How Not To Break Stuff – IT Ticket Help Requests

by Sarah Schlobohm

I work in analytics / data science (or whatever the kids are calling it these days) for a large company. We’re very fortunate to be able to be able to work from home in the current situation, and more than ever, we rely heavily on our colleagues in IT to keep the system running.

If you’re in the same situation as me, spare a thought right now for the front-line workers in your own business – the IT Teams. When technology goes wrong, and it will, they are the ones who can help you put it right.

One of the things that you can to do help is to fill out an IT ticket properly when things go wrong. This even more important now, because IT don’t have the capacity to call and chat with you to diagnose your issue. Try to give them as many tools as possible to help you up front.

I hadn’t realized how important this was until I had a discussion with a senior IT leader. My team had been complaining about overall system speed and issues, and IT told us that part of the problem was that people weren’t filling out tickets properly to request help. IT couldn’t even start to diagnose the issue.

I couldn’t believe it was that bad, but he smirked and sent me a copy of a recent ticket. 

The form looked roughly like this: 

Username: servername

User ID: servername

Server name: servername 

[Lots of blank required fields] 

Problem: system is slow 

Fair enough. We can do better.

Here are some tips:

Be patient

You’re probably experiencing long wait times right now, and the help tickets are probably undergoing triage. If your application is a bit slow, it’s going to be lower in the queue than someone who is trying to set up to work from home for the first time. If your complaint is that the video chat client is slow, that’s probably because the system is suddenly under a lot more strain than usual. Escalate appropriately if it’s preventing you from doing your work, but be kind.

Submit the ticket

Although it can be tempting to go directly to your favourite IT person for help, most teams need to manage their work through some kind of ticketing system. This lets them balance the load across the team, track their work, prioritise work, and identify trends. When the system works, it works better for everyone.

Follow the instructions

If the form has instructions, please follow them clearly. The forms are usually designed with a purpose in mind. If you have to fill details about your machine, or the specific software you are using, do so. Slow down. Treat this like an exam, and read the instructions very carefully.

This seems like a really basic thing to say, yet I can’t stress it enough. Follow the instructions. Don’t tick the box that says ‘I have done the appropriate training’ when you haven’t. If your ticket gets bounced back to you because you haven’t followed instructions, it’s not fair to complain about how long it takes to get your problem resolved. They can’t really start working on solving the problem until they have all the information they need to do so.

Say clearly what you were trying to do

I’m copied into a lot of tickets, and I can’t believe the number that say something like ‘the system is slow’. That’s a complaint, not an actionable request for help.

Say what the problem actually is. Say what application you’re using, including version numbers if that’s not something that’s automatically clear in your system. For example, ‘I was trying to launch the monthly_reports_v2.0.py script in the command line.’

Say what you expected, then what happened instead

Don’t just say ‘the programme doesn’t work.’ Say how you know there’s something wrong. For example, ‘Normally when I run this code, it finishes in 3-5 minutes. This time it hangs for over an hour, then crashes.’

Say if it has ever worked in the past

If something used to work but didn’t, that suggests something has changed in the system. IT may be able to track this to a recent update. If it never worked, it may be a problem with the initial configuration. If you’ve raised this issue in the past, give the reference number. Either way, these are clues IT can use to help solve the problem. Give them as many as possible.

Take screenshots of any error messages

Or if this is not possible, type out exactly what the error message says. Don’t paraphrase, or say what you think the error message means. It may be a common issue that IT sees a lot of, which may make it easier to solve. They may need to google for exactly that phrase, so provide it. If there’s no error message, state that, for example, ‘There is no error message, but the application closes.’

IT colleagues, how else can we help you help us? What else would you like to see in a ticket or request?