Re: Web Tech Support

From Al Macintyre

Perhaps further discussion on some details should be taken off-line

I'd be interested in more info on people using IBM's e-performance services 
... I have been reading up a bit on the deal.

PM/400-e needs Service Agent
Alert/400 needs Service Agent
Service Agent needs Service Director
All of this needs dual modem on ECS line (we have that).

I can go into more detail if you interested, but basically we capture data on 
our AS/400 & it is communicated to IBM via ECS line & IBM has software to 
analyse the submissions & give us back standard reports, which we can look at 
on a web page tailored to our company & some of this is free.  We have not 
yet been doing this yet ... reason is so busy on so many things.

We have been using OSG from SSA, or trying to use it ... it can be daunting 
to figure out how to navigate it ... you have to be a BPCS account of SSA & 
they issue you a password, which is case sensitive.

Basically when people report bugs that SSA deems worthy to fix, they announce 
via OSG when the bug fixes are ready to download & we are supposed to go to 
OSG & search by program to see what bug fixes are available for the programs 
we having problems with, and then there is a whole lot more stuff there 
related to documentation, which is not one of SSA's strong points.

I think the BPCS site with the most information about add-ons that we can get 
is UPI
http://www.unbeatenpathintl.com/services.html

Click on Bells & Whistles then on Other

I have told them that we need to have a page of links were we click on type 
of application & get taken to the relevant Other or whatever because unless 
someone looks at all the pages in the site, most of their stuff is a big 
secret.

You might also put this type of question to the various ERP groups like 
MAPICS & other popular AS/400 applications & see how this scenario tracks by 
major package or even industry.

I can see that this method of computer hardware / software supplier service 
to  customers has great potential for saving the vendors money & getting 
wonderful info to their customers, but the state of art seems to me to have a 
lack of sensitivity to user-friendly needs on many sites I have tried to use.

Are there customers who do not have the latest version of Java Netscape M$ 
whatever & do you want to serve them or insist that everyone keep getting the 
latest versions of whatever?  No, many sites do not want to devote the 
trouble to serve customers whose employees have older browsers, or are not 
using the one of the big four most popular browsers that they choose to cater 
to, or are not interested in spending the bucks to get at fancy graphics at 
high speed - I think simplest solution is to have a LEGACY page ... plain 
text no graphics that works for everything except what existed before before 
before www ... say support 20 year old software & everything since & some 
employee home PCs do have real old stuff.  This is a very common problem, but 
I have found sites that believe in legacy support.

Do you have customers who have a particular version of your product, running 
on a particular platform, who are interested in only a particular portion of 
your total mass of data (of course) & do you want them to wade through all 
the menus every time they visit or do you want to make it easy for them to 
get to the stuff that is relevant just for them?  Apparently not at SSA - 
lets hope Gore buy out improves this.

When filling out some form, don't you think there should be help support on 
what is wanted in the form ... during the Y2K scare I visited 
http://wwwyr2k.raleigh.ibm.com = Y2K readiness of IBM peripherals

The form said that we key in the numbering of our green screen, printer, 
modem, remote controller, etc, for a report on Y2K readiness & what needed to 
upgrade it, but one of the fields needed some CODE to be entered & no where 
on the site could I find an explanation of what needed to be in that code ... 
I tried our IBM customer #, our AS/400 model #, all sorts of guesses ... I 
had various co-workers with different browsers look at what help they could 
see different from me ... no answer to e-mail sent that particular site ... I 
asked our IBM reps ... no one could figure out how to work the site ... we 
could fill out the whole form except that one field, so we could never submit 
our peripherals for answers.

Home computer support often seems like
"click here if your modem is not working"
(if your modem is not working you cannot even get here)
and when I had modem troubles, my modem manufacture tech support was almost 
exclusively via modem

There's several different kinds of tech support needed

There are the inexperienced computer users who ought to take their troubles 
to their in-house MIS who need to tell management to institute some 
standardized computer literacy class support
Those people need to talk to people who are more diplomats than computer 
experts

Then there are the people who know 95% of the problem resolution & need to 
get just that little bit that is missing & the vendor needs excellent 
infrastructure to match up the right person expertise with the nature of the 
problem, or else lotta time wasted spinning wheels communicating the basics

That's why I have a standard fax form for my people to use when contacting 
tech support ... it has all the hardware OS software version gobbledegook 
that end users will never understand but tech support needs to know, then in 
the body of the fax the users explain whatever problem they having with their 
application
In my next iteration, I think I will add instructions how to get at 2nd level 
help, which my users always forget, with a check box saying whether that info 
is included with that fax ... they will never check it but some of them will 
use 2nd level help while preparing the fax & suddenly see the solution, so 
the fax won't need to go out

> Subj:  Web Tech Support
>  From:    pjones@as400network.com (Pam Jones)
>  
>  Anybody had experience with online tech support for apps? 
>  Looks like what's
>  out there is mostly email problem submission, FAQs, how to contact phone
>  support, white papers and such. A few companies offer downloadable updates
>  or let you search the same knowledgebase their phone support people use.
>  Looks like IBM has the most sophisticated offering with Electronic Services
>  for AS/400 (new last October, see http://www.as.ibm.com/asus/mus49r1.html)
>  but it's only for people with maintenance or support line contracts.
>  
>  Just curious whether anyone's tried using online support of any kind,
>  especially this new one from IBM, and what it was like.
>  
>  Pam Jones
>  Industry Editor
>  NEWS/400
>  615-391-5415
>  pjones@as400network.com

Al Macintyre  ©¿©
http://www.cen-elec.com MIS Manager Programmer & Computer Janitor
http://www.whma.org = our nitch industry has a large committee searching for 
ErPdMes products right for WHM without work-arounds, which for many members 
resemble a snipe hunt - if you are in this software business & want to fix 
your product so it will not be mistaken for what your competition has been 
doing, then you might want to join our great game.

Y2K is not the end of my universe, but a re-boot of that old Chinese curse.
The road to success is always under construction.
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong.
When you want it cheap - you get what you paid for.
When in doubt, read the manual, assuming you can find the right one.
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