[Discussion] workflow of support

[Sameer Verma]

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 4:50 PM, James Howard <james at partimus.org> wrote:
>
>> We have two or three support models: 1) Grant goes by Everrett every
>> Wednesday or so and keeps an eye on things. 2) Christian keeps an eye
>> on KIPP and CACS. They call him when something breaks. 3) Grant goes
>> by CACS occasionally, talks to teachers, and finds out what's broken.
>>
>
>
> It's actually been quite a bit more complex than that, involving a lot of
> different volunteers, during different periods, who communicate with many
> different teachers via many different channels.
>
>
>
> It's been suggested before that we set up a trouble ticket system. Perhaps
> deploy the package on some of our recently acquired web hosting and then
> direct teachers there. They can file comprehensive reports about their
> tech questions and problems. Partimus volunteers would then take ownership
> of each problem and track progress using this system until completion.
>
> It's also been suggested that this sort of system would not be adopted by
> the teachers. That nothing beats good old fashioned face time at regular
> intervals. They teachers describe their problems to you in person, and you
> schedule time to work with them on the problem on site.
>
>
> I imagine whatever approach we take could involve both software and
> personal communication.
>

I agree. A combination of both would serve corner cases. We use RT
(http://www.bestpractical.com/rt/) in OLPC, which allows for tickets
to be created simply via e-mail. However, in a situation where the
computers don't work or get online, it becomes a problem to report the
problem. I don't know if RT has a phone interface...

Anyway, I think it would be a good academic exercise for some of our
students to explore and map out some of these issues.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Information Systems
San Francisco State University
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
http://is.sfsu.edu/
http://olpcsf.org/