Internal ticket handling guidelines

  • The first mandatory step of DMSU work on a ticket is understanding what is the reason of the reported problem. The outcome of the analysis is documented with the ticket, preferably as a response to the user. The analysis may or may not include thorough reproduction of the problem; it is left to common sense.
  • During the analysis DMSU also assesses the priority of the ticket (see bellow) and adjusts Type of problem and Ticket category fields eventually.
  • Typically, the analysis involves communication with the users. DMSU sets ticket state to Waiting-for-reply whenever expecting feedback by the user. It is foreseen GGUS will implement automatic switch to In-progress when the user answers.
  • DMSU expertise should cover most tickets. When necessary developers (i.e. the 3rd line support) can be involved for brief consultation informally (though they are not obliged to answer and they do so on their good will). As long as DMSU can make some progress, the control on the ticket is still kept within DMSU, i.e. the ticket is not reassigned to another support unit. On the other hand, tough issues when DMSU expertise runs out should be still reassigned.
  • If solution of the problem does not induce changes in code, documentation, default configuration etc., i.e. release of anything by the technology provider, DMSU closes the ticket.
  • Otherwise, the ticket is reassigned to the appropriate 3rd line support unit. In this case, the most recent comment (i.e. on reassignment) should contain a brief summary of the DMSU analysis on the ticket, pointing to what is wrong exactly, how to reproduce the problem etc., so that 3rd line supporters don't have to gather all information from the ticket correspondence, which tends to be rather long.
  • A special case are tickets that were solved in DMSU but they require comment by th 3rd line, i.e. to confirm feasibility of the solution. Those tickets should be closed in DMSU just with a comment indicating the 3rd line was contacted, and the 3rd line approached by other means. The standard GGUS workflow must not be used for this communication, in order to keep the statistics clean, mostly.
  • If a ticket is wrongly assigned to 3rd line support, i.e. the problem is quite simple and it should have been solved by DMSU preferably, then: 3rd line support reassign back the ticket to DMSU. A comment pointing to appropriate documentation or giving justification why this is a trivial issue must be given in this case.
  • Issues of broader impact should be properly documented as EGI DMSU Documentation Digests and EGI operations should be informed.



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