Tag Archives: knowledge base

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Helpdocs Moved to TDx KB

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Team,

The move of Helpdocs articles into the TeamDynamix knowledge base is almost complete. We are now working on redirecting individual pages from the old Drupal site to the new KB.

Two things to note:

  1. When helping a customer, search the TDx KB for information first.
  2. Articles in the “Internal” category or that have “Published: No” cannot be seen by customers. You can use those articles, but you should not send the link to the customer.

Tips on Searching in the TDx KB

I am aware that the search in TDx is not good right now. The next release coming out this month addresses many of the issues with search. For now, see the following for help with search:

https://oregonstate.teamdynamix.com/TDClient/KB/ArticleDet?ID=40759

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Service Desk Digest – 5/24/2017

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TeamDynamix Knowledge Base

We will be making some changes soon to the KB permissions on the technician security role to allow teams outside of the Service Desk to have view-only access.

Service Desk technicians will NOT have the ability to edit articles at this time, but can provide feedback on articles by clicking “Yes” or “No” next to “Was this helpful?” and entering a comment. I will be reviewing feedback comments daily.

Some of you are frequent contributors and editors in the KB; I will be following up with you in person soon about these changes.

TeamDynamix “MyWork” Removal

For Service Desk employees, the MyWork application in TeamDynamix will be removed soon. We may add this application back at a later date, but at this time it is preferred that you use either the “IT” application or a Desktop to view tickets.

We did not train on the MyWork application, and there has been some confusion about how it works. If you were using MyWork, please talk to Kirsten.

Using Box to Backup User Data

Steve Fowler has added an FAQ item with some recommendations on using Box as a backup tool for personal files.

http://box.oregonstate.edu/support-box-faq – See “Is Box a Backup Solution?”

When customers bring their devices to the Walkup for repair or reinstall, we should first help them get their data in a safe place, and Box is a good option. Please remind students that their access to Box goes away when they leave the university and their ONID account is removed.

CN customers may also use Box to store files they would normally have placed on their computer or on their P: drive. (Box is not a replacement for the P: drive; it is an additional service that they may use and is preferred to local-only storage.)

The Box FAQ also covers file size limits and security restrictions.

New Knowledge Base Articles

New technician articles added to TeamDynamix:

New customer articles added to Community Network Tech Tips:

 

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Service Desk Digest 3/14/2017

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Ticket Status Changes – Use “Closed-Survey”

Please read Lucas’ post on recent changes to ticket statuses in TeamDynamix. With this change, the standard status for ticket closure is now “Closed – Survey”. If you use “Closed” the requestor will explicitly NOT be surveyed. We chose this wording to avoid confusion for customers.

Reminder: when closing a ticket, please make sure that the customer knows the issue is being closed. If you are not sure, update the ticket and notify the customer to say you are closing the ticket as resolved. Then set the status to “Closed – Survey”.

ITKnows Moving to TeamDynamix KB

We are starting to move articles from ITKnows to the TeamDynamix Knowledge Base. I have met with several techs to walk through the TD KB, and feedback has been largely positive.

The ITKnows articles will be updated with a note indicating they have been moved and a link to the new article location. Everyone should have access to the TD KB – please let me know if you do not.

How to use the KB:

  • To access the KB, go to the TD login page, select the Client portal, then click on “Knowledge Base”.
  • You can also access the KB from within the TDNext portal. Click on the application waffle and choose “Knowledge Base”.
  • Please read the following for more information about writing articles, submitting articles, categories and templates: How to Write a KB Article

Some things to note about TD’s KB:

  • We will be able to keep all of our internal documentation and customer-facing documentation in one place.
  • Articles have ID numbers which are included in the URL.
  • We can assign article owners and set reminders to review content.
  • You can only search for published articles in the search box at the top. To find unpublished articles, Click on “Articles Pending Review”.

I will prepare a short training document on the TD KB soon. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Banner Browser Compatibility

Banner INB does not work with Firefox Rapid Release (52) or newer. We can help customers install Firefox ESR, or encourage them to use Internet Explorer or Safari.

The following information has been added to the Banner InfoSheet:

  • Recommended: The vendor recommends using the latest versions of either Internet Explorer or Safari.
  • Notes for Firefox:
    • Firefox ESR 52 (x86) should work until about 3/5/2018.
    • Firefox Rapid Release (52) and newer do NOT support NPAPI plug-ins and will not work.
    • Firefox (x64) does not support NPAPI plug-ins and will not work.
  • Chrome does NOT work.
  • Edge does NOT work.

Ricoh Pop-up Drivers

We have had a couple of departments contact us today needing to set up the pop-up drivers for new Ricoh copier/scanners. This enables the end-user to enter a code that is used for billing purposes.

See \\is-cifs\Utilities\Ricoh\Ricoh_PCL6_Universal_Popup\4.13.0.0 for the latest version of the popup driver.

For more information, please see ticket 2796818.

 

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ITKnows, HelpDocs and TeamDynamix KB

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I had feedback today that the recent reorganization of content in ITKnows has caused some trouble – particularly where articles had been linked elsewhere (e.g. in Canvas) and the articles were later combined into guides.

As of a couple months ago, we had over 400 articles in ITKnows, many of them were repeats, and given our reorganizations over the Summer, the layout no longer made sense. With help from Todd and others we worked to collapse those articles into guides organized by topic, clarified the categories into which new articles should go, added templates to facilitate creation of new content, archived duplicates, and published many articles that were pending review.

The reorganization of documents in ITKnows is done, now, for the most part. Things should not continue to move. However…

TeamDynamix has a built-in knowledge base that comes with several benefits. (It has some limitations, too.) One of the benefits is that we can put all of our documentation – public and private – in one place, meaning we only have one place to search across both sets. TD’s KB also has the concept of Article IDs, which will make linking to and sharing documents easier.  Referencing an article by ID number gets us away from the problem of linking to a URL that might one day change.

We are in the process of reviewing the features of TD’s KB right now, and I do not plan to immediately move our ITKnows content there. What we have in ITKnows is working for the most part. However, we are looking at TD as a possible new location for the HelpDocs pages. An important dependency for that is to have the TD client portal enabled, and we are hoping to have that accomplished by January. HelpDocs is currently on Drupal 6, and I think is higher priority at this time.

One issue I am aware of for the new format of the guides in ITKnows is that you cannot do a Ctrl-F and search the page to quickly locate content. The guide format looks nice, but is not friendly for quick reference. I will be working on some alternative layouts to make that easier. It’s worth mentioning that if TeamDynamix’ KB looks like it is going to be a winner, we may end up moving our internal documents there soon. I just don’t have enough experience with it yet to speak to that, and don’t want to over-promise.

So, TL;DR:

  • I will be working on the guide format to make searching in ITKnows easier.
  • I’m sorry I broke your links. It was necessary to get ITKnows under control. The breakage should not continue until/unless we move to TD’s KB.
  • We are evaluating TD’s KB as a replacement for HelpDocs (customer-facing documentation) first so we can get off of Drupal 6.
  • The client portal needs to be turned on for TD, and that should be happening in the next few weeks.

Let me know if you have questions or concerns about documentation that I have not addressed.

 

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Changes to ITKnowS!

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Over the last month or so we have been making some changes to ITKnowS.

The first change you will probably notice is that the main ITKnowS! page has been updated to provide a more concise view. The ‘Area Guides’ block near the top was removed after a quick poll of primary ITKnowS! users determined it was no longer useful for looking up documentation. This allows the ‘Article Categories’ section to float up to the top of the page and leaves room to add an additional informational widget in the near future.

We made a few adjustments to improve usability as well. In an effort to make information related to a specific topic easier to find, we are in the process of consolidating the multiple existing topic documents into a single source. The consolidated document will be in either an InfoSheet format containing all of the particulars on a topic, or in a guide book format that better separates out sub-components of more involved documentation. The Article Categories have also been condensed and updated to better align with the decided document types. This will allow for easier classification of articles and quick access to all posts within a specified category from the ITKnowS! main page. The current categories, and what type of documentation they are associated with, can be found below.

  • Applications – Stand-alone software applications.
  • Departments – Departmental information sheets.
  • For Review – Built-in category for newly created articles.
  • Hardware – Server, printer, computer, and other hardware articles.
  • Policies – Internal and external policies.
  • Processes – Internal and external processes and procedures.
  • Reference Materials – General information only articles.
  • Services – Internal and external services provided to users.
  • SMS Equipment – SMS check out equipment.
  • Tools – Internal tools (generally web-based) that are used to complete day-to-day operations.

The remaining updates were made to assist with the document creation process:

  • Pre-formatted templates have been created for each document type that include when it is appropriate to use a given template and what to fill in the Title, Category, Tag, and Anchor fields.
  • The Writing Guide has been updated to include information about how to use templates to create new articles.

We will be continuing to fine-tune the documentation process based on feedback form all of you, and looking for additional ways to leverage the features of WordPress to best meet our needs.

 

Note: a huge “thanks!” to Todd for all his work on the new templates, categories, and guides. Also, thank you to Samuel for all the work to get this tool up and running for our team.