Announcing New Ticketing System
Author:
Al Harlow
Posted:
11/6/2009 4:00:00 PM
Category:
Misc
Tags:
Ticketing, help desk, tasks
Over the past 30 years I have developed hundreds of new products and services for both industry and the consumer. No matter what the project, from developing plastic mailbox products, to building new robotic machines to paint from phones and buses, to now building web sites, Internet services, web and phone applications -- managing projects, from the simple to complex, has always been a challenge.
I have tried and used every kind of project management system. Back in the old days it was simply done with a pen and paper. Then with the onset of the computer, Multiplan and Chart (predecessors to Excel) were invented by Microsoft and I did some amazing things in those days with these applications on a Mac. Then MS Project was introduced, which I found took me more time to manage than the projects sometimes did. I found that I really liked working with FileMaker Pro, which introduced me to relational databases – which is what really turned me on to programming, pre-Internet.
The problem was that with each new project came a new set of names, contacts and tasks to outline, get approved and completed.
When I started iNamics, I was looking for the ideal system to help us track tasks and project management efficiently and effectively. When we started using Microsoft’s SharePoint, first here internally and then with our customers, I thought it was the cat’s meow. Over time however, we have found that our customers find it hard to do business with us when asked to use it. This became more apparent when several customers repeatedly called to ask us for their username, password and SharePoint address again. On our end, SharePoint is a lot of work to set up, and if we don’t all remember to set our alerts, assigned tasks could potentially go unnoticed. Until recently, I neglected to recognize that insisting on using SharePoint really wasn't working for everyone as I thought it would.
So in our line of work, we needed a better solution. Everyone wants to use email. It seems simple enough but in reality the problem is that when customers send someone inside our organization an email with a task, assignment, or request, there is always the chance that this will get lost. The risk is that since only one person sees the task because the email is sent to a single individual, it could go un-noticed. This has happened several times, and with one customer, it unfortunately escalated to the point where they felt they had to proactively remind us, constantly. Internally, emails to individuals are just hard to manage and the work performed is ultimately untraceable. Relying on email to track and assign tasks to individuals caused too many problems!
Many customers just want to call us with a change or an assignment. In order for us to keep track of these requests, we have disciplined ourselves to use SharePoint to assign the tasks. Ultimately, we found that since we have a lot of sites, this was getting more and more difficult for us to do quickly, it made too much work for us and was a potential source for errors. We found ourselves leaving our chairs too much and interrupting our crew too often. It just wasn’t working.
Several months ago, we set out to find something which would work better for us for keeping track of tasks and assignments; something that would make it easier for everyone – but more importantly, easier for our customers who simply want to send us an email or make a phone call with instructions or requests.
I am happy to announce today that we have a new ticketing system which solves the issues:
1. A simple email can now be sent to one address, from one of us here in the office or from a customer, and that email goes into our new ticket tracking system. So, from now on, if you have something for us to do, you won’t have to log into a website or remember anything but a simple email address.
2. If a customer sends any individual an email with a request, task or assignment, we can then internally just forward it to our ticketing system, which then places it in-line and everyone is notified.
This means…
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No more logging into a web portal or having to remember usernames and passwords.
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No more do customers have to send a long list of instructions to individuals, hoping they are received in the context of assignments and tasks.
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No more aggravation.
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No more time wasted and no more dropped assignments or forgotten tasks.
For many, this will be a good solution. Still for others, we will continue to use SharePoint as we have been because it keeps track of much more, such as links, documents and ideas. SharePoint provides many more capabilities than just tracking task assignments.
To learn more about our new ticketing system, please contact us. If you want, we even have documentation available for you to read – but I think you’ll find that this is so simple, it won’t require you to read a thing. I look forward to sharing the information with you and letting you know more about how our ticketing system works, when the time comes.
As one of our clients recently put it, "we want to make it easy for you to do business with us".