6Mar09 Put in a ticket. What is that?

Ticket, Work Order, Service Request, etc. We all know what these things are and how much they help our daily lives. The problem is, some of our end user refuse to use these systems and instead fall into one of these categories.

  • The Caller – This is the person that will call your direct line no matter what the problem is. Of course, you are not answering because you are working on something mildly important for someone else. You think to yourself, “I will let it go to voicemail and create a ticket for them when I am done with this.” Two minutes later you notice, no voicemail, must to be important…but, wait, they are calling again. “Still busy,” you think to yourself. Still no voicemail, must not be important. Five minutes later, you hear someone approach your cube…”Is your damn phone broken?” Sigh.
  • The Visitor – This is the person who visits your desk constantly while you are working on getting the CEOs new laptop setup before he goes out of town for a conference. “Can you come take a look at my computer? I am having trouble sending this funny picture to my daughter.” or “Can you come install solitaire on my laptop? I need something to do on my flight to the Bahamas that leaves in 1 hour.”
  • The Friday 5 O’clocker – A combination of the above two examples but they interrupt you walking out the door on Friday at 5PM. The unfortunate thing is, their problem is usually serious, but they’ve known about it since Wednesday. *slits wrists*
  • The Opportunist – This person will not call, visit or submit a ticket. Sounds good, huh? But wait…while you are walking down the hall to your next task, they spot you. “Hey Jason! I need your help! Can you come take a look at this?” “Actually no, I am going to fix the payroll system so you can sit their and get paid to browse PureRomance.com all day.” Is my face red yet?

How do we get our end users to use these systems that help us help them more efficiently? Well, I just may have some suggestions for you.

  • Refuse to answer the phone. Unless its the CEO or your boss, I think you are pretty safe on this one. If they leave a message, put in a ticket for them and delete the message. They will see the email that a ticket was created and hopefully get the hint. If they visit you like “The Caller”, just tell them you just got back to your desk. They don’t know any better.
  • Tell them, “Put in a ticket, please.” It seems so simple but yet it isn’t. Most users will push the issue, like it is a huge inconvenience to send an email to the TrackIT email address. Just tell them, “I’m working on a high priority item for the CEO (or my boss) right now. Put in a ticket so I can get to after and I don’t forget about it.” The forgetting part is usually what kicks them into gear. They don’t want you to forget about them.
  • Tell them you need their assistance. The Friday 5 o’clocker is the guy that wants you to work on his problem while he packs his shit up to leave for the weekend. Oh no! Tell him, “I need you to be here while I work on this. I will need you to log into the system and run some reports to verify that it is working. This will probably take about 2 hours.” Usually, after hearing about this they say, “Oh. It’s not that important. Wanna just work on it on Monday?” You say, “Of course! I need you to put in a ticket for that.” Suckers.

The key to all of these is to be consistent. Reward the people that do it right by entering a ticket, and when they do it wrong it takes longer for the issues to get resolved. You are not being a jerk, you are doing your job as best you can and need end-user cooperation to do it.

2 Comments Posted by Jason Beebe in How-To
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5Mar09 How-To: Enterprise Configuration Manager Administration – Discovery Rules

This is the first post in a series dedicated to Configuresoft‘s Enterprise Configuration Manager. While the included documentation for this product is spectacular, I have found the lack of step-by-step to be lacking. I have also found the free resources on the internet (blogs, forums, etc.) are pretty hush about this product. Hopefully, my contributions here will help you get started with administering ECM in your organization.

In the following example I will describe creating an Active Directory Discovery Rule.

From the ECM Documentation:

Before you can gather data from the machines in your enterprise, ECM has to “discover” them. When you create a Discovery Rule, you can discover every possible machine, or you can apply a variety of filters to fine-tune and limit the machines that are discovered.

1. To start, login to your ECM web console as an admin.

Expand Administration->Machines Manager and choose Discovery Rules.
3 How To: Enterprise Configuration Manager Administration Discovery Rules

2. Click the Add button to start the Discovery Rule wizard. The wizard will walk you through naming the rule, choosing the discovery method and applying filters.

3. Create a name and description for your new discovery rule. The name is required the description is not. Click Next.

4. On the Discovery Method page, choose “By Active Directory”. You also have the 3 other options; the descriptions of which are conveniently located right next to the selection. You can also have the discovery check for the existence of an ECM agent when it runs. This is useful if the machine name was changed or in my case, you just re-installed ECM from scratch. Click Next to proceed.
4 How To: Enterprise Configuration Manager Administration Discovery Rules

5. The wizard now asks for your Active Directory domain information. You can choose your domain by clicking on the “…” button or just type it in manually. You also have the option of discovering from an Organizational Unit or to discover sub-domains. Click Next.

6. The next windows gives you more options to filter the discovery. If you need to define a filter, select the “only discover machines in…” and configure your query. I used the default option to discover all machines in the screenshot below. It is probably a good idea to Exclude Disabled Machines so as not to use up your licenses needlessly. Click Next to continue.
5 How To: Enterprise Configuration Manager Administration Discovery Rules

7. At the final screen, you are given the option to run your new rule now and also to license and install the agent on the machines that are discovered. I will be covering licensing machines and installing agents in a future post. Click Finish to complete the wizard.

Congratulations. You have now created a discovery rule in ECM. Part 2 will describe how to schedule your new discovery rule and license the newly discovered machines. Stay tuned!

2 Comments Posted by Jason Beebe in How-To
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5Mar09 Top 5 Things Windows 7 Does Better Than Vista


What better way to start off my new blog than a Top 5 list. After playing with Windows 7, I have listed the things that this OS does to top it’s predecessor.

5. It hasn’t changed much
Wait, what? Yes, M$ kept the aesthetics pretty much the same. The only changes will actually make using Windows 7 easier to the layman. I hear sighs of relief from all the Help Desk guys out there.

4. Screen Resolution without the Carpal Tunnel
In Vista, it took 2 years and several Vicodin to adjust your screen resolution. Windows 7 saves us the medical bill with 2 simple clicks. Check out the “Screen Resolution” item on the desktop’s right click menu.

3 Top 5 Things Windows 7 Does Better Than Vista
The fish’s name is Beta. Isn’t he cute?

3. Document Preview
Windows Explorer has a much improved Preview Pane. Now you can browse that memo that your 8 bosses want you to read without actually opening it.

2 Top 5 Things Windows 7 Does Better Than Vista

2. Oh Snap! Snapable Windows!
Remember in Vista, when you had to restore the two windows you wanted to display side by side, then right click on the task bar to tell it to Show Windows Side by Side? Screw that, now you just have to drag a window to the left or right of the screen (until it shows the dark blue overlay) and release the mouse. On a side note, if you drag the window to the top, it allows you to maximize the window.

1. The Dockable Task Bar. Sorry Mac fans.
If anyone out there likes the MacOS Dock, you will like this feature. Windows 7 allows you to “Pin” an application to the taskbar for easy recall later. All you have to do is open the application, right click on it’s taskbar button and choose “Pin this program to taskbar”.

1 Top 5 Things Windows 7 Does Better Than Vista

2 Comments Posted by Jason Beebe in Cool Stuff
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