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JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009
Copyright 2009 © Consortium ESUP-Portail
esup-helpdesk:a mature portlet for uPortal
Pascal AUBRYUniversity of Rennes 1
ESUP-Portail consortium
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
A French survey in 2004
• Do you use a helpdesk?
• Why don’t you use a helpdesk?
Yes - 34%
No, but tried already - 6%
No - 60%
Other - 15%
Department members
are not ready - 1%
Do not see the point -
3%
Users are not ready -
14%
No answer - 7%
Lack of time - 32%
Lack of information about the
tools - 28%
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
A French survey in 2004 (cont.)
• Are you satisfied by using a helpdesk?
• Would you recommend using a helpdesk?
Not satisfied at all - 5%
Not satisfied - 5%
More or less satisfied -
10%
Satisfied - 39%
Very satisfied -
41%
Absolutely - 80%
No - 0%
Maybe - 20%
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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?
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
The main issues with helpdesks
• User reticence• Support team reticence
• Installation problems
• Unadapted software
• Heavy usage
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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)
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Simplified example(University of Rennes 1)
MATH CHEM PHYS COMP
Central Support Team
PHILO
MEDICINE PHARMA ODONTO
ECONOMY
LAW
CommonSciences
department
CommonHealth
department
CommonLaw/Economy
department
HEALTH CAMPUS
OU
TS
IDE
US
ER
S
SCIENCES CAMPUS
LA
W/E
CO
NO
MY
CA
MP
US
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Simplified example(University of Rennes 1)
MATH PHYS COMP
Central Support Team
PHILO
MEDICINE PHARMA ODONTO
ECONOMY
LAW
CommonSciences
department
CommonHealth
department
CommonLaw/Economy
department
HEALTH CAMPUS
OU
TS
IDE
US
ER
S
SCIENCES CAMPUS
LA
W/E
CO
NO
MY
CA
MP
US
CHEMCHEMMATH PHYS PHILO
Sciences support team
MEDICINE PHARMA ODONTO
Health support team Law/economysupport
team
ECONOMY
LAW
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
The external view of the helpdesk
MATH CHEM PHYS COMP
Central Support Team
PHILO
MEDICINE PHARMA ODONTO
ECONOMY
LAW
CommonSciences
department
CommonHealth
department
CommonLaw/Economy
department
HEALTH CAMPUS
OU
TS
IDE
US
ER
S
SCIENCES CAMPUS
LA
W/E
CO
NO
MY
CA
MP
US
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
The internal view of the helpdesk
COMP
Central Support Team
CommonSciences
department
CommonHealth
department
CommonLaw/Economy
department
OU
TS
IDE
US
ER
S
SCIENCES CAMPUS
LA
W/E
CO
NO
MY
CA
MP
US
Sciences support team
Health support team Law/economysupport
team
HEALTH CAMPUS
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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 (email, courses, development, …)– By building, by operating system, …
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Cutting departments into categories
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Virtual categories
Department A
Department B
web
Unix workstations
Windows workstations
administrative problems
administrative problems
Self-service workstations
Specialized workstations
web
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Virtual categories
Department A
Department B
web
AdmissionsAdministration
and Bursar's Office
Unix workstations
Windows workstations
administrative problems
administrative problems
Self-service workstations
Specialized workstations
web
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Virtual categories
Central support team
ema
il
Department A
Department B
web
AdmissionsAdministration
and Bursar's Office
Unix workstations
Windows workstations
administrative problems
administrative problems
Self-service workstations
Specialized workstations
web
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Virtual categories
Central support team
web
ema
il
Department A
Department B
web
AdmissionsAdministration
and Bursar's Office
Unix workstations
Windows workstations
administrative problems
administrative problems
Self-service workstations
Specialized workstations
web
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Implementing such a customized vision
• Create departments and categories
• Define visibility rules
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Test the rules before applying them
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Ok, but how long will it take?
• Quite a while, but not always where it was expected
t
Technical implementation
CommunicationAcceptation of the solution
ReflectionOrganization of the support
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
A tool to support usersor to supervise managers?
• Statistics
• Often the main motivation
• Often the main reject reason
• The risks are really minor compared to the benefits
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Statistics
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Statistics (cont.)
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Statistics (cont.)
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Statistics (cont.)
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Statistics (cont.)
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Statistics (cont.)
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Step 1: choose the category
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Step 2: fill a pre-completed ticket
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Automatic assignmentof 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
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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)
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
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
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Ticket monitoring
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Ticket monitoring
• Often quickly filtered to /dev/null (SPAM)
• Highly configurable, by the users themselves
• Tickets can be monitored individually
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Ticket monitoring (for managers)
• Pre-defined policies– None, minimal, medium, assiduous, complete– For each department
• Daily reports
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Daily reports
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
A user interface for everyone
• Simple and intuitive– Used by both technical and non technical people
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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)
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Supporting both local and outside users
• All the support in one tool• Authenticate outside users (email/password)
• Some use the email authentication only
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Internationalization
• 3 languages available yet
• All the strings externalized– Resource bundles– Any key can be overidden by deployers
(without editing the distributed bundles)
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Canned responses
• At application, department or user-level
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Bookmarks and history
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
External feeding
• From applications– Thanks to a web service
• From IMAP accounts– A crontab periodically scans IMAP folders– Pattern-based SPAM detection
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 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 1
• 2007: 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
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
esup-helpdesk in France
v2v3
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
esup-helpdesk in Europe
v2v3
JASIG Spring Conference, Dallas, Texas, March 1-4, 2009 Copyright 2009 ©
Esup-helpdesk in the world
• We believe in the JASIG incubator…
v2v3