In my last post, I suggested that I might be interviewing some of the folks behind the new
Mapping Center site. Well, the interview took place, but we're still in the process of translating our garbled ramblings into something infinitely more readable. In the meantime, here's news on a small recent change, an update on Bugs Online, and two more of my colleagues from ESRI Support Services (ESS) step onto the gleaming locomotive wonder that is the Support Center News blog.
The Small Recent Change:
Search Results are "Unrestricted by Date" by Default
Some of you may have already noticed this (@Nir did... thanks Nir!): on the Search results page, we've changed the date range dropdown box. Instead of two boxes, there's now only one, and more importantly, the default setting is now "unrestricted by date". This means that by default your search results will include items from all of time (actually, just back into the mid 1990's). If you know that the info you're looking for is relatively new (or relatively old), use this dropdown box to restrict your search by date, and you should get a more relevant result set.
The Bugs Online Update
The mechanics of the new Bugs Online functionality is undergoing ESRI-internal testing, and the results are looking good. We've nearly completed making revisions to the Synopsis (subject line) of each bug, to turn them from ESRI-internal gibberish into something you'll have a decent chance of understanding. When it goes live just a few weeks from now, Bugs Online will auto-magically appear in your Support Center Search results,
but only if you're logged in using your
ESRI Global Account. To further whet your whistle, here's a DRAFT screenshot of what you're likely to see (minus the "ESRI Internal Only" note) when you click on a Bugs Online result:
Click for full-size image.
Introducing ESRI Support Services Staff: Beth G. and Mike H.
It's my pleasure to introduce two more of my colleagues: Beth and Mike. Beth's name has come up in previous posts, and she's going to share a little about the User Advocacy Group and how it functions. Mike and I used to work together on ESRI's ArcIMS Support Team in years past, and he's going to tell you what he's doing these days, plus offer a few tips on using our Web-based Help systems.
Hi! I’m Beth, the User Advocacy Group (UAG) Program Manager. The UAG is a relatively new program here at ESRI, and its focus is to understand and respond to the issues affecting you, the ESRI User Community. The UAG consists of five Technical Leads from ESRI Support Services who have been embedded into the Development Teams. These Tech Leads provide the Development Teams with information on issues you're reporting, and this enables the Development Teams to have a more realistic picture of all the issues the ESRI User Community is running into. Please be on the lookout for more information to be posted on the Support Center regarding the UAG processes and how you can get involved!
Hello all, my name is Mike, and I’m the Senior Technical Lead for the Server Unit here in ESRI Support. My main role is to be a technical resource for my fellow analysts when they run into issues. I also work to keep the ball moving on incidents to help you, the users, be successful with ESRI’s products. I work closely with Hamid, who introduced himself in the previous post. We work together to analyze the trends and issues you're seeing, and then he passes our analysis on to ESRI Development through the UAG processes. My hope is to regularly contribute to this blog, and bring you timely technical information about ESRI’s Server products.
This week I would like to start off by talking about ESRI's Web-based Help systems, or "Web Help". For those that were using ArcGIS Desktop products at 9.1, you may already be familiar with our webhelp, but for those using ArcGIS Server or ArcIMS this was something new that was added at 9.2. All our Web-based Help content is located at
http://webhelp.esri.com; this site is your ticket to a wealth of information that can help you get started learning a product. "But I've got the Help that came in the product box... Why use the Web Help?" you might ask. Well for one thing, the Help that comes in the product box is the same now as it was when the product first shipped -- it doesn't get updated until the next product release. On the other hand, the Development teams at ESRI are committed to updating the Web Help on a very regular basis, and are always adding new topics and updating existing content as the need arises.
In the Web Help for each product you will find information about: Architecture of the product, licensing information, tutorials, how-to scenarios, definitions of terms and acronyms, troubleshooting steps for common error messages, and topics related to administration of server products. Another thing you may not know is that the Web Help is fully searchable from the ESRI Support web site. When you use the Support Center Search, you should see Web Help entries in the search results, marked like this:
Thanks Beth and Mike. Next time, I'll hopefully have that interview with the Mapping Center folks ready to go, plus I'll be mentioning another small change that's coming soon, and describing how that small change will set the stage for some significant improvements later on.