One of the custom programs we created when I first started working with my current employer was an IT Helpdesk. This was a program we wrote (ASP classic with SQL Server backend) to help track and manage our IT tasks/work.
We managed our work into three categories: Production, Projects and List Items. Production items were issues that needed to addressed right away ("on fire"), whether it be a system bug, a special report, etc. Projects were larger tasks that would take a month or more to completes. And list items where the requests that weren't really critical but could be worked on when Production and Projects were completed.
15 years ago it was more of a management tool for IT tasks, but now it has become a great resource for me when trying to figure out issues that have come up in the past. This is especially helpful now that I'm the only developer/programmer here at my work. When you have hundreds of pages and thousands of lines of code it's just hard to remember an issue/and or a question from 2 years ago.
Today I put every issue/request/question that comes up into our Helpdesk. It has become a very valuable resource to me, and for anyone else that works here in the future it will be even more valuable!
Here are a few examples that have come up recently:
So my boss emails me the other day asking why 2 separate reports he was looking at were different. Our IT Helpdesk has a really good search feature and I looked up the name of one of the reports. Turns out I had the same question asked in 2016 explaining the exact reason why the companies numbers would differ. (one report was using a Sales order date while the other one uses an Invoice date).
Another example, our network guy emails me an error message from one of our warehouse users. I look up the exact error message and boom, the answer is right there. I just told him to reset the Calvin password and it should work again.
So what kind of helpdesk system or reference guide do you use? If this is something you'd like to try just let me know and I can send you the source code and scripts to create the database tables. There's several other features the software offers as well such as creating reports, search capabilities, and a few more.
We managed our work into three categories: Production, Projects and List Items. Production items were issues that needed to addressed right away ("on fire"), whether it be a system bug, a special report, etc. Projects were larger tasks that would take a month or more to completes. And list items where the requests that weren't really critical but could be worked on when Production and Projects were completed.
15 years ago it was more of a management tool for IT tasks, but now it has become a great resource for me when trying to figure out issues that have come up in the past. This is especially helpful now that I'm the only developer/programmer here at my work. When you have hundreds of pages and thousands of lines of code it's just hard to remember an issue/and or a question from 2 years ago.
Today I put every issue/request/question that comes up into our Helpdesk. It has become a very valuable resource to me, and for anyone else that works here in the future it will be even more valuable!
Here are a few examples that have come up recently:
So my boss emails me the other day asking why 2 separate reports he was looking at were different. Our IT Helpdesk has a really good search feature and I looked up the name of one of the reports. Turns out I had the same question asked in 2016 explaining the exact reason why the companies numbers would differ. (one report was using a Sales order date while the other one uses an Invoice date).
Another example, our network guy emails me an error message from one of our warehouse users. I look up the exact error message and boom, the answer is right there. I just told him to reset the Calvin password and it should work again.
So what kind of helpdesk system or reference guide do you use? If this is something you'd like to try just let me know and I can send you the source code and scripts to create the database tables. There's several other features the software offers as well such as creating reports, search capabilities, and a few more.
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