Streamline Support Requests

[Jim]

A few key methods to streamline support requests and minimize back and forth replies which can create issues of their own.

Put as much information as possible in the ticket or email the first time. Tickets with vague information set off a chain reaction of back and forth questions just to get a handle on the issue. In almost all instances we need to duplicate the problem to see if we have fixed it. To do that we need all of the information needed to duplicate the problem.

If a web page isn't working - put a link to the web page. If it requires a password to see the page, include a username and password.

If more than one site is down, give us one or two exact websites. Writing "all" will cause delays - we need one or two of them to check.

Give an exact error message (if any). They may seem cryptic, but to us, knowing the error message usually solves the problem instantly. Saying "my email is giving an error" will cause delays. Saying "mail email is giving error number 0x800CCC0F" will get the problem solved without an automatic reply from us asking for the error number or login information to attempt to duplicate the error.

Email accounts which don't receive email require us to send an account an email and watch the log to see if the mail shows up and what the server does with it when it does show up. Tell us an email address which isn't receiving email. Even if all of them aren't receiving mail we need at least one to test.

The same goes for web pages which aren't working. We need to know the page which isn't working so we can bring it up in a browser and watch the apache error log.

The less times back and forth questions are required, the quicker things can be solved.