Help Desk Training - Create a Problem in WiscIT with the Problem Manager
This document details how to create a problem within WiscIT / Cherwell using the problem manager. THIS IS PRIMARILY UTILIZED FOR HELP DESK TRAINING PURPOSES AND HDQA USE.
Example Scenario: The Help Desk has had several calls and emails about issues accessing email on the web- through both the email tile in MyUW and through the site email.wisc.edu. The HDQA and Service Support determines it is appropriate to create a problem.
Reporting an Outage
- Check the outages page to make sure there is not already a reported outage for the service.
- Collect example cases of the issue as well as the time we began noticing the issue. Once we notice an issue, we should act promptly to report it.
- In the DoIT Operations "Support" chatroom, send a message with a brief description of the issues. Remember, being prompt is key here, but we need to be formal, descriptive, and clear. Be aware that often times the SNCC copies and pastes exactly what you say to the outages page, so you should be detailed and clear.
- Here is our example message: Good evening. Beginning around 6:35pm, the Help Desk began receiving calls reporting degraded performance of the Scholarships@UW application. For some users, the page takes 1 minute to load, and for others, it gives and error stating "This Scholarships@UW session has timed out. Please contact the Help Desk". I am able to replicate this issue in my MyUW portal. Example cases are 1978888, 1978852, and 1978887. I am creating a problem.
- Now we need to create the problem. Note: this is not the same as an outage, SNCC posts those. A problem is an internal record to track when a service outage. In WiscIT, use the problem manager to create the outage.
Creating a Problem in the Problem Manager
To create a problem, we will use the Problem Manager within the HDQA WiscIT Dashboard. This will be found along the top right side of the dashboard as seen below.
We will need to open the problem manager using the button titled "Open Problem Manager."
Once open, we will use the wizard to start creating our problem. Click the "**WIZARD** - Create New Problem" button within the Problem Manager.
Upon clicking the Wizard to create a new problem, you will be prompted to select a technical service for the problem. The technical service is the first part of a classification for a WiscIT case (there's technical service > category > subcategory). If you can classify the case correctly, you should be able to identify the technical service. Additionally, the handling documents within the KB should list the technical service. In this case, we are experiencing a mock Office 365 issue, so our technical service will be Office 365.
The prompt above requires you to enter the technical service exactly as written. In the case that you aren't sure how the service is written, you can click on the three dots "..." to the right of the text bar in the prompt above. This will open a search window, shown below, where you can search for the technical service you are looking for. Hitting the "OK" button once you find the technical service you desire will select it and fill in the prompt above, allowing you to continue to the next step.
After selecting the technical service, you will receive a prompt asking for a short description of the issue shown below. This should be kept brief as you won't be allowed to write text beyond the size of the text box. Since the Help Desk is receiving cases about email access, the short description will be "Issues accessing email on the web."
After selecting a short description, you will be prompted to enter a better, more in depth description of the problem. Here you will want to elaborate on which services or websites are affected, list error messages, users affected, and the approximate start time of the issue.
The last task when creating the problem will be to assign it to SNCC. The two options you can select from are SNCC-SysOps or SNCC-Network. Most problems will be assigned to SysOps. If you're ever unsure which to assign it to, select SysOps. SNCC-Network will be used more for network related problems whereas SysOps will handle most others. DoIT Operations Support may tell you which to assign it to as well. You can always ask in the Teams channel which group to assign it.
Notifying Others of the Problem
Now that the problem is created, we will have to notify other agents and technologists of it. First will be DoIT Operations Support. Immediately after assigning the problem to SNCC, a text box will pop up notifying you to inform Support. Simply copy and paste the relevant text from the text box shown below, and send it in the DoIT Operations Support Microsoft Teams channel. Once done, hit "OK."
You will then receive the prompt that the problem has been successfully created.
Now, we will want to add our newly created problem into the Problem Manager so other Help Desk agents are aware of the the issue. The Problem Manager should automatically open and ask you to link the problem (in which case you can skip the next couple of steps getting back to the Problem Manager), but on the off chance it doesn't, simply hit the home button in WiscIT to return to your dashboard. Once on the dashboard, we will once again navigate to the "Open Problem Manager" button.
We will now select the "Link Problem" button within the Problem Manager.
Selecting "Link Problem" will the pull up the list of open problems within WiscIT seen below. You can either search your problem number, or click "Problem ID" to search by problem numbers from Newest-> Oldest (or vice versa). The problem you created will likely be the newest created unless other groups are experiencing problems and have them created at the same time.
Once you've selected your problem and hit "OK," you will be asked to describe the problem once more. This time, however, is for the Problem Manager; it will be the description which agents see on their dashboard. It should be kept brief (similar to when we created a short description for the problem) as there is limited space in the Problem Manager to display information about the problem description. This short description will also be the title of the email template you will be prompted for next.
After selecting "OK" and describing the problem, you will then be prompted to enter an email template body. The template will be used by you, the HDQA, and email agents if customers message the Help Desk about the outage. It should thank them for notifying us of the issue, state that we are aware of the problem and that technologists are working to resolve the issue, and it should include a link to the outages page to inform the customer that they can keep track of outage updates on that page. If DoIT Operations Support asks you to gather any additional information from those experiencing the problem, make sure to include these questions in the email template as well. Note: you can always edit the template at a later time if you mistype or need to add additional information to it using steps here.
After the email body is done, the problem should be successfully linked to the Problem Manager. You can head back to the dashboard to double check that it was linked properly. If not, you can always head back through the process noted above to link the problem.
Don't forget to notify other Help Desk agents that you've created a problem.
Message and tag DoIT HD in Microsoft teams, and remind agents who come in to the Help Desk that there is an outage. Make sure to include the problem number, a description of the problem, a reminder to link relevant cases to the problem, and classifications for the relevant cases. An example message for teams can be found below:
Hi @DoIT HD, Problem 20158 has been created for those experiencing issues with email on the web. Users trying to access their email on the web (at either email.wisc.edu or through the email tile on MyUW (my.wisc.edu)) are receiving a 500 "website couldn't be found" error. If you have any of these calls or emails, please link the cases to Problem 20158 using the steps here (https://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/internal/42168), and classify the cases as Office 365 -> Office 365 -> Email. If you have any questions, please let me, the HDQA on schedule, or an FTE know!
Unlinking a Problem From the Problem Manager Once a Problem Has Been Closed
Once the outage has been closed, the HDQA will need to remove the problem from the Problem Manager so agent's aren't confused whether or not the problem is still ongoing. On top of this, the Problem Manager can only have 3 problems linked to it, so we want to clear any irrelevant and closed problems in case newer ones arise. It is additionally beneficial to find your message from above notifying agents and state below it (or edit it) and note that the problem has been resolved and the outage should be closed. If you're ever uncertain whether or not an issue is ongoing, you can either message DoIT Operations Support and ask in chat whether the outage is still ongoing, or you can search the problem number (in this case "20158") using the search bar in WiscIT in the top right. Once you search your problem number, simply open up the problem, and see if it has been set to the resolved status.
Now, to unlink the problem, we will once again need to open the Problem Manager from the HDQA dashboard.
Once open, we will select the "Unlink Problem" option in the Problem Manager.
After selecting this, you will be shown the (up to) three currently linked problems that are listed in the Problem Manager. Simply select which problem here you want to unlink and click on it.
Once clicked, you'll be provided a second option in which you will need to press "OK."
Then voilá, the problem will be unlinked from the Problem Manager. We can confirm this by seeing the empty slot in the Problem Manager. Additionally, the email template you create for the problem will pop up and will now have the visibility box be unselected. This makes it so the email will no longer appear to email agents and stops the HDQA's from needing to go manually delete the template themselves.
We can verify once more that the problem has been unlinked by checking the Problem Manager on the HDQA dashboard. The blank spot shows us that indeed, the problem we had created is no longer in the manager.
