CA Service Management

  • 1.  Communities: Posting Suggestions for Service Management Community.

    Posted Jul 31, 2012 01:59 AM

    Hello Everyone,

    Thank you for using the CA Service Management Community.

    Please help us to help you, by including as much information around your query as possible.

     

    For general information on using the Communities, such as "How to respond to threads?" see Communities: Welcome to the new CA Communities.

     

     

    Posting Suggestions for CA Service Management Community

     

     

    ____________________________________________________________________________________________

     


    The Posting Rules (SIMPLIFIED)

     

     

    * Always add product name and version to your post.

     

    * Tell us what your AIM is.

     

    * Describe THE PROBLEM/QUERY. Clearly.

     

    * Tell us WHERE in the product your query relates to.

     

    * Add SCREENSHOTS to give context.

     

    * English is the board language.

     

    "Would someone understand my question, if they are NOT familiar with my specific system and business?"

     

    ____________________________________________________________________________________________

     

     


    The Posting Rules - Useful Additional Information

     

    ENVIRONMENT DETAILS
    * Product name. << Always!
    * Product version. << Always!


    * Key relevant environment factors for the issue:
    - Database type and version. Local or remote?
    - Operating system type and version.
    - Browser type and version.
    - Mail system details (POP3/SMPT, mail software type).

    - Note - CA Remote Engineer and other diagnostic logging should only be provided directly to CA Support, and not CA Communities, as they will contain client confidential information.

    * Relevant architecture details.
    - Are servers remote? Firewalls? WAN?
    - Is virtualisation involved? (VMware, Hyper-V)
    - Is clustering involved?

    QUERY DETAILS
    * Brief description. An overview. << Always!
    * What are you expecting or would like to happen?
    * What is happening instead?
    * Business need: Describe business end you are trying to accomplish. Without referencing specific product functionality, if appropriate.
    * Business urgency: When do you need it by? Casual query or desperate plight?

    TROUBLE-SHOOTING
    One approach if there is a problem, is to try and identify the key "object" and "deviation" and then to ask the What, Where, When, Who, and Frequency style questions.

    Even a partial list will help to describe the problem to other community members. Sometimes the questions are meaningful, and sometimes not, depending on what the "object" and "deviation" specifically are.

    Begin with "Query Details." Then drill down to:

    WHAT:
    What is the object?
    What is the deviation?

    WHERE:
    Where is the object located?
    Where is the deviation located?

    WHEN:
    When was the object?
    When was the deviation.

    WHO:
    Who uses the object?
    Who experiences the deviation?

    EXTENT/FREQUENCY:
    Is the object shrinking/stable/growing?
    Is the deviation shrinking/stable/growing?

    The "IS NOT" sieve. Then revisit the whole list above and ask where that same condition "is not" occurring. In Service Desk Manager, that typically falls into cases like this:
    * Other users
    * Another installation
    * Prior to a point in time/change

     

    Turning the above into a one paragraph long, problem overview, may help someone come to the case more quickly.

    Finally, what have you tried, and what happened?

    I'm not suggesting that you perform the deep dive for every, or even most queries that come to the Communities - but do parse through the list and ask the key question:


    "Would someone understand my question, if they are NOT familiar with my specific system and business?""


    OTHER RESOURCES

    CA Technologies Support. Via support.ca.com or your local centre.

    Good for product specific queries, questions regarding documentation, error messages, break-fix scenarios.

     

    CA Technologies, Services, Architects or CAT Business Partners.

    Good for on-site assistance, business planning and procedures, feature choice, architecture design and out-of-Support items such as customisation, undocumented procedures. (Plus more!)

     

    Support.ca.com and MyCA

    Good for self-service, including installation media, patches, searching across all published documentation for Problems, Solutions, documentation, knowledge documents etc. Also the place to go to log issues via the web. Has a "Chat" feature to message on-line engineers quick queries.

     

    Global Communities

    Here, of course. Good for interacting with other users, administrators, CA Technologies staff, Business Partners and whichever interested parties are online.


    Happy posting and trouble-shooting!

    Kyle_R.

     

    Message was edited by: Kyle R Major update of the original post, since moving to the new forums. Changed title from "Help us to help you! *** POSTING SUGGESTIONS ***" to "Communities: Posting Suggestions for Service Management Community."  so that it fits better with the rest of the Community. Removed these prior status updates: UPDATE: 24th Dec 2012. * Please use English as the main language on this board. With dozens of languages among our customers, it will be too confusing otherwise! * Please remove large email reply chains from posts, as it needlessly obscures content. UPDATE: 7th Jan 2013. * A screenshot is usually very helpful. It shows everyone exactly what you are seeing. UPDATE: 22nd Feb 2013. * See thread How do I know my ServiceDesk Version? if you need assistance identifing which SDM version you are running. UPDATE: 25th Feb 2013. * Moved thread "My Post is unanswered/Needs further responses" to here. * Retitled some posts so that tree view is more readable. Content untouched. UPDATE: 20th Aug 2013. * If contacting CAT Support, use the CA Remote Engineer tool. Please don't post that content to this Community. UPDATE: 16th Jun 2014. * Message was edited by: KYLE R. Corrected formatting when moving to new Communities platform.



  • 2.  Thanks!

     
    Posted Jul 31, 2012 03:47 PM
    Thanks for all your help Kyle! :grin:


  • 3.  Nice one.

    Posted Aug 10, 2012 04:12 AM
    Nice one Kyle.

    This will hopefully make it easy to understand the queries\posts and get to the solution quicker.

    Keep flying the CA flag high...:wink:


  • 4.  *** POSTING SUGGESTIONS *** The Posting Rules (SIMPLIFIED)

    Posted Jan 07, 2013 12:42 AM

    Hi All,

    Please don't forget the Posting Suggestions. They help others understand the issue you are experiencing more quickly.
    I've added an update for some new things that came up.


    And if you've only got time to read a short post, here it is:


    The Posting Rules (SIMPLIFIED)


    * Tell us WHAT VERSION of Service Desk Manager/Product you are using.

    * Tell us WHERE in the product your query relates to.

    * SCREENSHOTS usually help give context.

    * Describe THE PROBLEM/QUERY. Clearly.

    * Tell us what the AIM is.


    Leaving out the version happens all of the time, but it is really important.

    Thanks, Kyle_R.



  • 5.  Idea Board - Not responded to

    Posted Jan 07, 2013 12:20 PM
    Thanks Kyle, your posts are always thoughtful and helpful.

    In the same line of "Helping us to help you", CA has encouraged the Community to submit ideas but I don't feel that CA has held up their part of the equation. I see popular ideas that have been on the ideation board for more than 18 months and nary a comment made by CA as to when or if they will address the idea. Please send this up the chain of command - Providing a suggestion box that you do not act upon only placates those people who have no suggestions.

    Lindsay

    (I ask other Community members to vote here to show their support.)


  • 6.  RE: Idea Board - Not responded to

    Posted Jan 07, 2013 05:52 PM

    lindsay_estabrooks wrote:

    Thanks Kyle, your posts are always thoughtful and helpful.
    Thanks Lindsay. Likewise!

    lindsay_estabrooks wrote:

    In the same line of "Helping us to help you", CA has encouraged the Community to submit ideas but I don't feel that CA has held up their part of the equation. I see popular ideas that have been on the ideation board for more than 18 months and nary a comment made by CA as to when or if they will address the idea. Please send this up the chain of command - Providing a suggestion box that you do not act upon only placates those people who have no suggestions.

    Lindsay

    (I ask other Community members to vote here to show their support.)
    I'll take the comments on the feedback/rate of progress on the Ideas up internally.

    Dale Clark did post a response on another thread on a similar topic which I've moved here: CA comment on ideas.

    I'll ask that we continue on with Ideas Board at that thread. We'll keep this current thread just to do with plain old posting suggestions.

    Other Community Members - I encourage you to follow Lindsay's example, and contribute to the above thread, even if just by "thumbs up."

    Thanks, Kyle_R.


  • 7.  *** POSTING SUGGESTIONS *** SDM Version number.

    Posted Feb 21, 2013 04:48 PM
    See a great post from Nas How do I know my ServiceDesk Version? if you need assistance identifing which SDM version you are running.

    Thanks, Kyle_R.


  • 8.  *** POSTING SUGGESTIONS *** Help! My Post is Unanswered/Need More!

    Posted Feb 24, 2013 06:18 PM

    Hello Everyone,


    Request:


    If you can help out on one of the "Unanswered/Open" threads, please do so.

    If you have a post that has been open for a while,
    please check if you can flag it as "Answered." I only went back to early November to follow through posts. If your query is older than this, you may wish to update it to bring it to the top of the list.


    My Post is Unanswered/Needs further responses:


    1) Consider updating the post to bump it to the top of the active list, if a few pages back.

    2) Has a response been given, but it doesn't cover your query? Some posters may see a response on a thread as answering the query, so if it doesn't, then please update the thread explaining why and giving further information.

    3) Was your original query clear? Posts that are clear, concise and within the realm of experience of other board users get quicker responses. See the Posting Suggestions.

    4) Is your query deep, highly technical or otherwise "scary?" Then definitely follow (3). Having more information will make the query more accessible and understandable to more users.

    5) Is this the right channel? Consider also logging a Support issue, starting a Chat session with a CAT Technologies engineer, or engaging with CAT Services/CAT Business Partner? Education course?
    Not sure? Then log it here! We'll be able to advise best channel if we don't have ideas on the problem itself.

    Thanks, Kyle_R.

    ADMIN: Kyle_R. 25 Feb 2013. Moved above post here, to keep it all together.



  • 9.  RE: Help us to help you! *** POSTING SUGGESTIONS ***

    Posted Aug 19, 2013 09:59 PM
    Hello Everyone,

    If contacting Support regarding an issue, make sure to use the CA Remote Engineer tool.

    This is an excellent easy way to gather most of the information that Support needs.

    However, please don't post that here to this Community. The information is more detailed than we need and will probably reveal more about your system setup than should be shared in a public forum.

    Still, it is good practice to gather it and be familiar with the contents - because it is often these items that will help with your own trouble-shooting.

    Thanks, Kyle_R.


  • 10.  Re: Communities: Posting Suggestions for Service Management Community.

    Posted Jun 25, 2014 11:51 PM

    Hello All,

     

    I've done a revamp of the original "Posting Suggestions" thread, as we've moved to the new Communities.

     

    Old name: * * * POSTING SUGGESTIONS * * * Help us to help you.

    New name: Communities: Posting Suggestions for Service Management Community.

     

    Same principle applies though - make sure that your query has enough information that Community members can understand it, and have enough detail to come to grips with it.

     

    Thanks, Kyle_R.