What information do we need to gather? First of all, the manager plans to be the only one to access the database. One of her computer technicians thinks that he and the other technicians would find it useful to have access to the database as well. Therefore, we need to find out if the manager intends to not allow her employees to access data at all, or if they will be allowed to access it but with restrictions, and what those restrictions could be. We also need to know what fields are in the current database, so that we can get an idea of the new database she would like to have built.
The manager has also said that she would like to have a reminder set monthly for machine maintenance. We need to know if there is a preferred calendaring software for her purposes (Steltor or Outlook are UNC's most mainstream choices), and what information she needs in the reminders. Does she just want information about where the equipment is, or would she like information about the software updates and work previously done?.
She would like an action request system implemented. Sam and I are familiar with Remedy, which is used throughout ATN, and have found it fairly useful for tracking information. Remedy includes information about a client's past tickets, current tickets, and tickets are easily reassigned to others. A possible problem with Remedy is that it requires the use of a PID number, and although IOG employees should have PID numbers, we need to make sure of this. We need to have the manager determine whether Remedy would work for her, or if we need to look for another system. If Remedy would work, we would need to add a field for IOG employees to select, so we would need to know who to contact to have this field added. Furthermore, we would need a publicity campaign within the IOG to make employees aware that they can submit tickets on the web, via the form at help.unc.edu, and that they have to select the IOG field to have the ticket sent to the correct helpdesk.
