages available yet All the strings externalized –Resource bundles –Any key can be overidden by deployers (without editing the distributed bundles)

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Canned responses At application, department or user-level

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Bookmarks and history

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 External feeding From applications –Thanks to a web service From IMAP accounts –A crontab periodically scans IMAP folders –Pattern-based SPAM detection

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 The software Part of the ESUP-Portail software –Open source (LGPL) –Collaborative development 10 commiters in v2, 3 commiters in v3 –~30 institutions in production Based on esup-commons –Spring, JSF, Hibernate, Lucene Portlet or servlet! –Quick-start available

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 A 10 years old project 1999: ifsic-helpdesk –PHP application at IFSIC (part of the University of Rennes 1) 2004: esup-helpdesk v1 –uPortal channel at the University of Rennes : esup-helpdesk v2 –uPortal channel in 30 universities and schools 2008: esup-helpdesk v3 –JSR-168 portlet (or servlet) 2010: jasig-helpdesk? –Candidate to the JASIG incubator

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 esup-helpdesk in France v2 v3

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 esup-helpdesk in Europe v2 v3

Copyright 2009 ©JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Esup-helpdesk in the world We believe in the JASIG incubator… v2 v3