Computing : Creating a IT ticket best practices

When you encounter a problem and need support from the IT staff, you can help with following a few best practices to ease the error identification and solving.

Support addresses for getting help

Best Practices

To identify an issue, some basic information are always necessary

  • a helpful title: short summary of the problem
  • priority of the problem for your work: ranging from observation, annoyance, obstacle to a serious emergency
  • who: your username at DESY
  • who²: your affected job IDs, if jobs have been failing
  • when: the time(s) the issue has been observed
  • where: the server(s) on which you notice the problem
  • where²: the paths of files involved, i.e., where you have been trying to read from or to write to
  • what: the storyline of your problem - what did you actually wanted to achieve, what you did to reach that goal, what outcome you wanted to see and what result you got instead
  • what²: your software environment - how did you set up your environment, which versions of tools you have been using
  • what³: the basic steps for the IT staff to replicate the problem
  • additional comments or observations that might be helpful for debugging


Template for a ticket

Title

Priority: (question)

Username: (question)

Time: (question)

If Batch Jobs what Job ID(s): (question)

Computers/Servers affected: (question)

Files/Paths affected: /afs/desy.de/... , /nfs/dust/... etc. (question)

Short description of the problem: (question)

Software Environment and versions: (question)

Steps to replicate the problem: (question)

Additional Comments: (question)