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Info for techies needs detail inappropriate to end users.

There are many tools that can help streamline the process.

Reporting standards ... I have some users who tell me they ran some program, they got some crazy error message (they SAY that "crazy error message" not WHAT it was) ... I run the program, can't get it to fail, tell them that I need a screen print of the error message before I can proceed. I have given up trying to train people to put cursor on error message and press the help key.

TIPS ... at one employer I would constantly get complaints about "garbage on my screen" in which 90% of the time it was a handful of samer messages, with things like printer needed forms change or was out of paper, or the item # they had keyed into inquiry was invalid. So I created a booklet titled "garbage on my screen" with pairs of pages. On left side was illustration of screen with error message or whatever. On right side was instructions what to do if this matched your situation. The frequency of that complaint dropped precipitously.

Company e-mail can be used to send EVERYONE something. This should be used in EXTREME MODERATION when there is a lull in work volume, to give people tips on common problem areas. The e-mail support software should have info on the volume of e-mail flowing through the company, so you know when to avoid doing such a broadcast.

Programming standards ... every output needs to name iteslf & maybe library, in a place where easy to extract ... last year I generated a bunch of ad hoc green bar reports, used Ops Nav to import into Excel which got sent the auditors. Now they are asking for the same reports again. Without name of program, the easiest way for me to figure out what they are talking about is for them to transmit to me a copy of what they got last year.

For the past 20+ years I have been working with packaged software that comes with its own standards. In the first 20+ years of my career I worked with home brew, and developed my own standards, which were expressed as guidelines or goals, since most software at any new employer lacked any standards. Basically I applied my standards any time writing a new program or doing modification on a prior one.

Programming standards serve multiple goals, the main ones for me being
* If an end user has a problem, they identify where the problem is, and the programmer knows what they talking about in minutes, instead of it taking days to figure out what they talking about
* When we study some program that has an alleged problem, without documentation, it can take us days to figure out what it is doing, let alone diagnose the problem, but with proper documentation it can take us less than an hour, even with a program that is 100,000 lines of code. Thus, the first time we go into some program that lacks proper documentation, adding that is critical, to help us the next time there is a problem
* Fortunately, it is pretty rare, but sometimes one modification causes some other problem, so every program has a diary up front where there is a code associated with what did we do for what reason, then that code is a comment where the modification happened, so we can then search for all the places in the code that got changed by some modification. For every 50 modifications I make, maybe 1 needs to be reversed.

In more recent times, I have tried to apply SOA to the evolving standards.
Basically, if we need to have the same subroutine in 20 programs, it is faster when developing one program to just copy the subroutine, but if we later need to modify the 20 programs in a series of 20 iterations, it is a heck of a lot more efficient if the one subroutine is one place.

We can use object list tools to cross-index
sort by description of program, what menus it on, but need to consolidate all

My boss was asking me to rerun a query. He was using a description.
Turns out he was misusing the description, and it was a program, not a query.

Basically MANY users, managers, auditors etc. refer to inquiries and reports by the description that shows up at the top of page or screen. We techies need to have a cross index that will tell us what program or whatever that is in what library.

Many times end users have speculations what went wrong, that upon IT investigation may determine that their speculation was off base, so there's the question of HOW DO YOU KNOW the problem is as described?

Then there is the issue of seriousness.
How long can we live with this broke?
Emergency ... our corporate dept budget will pay the overtime to rush fix this
Estimate $ consequences to the company if we continue to exist without this getting resolved

A FAQ or WIKI is a great idea for co-workers to share tips how to be more productive, and post general questions, but it does not solve all sins.

In enterprises governed by certain industry regulations, you need to have some kind of change software management solution to track who approved software changes, and how the solution was verified to be correct. There are multiple soultions out there for this, and many of them come with tools to assist in the overall process.

ISO certification exists for software quality, help desk, computer security, etc.

Has anyone taking a step back and determined what their requirements are
for application/system documentation?



Our documentation is all over the map and I want to set a guideline for
documentation to be used with the end users and support staff. I have
some ideas but was hoping for someone to have put this need in writing
somewhere. Doing the google search or searching technical writing sites
has proven fruitless so far.



I'm thinking of things like:



Brief Description

Business function

How launched/where found

Common name, nicknames



How to Identify the Application

Screen

URL

Printout



Technical Architecture

Server

Application Server

Interdependencies



Workflow Description if applicable



Common problems



Problem Determination Checklist





The intent is to come up with something that will assist help desk
technicians and eventually end users in supporting an application. So
much of what we do is based upon OTJ training and assumed osmosis.









Michael Crump



Manager, Computing Services

Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc.

1509 S. Macedonia Ave.

Muncie, IN 47302

765.741.7696

765.741.7012 f


Make it too tough for the enemy to get in and you can't get out.

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