View Worker
This command lets you review worker information. You must use the Edit button to actually change worker properties.
To view a Worker
1 Click Workers > List Workers.
2 Click on one of the workers listed on the page.
3 Click the View button.
4 Review the worker information on the page.
5 Click the Edit button to change property values.
Edit Worker
The List Workers page will list all the workers in the Helpdesk system. You can select any worker from the list and go directly to the edit command without viewing its properties. This command makes it convenient if you already know that a worker’s property values need to be changed.
To edit a Worker
1 Click Workers > List Workers.
2 Click on one of the workers listed on the page.
3 Click the Edit button.
4 Change property values for any field on the page.
5 Click OK.
New Worker
You must create a new worker entry for each worker intending to create Helpdesk incidents. You must know the domain and NT ID for each worker you create, although the field value itself (at the time of entry) is not validated against any Windows authority such as a Domain Controller or Active Directory. When a new worker tries to access a Helpdesk page, their NT identity will be submitted to the server by their browser. If the NT identity submitted does not correspond to a defined worker account, they will be given the opportunity to enroll as a Helpdesk worker. Therefore, it is recommended that Helpdesk Administrators use the Internet Services Manager to secure the Helpdesk entry point, allowing access to only those users that are Helpdesk workers.
Workers can be assigned a queue value. The Retrieve queues field uses a drop-down list to display the queues available in the Helpdesk system. The List Queues command displays a list of default queues and any customized queues created by the Helpdesk Administrator. Routing rules can be defined to route incidents to specific queues in the Helpdesk system. If you specify queue values for workers, they can use the Retrieve Queued Incident command to automatically assign the next available incident (based on priority and create time) to themselves.
Field Definitions
Worker name: The name of the user logging in to the Helpdesk system to create new incidents. This name is the worker's Helpdesk ID and is displayed in various reports for Helpdesk activity, and is displayed in drop-down lists for incident assignments.
Hourly rate: Used by reports to estimate the cost of incidents. The rate is displayed only on the Worker Edit page, so caution should be used when assigning users the privilege to create and edit workers.
Retrieve queue: This denotes what queue the worker will access when they use the Retrieve Queued Incident command. The default is [prompt], which means the worker will be prompted to select from one of the Helpdesk queues to retrieve incidents from.
Chapter 11: The Worker Menu
Full name: Required field.
E-mail: This value is not necessary but is strongly recommended. The e-mail address must be unique to the worker and not to a worker queue. This is the e-mail address that the Helpdesk system will use to notify workers with Incident Notify Rules.
NT ID: Required field; the entry must be in the format Domain\NT ID. When a browser attempts to access a Helpdesk page, it will submit the NT credentials of the current user to the Helpdesk web site. The Helpdesk system looks up the worker by the NT ID, and all subsequent interaction will be in the context of the worker’s account.
Active: This value determines if a worker is allowed to access the Helpdesk system, pending Windows NT authentication. If a worker is de-activated while they are currently using Helpdesk, it will not take effect until the worker closes their web browser; any access thereafter will be denied.
Note: The Active check box is different for a new worker than for a new contact. Workers can still be active contacts but listed as inactive workers.
To create a new Worker
1 Click Workers > New Worker.
2 Enter the new worker property values in the fields on the page.
3 Clear the Active check box if you do not want the worker to be active.
4 Click OK.
List Queues
A queue is a holding area where incidents are stored prior to workers retrieving them. When you create an incident, you can choose to set the Assigned field value to either a specific worker or queue.
See “New Incident” on page 35.
Administrators and managers can assign an hourly rate to queues (just the same as for workers), which helps to track the cost of incidents assigned to a queue. Altiris recommends all workers be assigned to a queue, so that the cost of labor hours can be reported successfully.
Worker Queues
Workers can find incidents by performing a search based on a queue, or they can retrieve incidents that are assigned to a queue. Helpdesk provides a set of default queues that correspond to worker types that are commonly found in a production Helpdesk environment..
Default Queues
Queue Description
Asset Management This queue is for incidents that report issues with any type of asset. Workers associated with this queue are from the Asset Management department.
Deployment-SW Delivery This is for incidents that report issues or requests for the deployment of software packages, patches, or release updates. The IT department will generally have workers dedicated to maintaining company software.
Human Resources This is for incidents that report any type of human resource issue. Workers associated with this queue are from the Human Resource department.
Chapter 11: The Worker Menu
To list Queues
1 Click Worker > List Queues.
2 Click on one of the queues listed on the page.
3 Click the View, Edit, or New button.
Quick Links
• “View Queue” on page 102
• “Edit Queue” on page 103
View Queue
This command lets you review information about a selected queue You must use the Edit button to actually change queue properties.
To view a Queue
1 Click Workers > List Queues.
2 Click on one of the queues listed on the page.
Level 1 This queue is for Helpdesk workers who respond to common user incidents such as;
password resets, and “How to” questions.
Typically, if a Level 1 Helpdesk worker cannot resolve the reported issue, they will turn the incident over to a Level 2 worker.
Level 2 This queue is for a Helpdesk worker who is technically more advanced than a level 1 worker. The workers associated with this queue provide phone support for more complicated incidents, and can be field or system managers.
Level 2 Desktop This is for incidents related to desktop issues or requests. Workers associated with this queue are from the IT department and trained to provide desktop support.
Level 2 Network This is for incidents related to network issues or requests. Workers associated with this queue are network specialists from the IT department, trained to debug and resolve connectivity problems.
Level 2 Server This is for incidents related to any type of server issue. Workers associated with this queue are generally system administrators from the IT department; they are trained to resolve server and firewall software or hardware problems.
Operations Workers associated with this queue are assigned incidents generated for the Operations department.
Professional Services Workers associated with this queue are assigned incidents generated for the Professional Services department.
Supervisor This queue is reserved for managers, supervisors, or administrators.
Default Queues
Queue Description
Chapter 11: The Worker Menu
3 Click the View button.
4 Review the queue information on the page.
5 Click the Edit button to change property values.
Edit Queue
The List Queues page will list all the queues in the Helpdesk system. You can select any queue from the list and go directly to the edit command without viewing its properties. This command makes it convenient if you already know that a queue’s property values need to be changed.
To edit a Queue
1 Click Workers > List Queues.
2 Click on one of the queues listed on the page.
3 Click the Edit button.
4 Change property values for any field on the page.
5 Click OK.
New Queue
If you have a group of workers or an additional department that is not already accounted for in the default queues available, you can create a new queue. After the queue is added to the Helpdesk database, it will appear on the List Queues page.
To create a new Queue
1 Click Workers > New Queue.
2 Enter the new queue property values in the fields on the page.
3 Clear the Active check box if you do not want the queue to be active.
4 Click OK.
Chapter 12:
The Recents Menu
This command is a convenient way for you to find the most recent incidents, contacts, and assets you have accessed. The recents menu is divided into three sections; Incidents, Contacts, and Assets. Each section contains the last 10 items of the type that you viewed or edited. As you access incidents, contacts, and assets, the oldest items will eventually migrate off to display only the most recent 10 items.
To view Recents
1 Click Recents.
2 Click one of the incidents, contacts, or assets listed on the page.
Chapter 13:
The Knowledge Base Menu
This section provides information on how to use the Knowledge Base Menu. See “Helpdesk Knowledge Base” on page 121 for more information on using Knowledge Base.
IMPORTANT: You must Configure the Knowledge Base before this feature can be used.
Quick Links
• “Configure the Knowledge Base” on page 105
• “Search Articles” on page 106
• “Publish Article” on page 108
• “Publish Existing Document” on page 109
• “Review Article” on page 111
• “Search Article Properties” on page 113
• “Libraries” on page 113
• “Archive Articles” on page 118
• “Delete Articles” on page 119
Configure the Knowledge Base
You must configure the Knowledge Base before you can begin using this feature. Configuring the Knowledge Base creates a file folder structure in both the Helpdesk database and the Windows NT file system. After you configure the Knowledge Base file structure, you can use the Helpdesk user interface to create additional libraries and scopes.
If the Knowledge Base has not yet been configured, when you go to any one of several Knowledge Base pages that require prior configuration (such as the search page), you will be prompted to configure the Knowledge Base. If you have the appropriate privileges, a link will be displayed where you can go directly to configure the Knowledge Base.
To configure the Knowledge Base
1 From the Altiris Console, click the Configuration tab.
2 Click Solutions Settings > Incident Management > Helpdesk > Knowledge Base Settings.
3 In the New default library path field, enter the directory path where Knowledge Base libraries, scopes, and articles will be stored.
4 In the Catalog Directory field, enter the directory path where Knowledge Base index files will be stored.
5 Clear the check box if you do not want to remove other indexing service catalogs from the Notification Server.
Note: To increase the performance of the Knowledge Base, Altiris recommends that all other index catalogs be removed from the Notification Server. If existing index catalogs are found on the Notification Server, they will be listed on the bottom half of the page.
Chapter 13: The Knowledge Base Menu
6 Refresh scopes in background lets you control whether or not you want to refresh the scopes right away or in the background.
7 Click Apply to save your configuration.
Search Articles
This command lets you search the Knowledge Base to find articles based on either the simple or the advanced search options. Workers can search for articles to help resolve reported incidents, which increases the Helpdesk’s efficiency.
Note: To index and search Adobe Acrobat documents, an additional component called ifilter is required. To download, see http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/acwin.htm.
Searches produce a list of articles that contain the word or phrase no matter where they appear in the text. This list gives the rules for formulating queries:
• Consecutive words are treated as a phrase; they must appear in the same order within a matching document.
• Queries are case-insensitive, so you can type your query in uppercase or lowercase.
• You can search for any word except for those in the exception list (for English, this includes a, an, and, as, and other common words), which are ignored during a search.
• Words in the exception list are treated as placeholders in phrase and proximity queries. For example, if you searched for “Word for Windows”, the results could give you “Word for Windows” and “Word and Windows”, because for is a noise word and appears in the exception list.
• Punctuation marks such as the period (.), colon (:), semicolon (;), and comma (,) are ignored during a search.
• To use specially treated characters such as &, |, ^, #, @, $, (, ), in a query, enclose your query in quotation marks (“).
• To search for a word or phrase containing quotation marks, enclose the entire phrase in quotation marks and then double the quotation marks around the word or words you want to surround with quotes. For example, “World-Wide Web or ““Web””” searches for World-Wide Web or “Web”.
• You can insert Boolean operators (AND, OR, and NOT) and the proximity operator (NEAR) to specify additional search information.
• The wildcard character (*) can match words with a given prefix. The query esc* matches the terms “ESC,” “escape,” and so on.
• Free-text queries can be specified without regard to query syntax.
• Vector space queries can be specified. Vector queries return pages that match a list of words and phrases. The rank of each page indicates how well the page matched the query. For example, the search light, bulb would produce a list of files with the words light and bulb. Vector queries also help you search for pages that contain weighted prefixes, words, and phrases. For example, the search invent*, light[50], bulb[10], “light bulb”[400] would produce files that contain words prefixed by “invent,” the words “light,” “bulb,” and the phrase “light bulb” (the terms are weighted).
• ActiveX™ (OLE) and file attribute property value queries can be issued.
Query Examples
Example Results
@size > 1000000 Pages larger than one million bytes
@write > 95/12/23 Pages modified after the date
Apple tree Pages with the phrase “apple tree”
“apple tree” Same as above
Chapter 13: The Knowledge Base Menu
Simple
This command will search for articles in all the Knowledge Base libraries within the Helpdesk system, and will also search all data fields such as, type, author, and keywords. The search can be performed using one of three options: all words, free-text, and exact phrase.
To Simple Search for an article
1 Click Knowledge Base > Search Article.
2 Enter the search criteria in the Content field.
3 The default method to match the content value in articles is All words. To change the content search method, click the drop-down arrow and select Free-text, or Exact phrase.
4 Click Find. If the search yields any articles, they will be displayed at the bottom of the page.
The articles listed are presented with Rank, Score, Accesses, and descriptive information. Rank represents the number of times the search terms appear in the document, and not an overall measurement of relevancy. The score is an average of the usefulness of the article as it is rated by other Knowledge Base users. Accesses is the number of times an article has been viewed by users. You can sort the columns according to the criteria mort useful to find the articles you need.
5 To view an article do one of the following:
• Double-click on one of the articles listed on the page.
• Select one of the articles listed on the page, and then click the View button.
Whichever method you select, the article will be opened in a new window. Microsoft Office and Adobe Reader documents will display with the appropriate viewer, which requires that the corresponding application be installed on the user's computer.
6 You can link the article to an incident by entering its number in the Incident field.
If you found the article by doing a search directly from an incident, the incident number will already be entered in the field. Click the Link button establishes the link in the database and a hyperlink to the article will be displayed every time the incident is viewed.
7 Click the Close Article button.
8 When the article closes, a dialog box appears. Click on one of the ranking numbers.
When you click one of the buttons, it establishes another score data point in the database.You can close the dialog box without selecting a value; however, rating each article is important to administrators and managers when evaluating the importance and overall usefulness of its content, an helps keep the Knowledge Base content current and useful.
@contents apple tree Same as above
Microsoft and @size > 1000000 Pages with the word “Microsoft” that are larger than one million bytes
“microsoft and @size > 1000000" Pages with the phrase specified (not the same as above)
#filename *.avi Video files (the # prefix is used because the query contains a regular expression)
@attrib ^s 32 Pages with the archive attribute bit on
@docauthor = John Smith Pages with the given author
$contents why is the sky blue? Pages that match the query
@size < 100 & #filename *.gif Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) files less than 100 bytes in size
@write > 95/12/23 Pages modified after the date
Example Results
Chapter 13: The Knowledge Base Menu
Advanced
The advanced search is similar to the simple search, except that entering a search term in a specific field will limit the search results to only those articles that also contain the search term in the specified field. It is also possible to narrow searches to specific libraries and scopes for more precise results and faster searching. You can enter search terms in as many fields as you want, from very broad to very specific when defining the search criteria.
To Advance Search for an article
1 Click Knowledge Base > Search Article.
2 Click the Advanced tab.
3 Enter the search criteria in the fields on the page.
4 The default method to match the content value in articles is All words. To change the content search method, click the drop-down arrow and select Free-text, or Exact phrase.
5 Click Find. If the search yields any articles, they will be displayed at the bottom of the page.
The articles listed are presented with Rank, Score, Accesses, and descriptive information. Rank represents the number of times the search terms appear in the document, and not an overall measurement of relevancy. The score is an average of the usefulness of the article as it is rated by other Knowledge Base users. Accesses is the number of times an article has been viewed by users. You can sort the columns according to the criteria mort useful to find the articles you need.
The articles listed are presented with Rank, Score, Accesses, and descriptive information. Rank represents the number of times the search terms appear in the document, and not an overall measurement of relevancy. The score is an average of the usefulness of the article as it is rated by other Knowledge Base users. Accesses is the number of times an article has been viewed by users. You can sort the columns according to the criteria mort useful to find the articles you need.