They say the devil is in the details, and that is quite true when it comes to putting in help desk tickets! It's a little like Jerry Maguire out here sometimes, "help me, help you!"
Let me explain!
Us here in IT are pretty busy, but so aren't you guys. I get it. Something isn't working quite right, you need a mouse cause yours broke, or maybe that application you've been using for a million years decided to say "not today!" But you got prep work to do, a quiz to go over and a myriad of other things. So you throw a ticket in real quick and get on with the rest of your day.
Or, you're a traveling employee. You bounce between a couple different schools depending on the day or even the time. The issue happened at Fausey, so that's where it says the ticket came from. But on Wednesday's you're actually at Tatham.
Details are everything when it comes to getting your issue resolved faster. I want to show you guys what the workflow of a ticket looks like.
>Problem occurs! You freak out a little. Crying, lying in the fetal position and uncontrollable rage all occur in this step, and all are acceptable!
>You put in a ticket! The ticket you create is a TSD (The Service Desk) ticket and is followed by a number, like TSD-12856. This ticket is still in Tier 1 and those tickets get sent to our helpdesk technician who manages all incoming tickets. Their job is to try and suss out severity but also to try and resolve your issue before I, or any of the other Tier 2 technicians get out to see you. This is why checking your email is SUUUPER important, because the helpdesk tech is going to either escalate or they'll be asking you some followup questions.
>The TSD becomes an IO! What the hell does this mean, I hear you asking. So a TSD ticket we know is tier 1 support, right? You've had a back and forth with the helpdesk technician and they can't fix your issue. So now what happens is the helpdesk technician creates an entirely new ticket and attaches your original one to it. This new ticket is an IO (IT Operations) and these are the tickets I see and work on.
>You get a visit! So hopefully not too long after your ticket has been escalated you'll see my handsome mug or those other guys show up. And with some luck and skill, we fix your problem!
>You shower me with praise! Self explanatory! ... ;) But for serious, I genuinely appreciate the positive feedback and I am always happy to help.
Okay. So now you know the life cycle of a ticket. Now let's talk about why details are important.
When you put in that TSD ticket, all the ticket information, or lack thereof, is what is moved over to the IO ticket. The helpdesk tech isn't going to know what else to add or remove, generally. You know?
So the first thing that's super important is choosing the location. And I don't mean manually typing it in in some other field. There's a dropdown as show here and when you click on schools, each school is listed. So choose yours and then in the additional details field put in things like your room number, period times, etc.
"But I move between schools!" It's true you can only select one school, so I would say choose the school you're in when the issue happens. But in that additional details field let us know what other schools you go to, when, and what time. The more information you can provide, the better!
Add your location from the drop down
Give as much extra information as you can such as other location information, period times, etc
A can be reached can be huge. If you don't want to leave a cell number your classroom phone is also good
Screenshots or videos of an issue, if applicable, can be amazing in helping us out
Check your email for a response! The helpdesk tech may be trying to contact you and that's why I haven't seen your ticket on my IO board yet
Put your name in the summary. We know you are, I promise! Give us a summary of the issue, please and thank you.
Put in "Not working." "Software". "Need help." in the description box. These aren't really helpful. Dump info on us! It's better than the alternative. The more information we have, the better it is for us and could very well mean a faster resolution time for you
Throw your laptop out a window. Also if you do cry as mentioned in the first step of a ticket workflow, try to avoid getting your eye juices on the actual hardware, thaaaaanks!