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Welcome to the first Support Center News post of 2008. I recently met with several ESRI Support Analysts who have been participating in our pilot project for GoToAssist. For those readers who may not be familiar with it, Citrix® Online’s GoToAssist® is a technology that enables robust screen sharing and other remote support tools that can facilitate the resolution of many support issues. ESRI Support Services is expanding its use of GoToAssist, and during the last few months we’ve been running a pilot project to help plan the expansion. The four people in this interview were heavily involved in the pilot.
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Jason (SCN Blog): I’m here with four of our support staff: Josh J., Cassandra L., Chris O. and Ryan T. Thanks everybody for being able to be here today. Maybe we could start by having you each introduce yourselves... Cassandra, why don’t you start us off?
Cassandra: Sure; my name is Cassandra, and I am a support analyst, supporting mainly ArcGIS Desktop but specializing mostly in printing and exporting from ArcMap. I have been at ESRI for 13 years, 19 days, and 6 hours. I spent the first 10 years at ESRI in development, actually developing the printing and exporting functionality in ArcMap, but now I'm at the other end supporting it. I get both sides. So, I'm happy to be here and happy to be using GoToAssist.
Chris: Hi, my name is Chris, and I've been with ESRI for a year and three months now. I work with ESRI Support’s Desktop Unit. My primary focus is ArcGIS Desktop, but I also support ArcPad and ArcReader and Publisher.
Ryan: My name is Ryan, and I'm with the Server Unit, focusing on installation issues with ArcGIS Server and Desktop. I've been with ESRI for about 5 months.
Josh: My name is Josh, and I've been with ESRI about 3½ months. I'm on the same team as Ryan and I support ArcGIS Desktop and ArcSDE installs. Prior to joining ESRI, I did IT support for another company, and we used screen sharing quite a bit, but it wasn’t GoToAssist. It was rather natural for me to start using GoToAssist when I joined ESRI Support Services.
Jason: Josh, would you talk a little bit more about that? In what ways were you using screen sharing in your previous job?
Josh: I used it fairly frequently to support in client calls. I can’t disclose any details, but I was basically using it to support customers’ technical issues; I used screen sharing, and sometimes I would control the customer’s mouse and keyboard. The screen sharing solution we used at my previous company included a function to send files to the customer, but that particular function was so badly implemented that it was easier to just e-mail files to the customer.
Jason: Based on your experiences, how would you say GoToAssist compares with the screen sharing solution you used at your previous company?
Josh: Well, they’re definitely competing technologies. The one I used at my previous company was considerably slower, jerkier, and didn't show the analyst as much information as GoToAssist does. It didn't allow you to draw on the customer's screen like GoToAssist does, which is very useful. The other technology used more bandwidth, so if the customer didn't have a really fast connection, it was very painful to use.
Jason: Thanks, Josh. What about you, Cassandra? What has your experience with GoToAssist been like?
Cassandra: It’s been a great tool to have available. I used it on a support call recently where was walking the customer through the steps to use a tool, and she was saying that the result wasn’t being generated. So, we started a GoToAssist session and I found that she hadn't actually clicked the OK button on the tool to actually run the geoprocessing and generate the output. Using GoToAssist certainly saved time and frustration on that call.
Jason: Have any of the other of you used other screen sharing solutions in the past, anything that you can compare?
Ryan: I’ve used a VNC-type of solution, but it wouldn’t have worked well in a support situation. It’s blazing fast, even faster than GoToAssist, but getting it set up is not very easy, and it doesn’t have the built-in security needed for use over the internet.
Cassandra: That’s right. I’ve heard stories about security issues with servers where VNC was left running...
Ryan: GoToAssist, on the other hand, has solid 128-bit encryption built in. I’ve told customers this, because some of them have been concerned… GoToAssist is just designed to be secure when used over the internet.
Jason: Security was one of the features we were concerned with as we looked at various screensharing technologies. We chose to go with GoToAssist because, among other reasons, they seemed to have the most robust infrastructure for supporting a large organization like ESRI Support. Citrix provides dedicated account managers and robust back-end reporting and management tools that will help us manage and monitor GoToAssist effectively for the 100+ people using it here in ESRI Support Services.
Changing gears here, the reason you four are being interviewed today is because, in a recent competition among our pilot participants, you found the most opportunities to use GoToAssist when helping customers over the phone. Tell us what some of those situations were. What kinds of situations are you finding where GoToAssist is proving useful?
Chris: I just find that it's a great help when I'm describing something to the customer. Maybe I've gone through the process of describing what to do and walking through the different steps and the customer is still struggling with it. It's wonderful to be able to log in and see exactly what the customer is doing, and a lot of times I'll find that it's some simple misunderstanding, like a forward slash where a backslash is needed, for example. GoToAssist can really cut down the workload time and miscommunication between me and the customer… if I didn’t have GoToAssist, I’d just be sitting there going back and forth with e-mails or calls trying to figure out where the misunderstanding was.
Jason: Thanks Chris. Anyone else? One obvious thing it seems to me would be cases where they say, "Yeah, my screen looks funny" or "My map doesn't look right," and they have a hard time describing it. Has that kind of situation come up?
Cassandra: The customer will sometimes be describing something that doesn't seem possible based on the description they’re giving. This happens most often with our customers who are still learning the terminology that we’re familiar with here at ESRI. One of the times that I will try to use GoToAssist is when a customer is having problems setting up the page setup of their map. It's often very difficult for the customer and myself to communicate clearly about what the problem is with the page setup and how they want it changed, whereas I can just jump on their computer and show them, "OK, if that’s what you want to do, then you’ll want to do this, and then do this, and here’s is what you’re going to get," and then they go, "Oh!" I’ll often refer them to a technical article from our online knowledge base, something they can use as a reference… but because they've seen it done once, they understand the concept and are more likely going to be able to handle similar situations on their own in the future. I’d also add that, using GoToAssist, I find I’m better able to make customers happy and resolve their issue on the first phone call.
Chris: I think it's also a good tool to help us teach the customers as well. Like Cassandra said, if you can actually show a customer how to do something, they're probably going to remember it better down the road, hopefully saving them a support call. This is going to be especially helpful for times when the queues tend to get backlogged. If we can speed up resolution time using GoToAssist, then it's beneficial to everyone.
Cassandra: I used GoToAssist a lot when I was on the team that Ryan and Josh are on, especially working with license manager issues. I'd be explaining how to resolve a problem, maybe an issue where the hardware key number doesn't match, or the license file is corrupt, and I’d just be having a really difficult time communicating effectively with the customer. With GoToAssist, I can jump on their computer and go, “Yep, here it is, this is the problem. We’ll do X, Y, and Z and that will fix it.” The customer thinks I’m a genius, which is awesome (laughs), but really it’s just the ability to instantly and clearly see what the problem is. GoToAssist lets me figure out what the problem is quickly so I can move quickly to actually fixing it.
Jason: What percentage of support calls are you currently able to find good opportunities to use GoToAssist?
Chris: I'd say around 50%. I use it mostly when I’m handling “Direct to Specialist” calls. These are instances where the customer has phoned in, explained their problem to the receptionist, and then we’re actually able to connect the customer with a support analyst during that same phone call, without them having to hang up and wait for a callback.
Jason: So some customers’ calls don't get put into the queue, they just go straight to a live analyst?
Chris: That’s right. One of our goals is to have a certain percentage of the incoming phone calls get handled that way. And with GoToAssist, we’re able to handle more calls that way, because we’re able to identify and start working on the problem much more quickly. It's a huge customer service benefit, and the customer surveys that have come back have been very positive.
Jason: Excellent. During the pilot project, we saw an average time-savings of 11 minutes every time GoToAssist was used. If we manage to save 11 minutes per call for half of our support calls each year, that would be a huge amount of time. Chris, you mentioned the customer surveys. What are customers saying to you about GoToAssist?
Chris: Well, more and more customers are assuming we have it before I even mention it. They ask if I can just hop on their computer and show them how to do whatever it is they’re trying to do.
Ryan: I’m seeing this too – once a customer has experienced GoToAssist, that's what they want to go to automatically. Some customers are totally amazed with what you're doing, especially when you actually take control of their computer. I’ve heard them say, “This is so neat.” It's like a whole new world to them.
Cassandra: I had one customer ask me if I'd do her homework. I told her no.
Jason: (laughs) Good answer! Have you run into situations where the customer isn't able to or isn't allowed to use GoToAssist?
Josh: Every now and again a customer will be pretty sure it won’t work because of their firewall, but then I tell them that GoToAssist runs over port 80 and sure enough, it works.
Ryan: Yeah, they’ll say, “I don't think our system is going to allow that,” but then they try it and it works perfectly fine.
Cassandra: I think the biggest thing I appreciate about the latest version of GoToAssist is that I don’t have to try and communicate a URL to the customer. One wrong letter or slash and the customer’s browser just returns an error. And so, I love the new ability in GoToAssist to generate a quick link that I can paste in an email to the customer. It would be cool actually, Jason, if we could have a simpler URL to point customers to.
Jason: Well, since you mentioned it, by the time this interview gets posted we should have a new URL for GoToAssist: http://www.esri.com/assist
Cassandra: Good, that should be easier for the customers.
Chris: The other thing with the new version of GoToAssist which kind of goes with what was said earlier is that before, there were two steps for the customer: First, I'd have to give the customer the URL, a guest login and password and have them go to the web page and log in. Next, I’d ask them to fill in a second screen with their name, company and question. Now there’s just one step. They just type in their name, their company name and a seven-digit code and bam, you’re connected. Or if I use the quick link method that Cassandra mentioned, the customer doesn’t even need to type anything in at all. The connection process right there has been sped up by probably 2 or 3 minutes, if not more, and not only that, but the actual processing time with the new version of GoToAssist has been much, much faster, and the customers are noticing it.
Jason: Another change that’s going to help improve connection times is that, by the time this interview is released, each ESRI Support Analyst will have his or her own individual GoToAssist account – previously, we had only a limited number of accounts that all our analysts had to share, and it wasn’t always easy to find an available account to use. The new GoToAssist accounts also allow collaboration, which means that if Josh is working on a problem with a customer and he knows it's something that Chris has seen before, Josh can ask Chris to join in and help with a GoToAssist session that Josh has already started with the customer.
Chris: I've been doing that a lot during the pilot project, actually. The way that I've used it is specifically for ArcPad. There's another analyst in the pilot, Denise K., and she's pretty much the go-to person for ArcPad so I talk to her a lot about ArcPad incidents. If I'm on the phone with a user and I'm using GoToAssist to view their desktop, looking at their settings, if it's something that I know Denise knows, she can just jump on. She's already logged in so all I have to do is send her a quick link and it just pops up on her screen and she's right there with the customer and me. So, it's instantaneous and it definitely helps.
Jason: That's awesome. What other features of the new GoToAssist have you all been using?
Ryan: I’ve used the “Run as a Service” feature a lot, especially when troubleshooting License Manager issues. This allows the user’s machine to be rebooted and when it starts back up, the GoToAssist connection is reactivated instantly. This is very helpful!
Cassandra: I used the “Switch Monitor” feature one the other day. The customer had a problem, and I was using GoToAssist to view his screen. We reproduced the problem on his machine. I then walked the customer through FTP’ing me the data. I was testing with the data locally on my machine and customer said, “Hey, I can't see your machine.” I said “Ok…” and then and I used GoToAssist’s Switch Monitor feature so he could see my screen, and he thought that was really cool. We were able to go back and forth and it felt very collaborative, like he was working with a real human being and not an anonymous support robot. I even gave him control of my mouse and keyboard for a few minutes, and he actually tried his steps with his data on my machine.
Jason: It’s great to hear that you’re already taking advantage of some of the more advanced features that GoToAssist offers. We want to be taking full advantage of GoToAssist, to maximize the return on ESRI’s investment in this technology. Does anyone have ideas on how we might encourage the ESRI Support Analysts to really jump on the wagon and start using GoToAssist to its full potential?
Josh: Just let them know it's there! I’d expect everyone to take advantage of it.
Jason: Well, historically only about 70% of the analysts have used GoToAssist. Of course, part of the reason for that was that all the analysts were sharing a limited number of GoToAssist accounts… but that’s no longer the case.
Chris: Well, if we want 100% of the analysts using GoToAssist, I think that can happen with the right push from management.
Cassandra: Yeah, some kind of encouraging e-mail from one of the Support managers would be great.
Jason: I’ll talk with Aaron Zureick (Manager of Support’s Operations Department) about doing this… or maybe he’s reading this blog post… right… now. I agree that this is a message that needs to come from the top: How we’re changing the way we think about and use GoToAssist, how we’re investing in this technology, and how important it is for all analysts to make full use of GoToAssist to maximize the benefits for our customers.
Chris: Anyone that's used it knows how useful it is. You only need to use it once and see how simple it is to use and you'll always use it. Granted, there are some analysts who may be reluctant to transition over, but I think for the majority of the people that work in Support, this is going to be a huge advantage for helping our customers. Using GoToAssist not only increases customer satisfaction, but I can be more efficient and have more time to learn or take on new responsibilities to further my career.
Cassandra: Hey, I just realized that GoToAssist actually saves the planet. (laughter) No, really! It uses less resources, it takes less time, so it uses less electricity, less bandwidth than transferring a huge dataset, and it’s less taxing on our servers.
Jason: Wow… it's environmentally friendly – I hadn’t thought of that particular aspect…
Cassandra: And it's saving the customer money, too. They don't have to upload their huge dataset for us to see the problem – we can use GoToAssist to see the problem directly on their server and work on the problem there.
Ryan: It's a green tool.
Jason: These are good thoughts. Back to the topic of encouraging analysts to use GoToAssist, I’ll just mention that we’ll also be adding some GoToAssist usage statistics to the analysts’ monthly performance reports. These stats will include an indicator of whether the customers felt like the analyst’s decision to use GoToAssist was a good one. Customers will be able to indicate this in a survey they’ll get at the end of each GoToAssist session.
Ryan: As long as it’s presented in a positive way by management, having stats like that should help. I know some of the customer surveys that I've received have said things like, “I really like how the analyst got on my computer and showed me how to do it,” even when the customer had a relatively simple how-to type of question.
Cassandra: I think you’re going to find that the majority of analysts will automatically start using GoToAssist as much as possible whenever it makes sense to do so. For something totally simple, I’m probably not going to jump on the customer’s computer, but every analyst can tell fairly quickly whether it’s going to help to use GoToAssist in a particular support situation.
Jason: All right, it’s time to wrap this interview up. Thanks, all, for coming and sharing your perspectives with us today.
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Everyone knows about ESRI Support Services, the group of dedicated analysts and managers who, among other things:
- provide you with phone and email-based support,
- write many of the technical articles and whitepapers found in our online Knowledge Base, and
- document and submit bugs to our development teams
But did you know that the ice cream that is ESRI Support also comes in a Premium variety? I recently had the chance to talk with Jacob "Jake" Baca, manager of ESRI's Premium Support Service. We discussed the advantages and reasons to take advantage of Premium Support Services, as well as some changes that are being made to improve the availability and timliness of the service.
Inside Interview: Jacob "Jake" Baca, Premium Support Services
Jason: Let’s start with some background for readers who might not have heard about this service. Premium Support Services – What is it and how is it different from the support provided by ESRI Support Services?
Jake: I helped ESRI create Premium Support Services back in 2000 because some of our customers wanted a higher, more responsive level of support. That’s what Premium Support Services was designed to provide, in the form of dedicated account managers, guaranteed response times, and other benefits. When you call regular ESRI Support, you might speak with Mike this time, and Annie next time, but Premium Support Services provides a dedicated point-of-contact, and that person is aware of your project’s history, current situation, and end goals. Another valuable benefit of Premium Support Services is a guarantee that a specialist will be assigned within one hour to help you.
Jason: That all sounds great. How does Premium Support’s Services fit together with product maintenance and regular ESRI Support?
Jake: Well, we’re currently in the process of trying to answer that question more clearly than we have in the past. Premium Support Services was created and developed within ESRI’s Educational Services department simply because that’s where I was at the time, working with what used to be called our Technical Support Group. This led to confusion for many customers, as it wasn’t clear that Premium Support is not part of the annual maintenance agreement – Premium Support is above and beyond the regular maintenance costs. And a lot of that confusion was simply because of where we were located in the organization.
Jason: I see. How are you working to clear up that confusion?
Jake: The first step in trying to clear up misunderstandings among the user community has been to move Premium Support Services to where like services were. And at ESRI, that’s the Professional Services Division. We’re in the process of rewriting and creating new marketing materials and brochures, for two reasons: first, we want to clarify our service. Second, we want to do something that we weren't often able to do before, which is actually market Premium Support Services correctly, to present it to the user community in a way that shows what Premium Support Services is, what it can do to help them become successful in their projects with ESRI Software.
Jason: How has Premium Support Services been presented to the user community in the past?
Jake: We were most often seen working in a “firefighter” role. One of ESRI’s big clients would encounter a critical issue or situation, things would start to spiral out of control, and Premium Support Services would come in, bring order to the chaos, and put the fires out. But as soon as one fire was over, we’d most likely be off to our next fire.
Jason: I see. So rather than being a service that people would sign up for proactively, it sounds like Premium Support Services was being used in a sort of reactive mode.
Jake: Exactly. So essentially we were providing Premium Support Services on a moment-by-moment, situation-by-situation basis. The problem is, though, that the showstopper issues for our enterprise clients are not typically due to simple software issues or user error. More often, we’re talking about workflow issues: Problems that aren’t apparent in the project design, or maybe even in testing, but these problems start to appear in the production system as it begins to feel the pressures of use in the real world, by real end-users. Once in production, a small performance bottleneck can cause a system-wide failure. Databases go down, production systems grind to a halt, and that’s typically when we’re called in to do the firefighting thing.
Jason: Ok, that sounds pretty bad. So how can Premium Support Services function to avoid such failures?
Jake: Again, the idea behind Premium Support Services (and our other enterprise programs, for that matter) is to go in and take a holistic approach, to serve as a guide and not just a firefighter. If we can get to know the customer’s situation and what they’re trying to accomplish with ESRI software, we can help the customer plan how to get there successfully, minimize the chances of fires happening, and be prepared to put them out quickly when they do occur. This holistic approach is the real value of Premium Support Services – we will take a bigger look at what you're trying to do. And now that we’re part of ESRI Professional Services, this is our chance, not to reinvent ourselves, but to simply state it out loud: This is who we are, this is what we do. We want to make it clear to customers that Premium Support Services (PSS), the ESRI Enterprise Advantage Program (EEAP), and the Business Partner Advantage Program (BPAP) at ESRI are all extended support services. They're not meant to replace the standard ESRI Support Services that come with your maintenance agreement -- that's not our intent, that's not our design. ESRI Support Services is designed to provide timely, expert support for all our maintenance users, and it does that job quite well. Our extended support services are for any enterprise customers who want or need services that extend beyond what ESRI Support Services provides. We'll come in and fill in the gaps, but it's in no way meant to replace the support customers receive with their regular maintenance.
Jason: It sounds like ESRI Support Services is sort of like a foundation, the core part of the maintenance contract. And then on top of that, customers can choose to add or extend that service through the Premium Support Services or the other programs in Professional Services?
Jake: That’s correct. And that's the intention. You know, one of the things that we do, that we strive for, is to make sure that when someone's coming to us and they're requesting extended services, is to first try and determine whether they really need extended services or not. Often times we find that if we explain what their regular support services and maintenance contract is designed for and what it does, and how to use it properly, and what options are available to them, the customer will realize that they probably don't need extended service. Now from a business perspective you might say, "Why would you try to show them they don’t need it if they already want to pay for it?" But that's not the intention of our services: We really want to make sure that we're giving customers the proper service for their needs. This is an above and beyond cost, so it’s got to be worth it to the customer. If we set up a contract and then the customer doesn’t feel that they’ve gotten their money's worth, they're not going to speak positively about ESRI, and we don't want that. We want them to say, "We had this need, it was filled by these enterprise programs, we're happy as can be, and we highly recommend that you contact ESRI Professional Services as well, and see if they can help you." Right?
Jason: "We got what we paid for," "it was good bang for our buck," "we got the service that we expected."
Jake: Right. And we’ve always tried to do this, but our message hasn’t been clear in the past, simply because, again, there wasn’t a clear distinction between Premium Support Services and ESRI Support Services.
Jason: I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier, about a dedicated point-of-contact. Can you tell us more about that?
Jake: Sure. So if someone gets a Premium Support Services contract directly, they are assigned a Premium Support Services Coordinator (PSSC). It's the Coordinator’s job to make sure that all of their ESRI issues are handled efficiently and effectively, whether it be issues with maintenance, issues with licensing, problems with bugs in our software, technical incidents, whatever. The Coordinator is the customer’s dedicated point of contact into ESRI. The ESRI Enterprise Advantage Program (EEAP) and Business Partner Advantage Program (BPAP) programs work the same way – a Technical Advisor serves as the point-of-contact. These are the people who are going to help you be successful with your projects.
Jason: It sounds like you’re building a relationship. Instead of just a quick visit to the doctor's office, you're actually walking along with the customer through the various stages, and working with them and keeping a history of the problems that are being run into, and can see the big picture. I can see how that would be really valuable.
Jake: Right.
Jason: You mentioned earlier that Premium Support Services has often been called upon to be the firefighters. Is Premium Support Services going to no longer be fighting fires?
Jake: For better or worse, Premium Support Services will probably always be called on now and again to help with the fires. However, even when we’re called to fight a fire, we’re going to be making it clear what Premium Support Services are and how we might have helped avoid the fire in the first place. We’ll be doing this from our new home in ESRI Professional Services, using our new informational materials. And the message we’ll be sending is this: We’ll work to put out your three-alarm fires, but what we really want to do is help you avoid them in the first place, and we can do that if you involve us in the early stages of your projects. For example, let's say that a customer has decided to implement their first enterprise GIS. To avoid costly problems down the road, the project needs to go through a complete development cycle. So they need to buy hardware. They need to set up databases. They need to do all these things that they've never done before. Far too often, a customer in this situation will just drive along and hope for the best. Sometimes the customer will hire consultants who don’t understand GIS, and that can actually put them in a worse spot – the consultant might install and configure the database, but it’s configured as you’d want it for, say, accounting, not as it needs to be for an enterprise GIS.
Jason: Let me guess: When it doesn’t work, the consultant says, "I installed the product, what do you mean it doesn't work?"
Jake: Exactly. And the same goes for the rest of the elements in the GIS: hardware, network, software, and even the ways that humans are going to interact with the thing. The customer starts all these elements up, the elements start trying to work together, and far too often they fail. Our other extended services, such as our ESRI Enterprise Advantage Program (EEAP), can help customers avoid this kind of failure. Our experts go in, take a look at your situation, what you're trying to accomplish, look at the scale of the project both now and down the road, and from there we can determine what hardware, software, time and human resources are going to be needed. If you need it, we can provide GIS-savvy developers and administrators and programmers to write code, set up the database, configure the network, and so on. If you already have the human resources you need, our experts will share information on best practices. And we’ll also evaluate the need for training -- that's where our Educational Services Division comes in. ESRI is seeking to provide a holistic solution to make our customers successful. Ultimately, the rubber must meet the road. After you've put the hardware in place and you've set up the systems and best practices and you have your people trained, they must start using the system for what it was intended for. As you know, once you start putting ten, twenty, thirty, sixty, a hundred people onto databases and they start utilizing software, even the best-planned system is going to start exhibiting unexpected issues.
Jason: Without a doubt.
Jake: That's where Premium Support Services typically comes in again – to put out the fire. But if we’ve been involved from the beginning, we’re better prepared to respond quickly and accurately to any issues that come up. If we haven’t been involved from the beginning, there tends to be more issues that come up, and it takes us longer to address them because it takes time to learn about your situation and understand how your GIS is set up. In either case, we work to keep your production system up and running, and if it goes down, we manage ESRI resources to facilitate getting them back on track. Premium Support Services has access to all the resources at ESRI: senior support analysts, developers, instructors, and all of ESRI Professional Services. Premium Support Services gives you the best of what ESRI has to offer, in terms of resources and expertise. You know, I really want to pause and mention the essential role that ESRI Support Services plays in making sure all of our critical clients, and our fires, are being handled. You see, we occasionally ask their senior support analysts to shift gears and assist on a Premium Support Services issue. The senior analysts then have to work with their management quickly and find a way to respond to the Premium Support Services issue while still keeping their existing customer commitments going. And they've done a great job at that, so I want to make sure to give them a shout out: Senior support analysts, your participation in Premium Support is recognized in this company, it's recognized by the corporate staff. ESRI Support Services, again, is a key part of that foundation that takes us to the ultimate solution. I just wanted to make sure I mentioned that, because I'm certainly appreciative of it.
Jason: That's great, I'm sure that's going to make a lot of analysts smile, and as both you and I know from experience, it never hurts to have another reason to smile when you’re a support analyst.
Jake: (laughs) Yeah, not too many feel-good moments, at least until we get to the end and we've helped solve the problems.
Jason: That's right, that's the feel-good moment right there. Well, that's a great message to send along to the support analysts, and also to their managers who are working to figure out how to respond when their senior staff’s energy gets redirected into a Premium Support Services issue. Kudos to you all. What about the customers themselves? Is there anything that you'd like to say to the ESRI user community?
Jake: Sure. All of us who’ve been in the GIS industry for some time understand that GIS is a fabulous tool. In all the years I've been working with GIS, I'm still amazed by all the novel ways that our users use our software to solve real-world problems. Along with all that novelty comes the challenge: Yes, you can use ESRI software and GIS to solve an infinite number of real-world problems, but that also makes it very difficult to support at times. The message I'd like to send out to the user community is that ESRI is striving to do a better job of presenting you with all the resources needed to support your success. We’re striving to keep the costs of our services reasonable. Allow us to be part of your team, and we’ll help you be successful with ESRI software so you don't have that three-alarm fire down the road.
Jason: Thank you very much, Jake, for your time today.
Jake: Thank you Jason, for this opportunity to share information with you and the user community.
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This week, we've got some tips and news about Bugs Online, the recently-released searchable database of known ESRI software issues.
- Get logged in. In order to even see Bugs Online in your Support Center Search results, you'll need to be logged in with you ESRI Global Account. If you use the Login box on the Support Center home page, you can check the "Remember my Username" checkbox to make it easier to log in in the future.
- Keywords are your friends. Our Search works best with keywords, rather than complete phrases or questions. When your're searching for known issues in Bugs Online, enter keywords that would be likely to appear in the bug report. You can use quotation marks to indicate words that should appear together, like "virtual server".
- Use unique identifiers. If you have been given a bug ID by ESRI Support or on the forums, enter it into the Search box all by itself. Bug IDs begin with 2-3 letters, followed by 6-8 digits, for example: CQ00290073 or NIM010312. If the bug is available for review in Bugs Online, searching on the Bug ID is the best way to find it.
- Contact Support for more info or to push for a resolution. Bugs Online gives you a one-line synopsis, current status, and other good bits of information. If you need more information about the bug, or want to know if there are any potential workarounds, or have questions about how the bug might affect your project, contact us and our support staff can provide more details. In addition, you can contact us to let us know that a bug is affecting your project -- our User Advocacy Group collects that data to help prioritize bugs for our development teams.
And now for the news: we're planning some improvements to Bugs Online. Nothing's been written in stone yet, but the ideas we're looking at include subscriptions, exposing more information, and the ability to filter bugs by Product. As we get closer to deciding which improvements are feasible, I'll be posting more info and maybe a survey. If you have other ideas for improving Bugs Online that you'd like considered, please leave a comment!
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The Support Center News blog has been quiet lately, as we've been focusing on some internal improvements... but those projects are wrapping up, and this blog is going to start popping again. Here's what you can expect to see in this space in the coming weeks:
- Support Center News. (Of course.) We're getting geared up to make more improvements to the Support Center. Exactly what will change has yet to be decided, but most will probably be small changes designed to make it easier to find content that you use frequently. Some of the changes will be tweaks and improvements to areas we've already been working on, like the Search and Bugs Online. And a few of the changes will likely introduce brand-spanking new features onto the Support Center web site. As always, visitors to this blog will get sneak peeks and chances to participate and provide input along the way.
- Guest Posts and Interviews. Who are all these people? I'll be posting more bios and announcements from the staff of ESRI Support Services, as well as more full-length interviews. Coming up in the next few weeks: Jake Baca, long-time manager of ESRI's Premium Support Group, will be telling us about upcoming changes to that program.
- Surveys and Reader Comments. In other words, chances for you to provide input and feedback as we develop, draft, test and roll out changes to the Support Center web site and related sites.
- Insider Tips & Tricks. I'll be sharing notes on how to get the most out of the Support Center, highlighting new and under-utilized features, and answering reader questions.
All this begins next week, so stay tuned -- there's lots in store.
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There may not appear to be much going on with the Support Center at the moment, but we're still keeping quite busy with internal projects, three of which are going like gangbusters. A quick peek under the hood:
- We're working on a new internal search tool that will make it easier for our staff to find the Support information they need to assist you.
- We're upgrading our department's internal web sites to Microsoft SharePoint 2007. If it were a straight upgrade, it wouldn't require much effort, but we're also revamping the web sites to reflect the recent changes to our organization (you can read about those changes in this recent post's interview with Aaron Zureick, Operations Manager for ESRI Support Services).
- We're wrapping up a pilot project to evaluate the benefits of a screen-sharing technology that our support analysts can use when helping customers.
The dust from these projects should begin to settle in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what you'd like to see on the Support Center News blog... more interviews? Questions answered? Things explained? Leave a comment and let me know! P.S. My next post will probably be on the new blog platform, as mentioned in my last post. I'll throw a quick post up to confirm this when the move actually takes place.
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Behind-the-scenes activity around the Support Center has been relatively quiet this past week. Bugs Online recently went live, and after making sure things were working as expected, an announcement went out on the Support Center home page. See my previous post for more details on Bugs Online. The only other news of note at the moment is in regards to this blog itself: the Support Center News blog will soon be migrating to a newer, more robust blogging platform. All of ESRI's existing blogs will soon be on the new platform, which should provide some nice benefits for both our readers and those of us who manage blogs here at ESRI. If you're subscribed to this blog via Feedburner you shouldn't have to change a thing, as I'll just update the feed URL there once the blog has been moved. We'll also update all the hard links to this blog from the Support Center pages. However, if you use a shortcut or favorite in your browser to get to this blog, you'll have to update that yourself. This blog site will remain active for a while, to help let everyone know about the move to the new platform. I'll let everyone know when the move actually takes place, but it should be in the next week or two.
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It's been a few weeks since my last post (I've been away from the office), but I plan to make up for that with a veritable deluge of information this week. First, a few updates:
- Bugs Online: As with most projects of this magnitude, there've been a few unexpected hang-ups. In particular, the process of preparing the bug synopses for public consumption is taking considerably longer than we expected. I've been personally involved in that effort, and the drill goes like this: Read the bug synopsis, read the detailed bug notes, and make sure the synopsis is an accurate, complete and comprehensible representation of the essense of the bug. We've had teams of people putting in extra hours towards this effort, and we're working our way through them... and let me tell you, it's about as much fun as trying to get a GPS reading inside a sewer system. But you won't have to wait until we finish: we'll be releasing Bugs Online once a good majority of the bugs are ready to go, and we'll finish prepping the remaining bugs after that. Thanks for your patience, and don't worry, we should have Bugs Online up and running well before the end of summer.
- Support and Screen-Sharing: Starting next week, some of our Support analysts will be participating in a trial run of an updated version of the screen-sharing technology mentioned in my last post. If you're lucky enough to get to experience the updated screen-sharing process, please make sure to fill out the Customer Survey that will appear at the end of the screen-sharing session. We'll be using your feedback to help determine whether and how to proceed with the upgrade.
And last but certainly not least, I recently had the pleasure of talking with Aaron Zureick, Operations Manager for ESRI Support Services, about his position and the recent reorganization that ESRI Support has gone through.
Interview with
Aaron Zureick
ESRI Support Operations ManagerJason: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me today, Aaron. Maybe we could begin with you telling us a bit about your history here at ESRI. Aaron: I've been with ESRI a little over eight years now. I started out as an analyst supporting ArcInfo Workstation with AML, and then moved on to support Desktop when ArcGIS Desktop first came out. After that, I progressed into other areas, primarily ArcSDE and geodatabases. That was really where I spent my time as an analyst, more or less. I’ve also held several other roles in ESRI Support: I was a founding member of the Premium Support Group, a Team Lead for one of our support teams in the old Technical Support Department, the Assistant Manager of Technical Support, the Manager of Technical Support and now, after the reorganization, I’m the Operations Manager for ESRI Support Services. Jason: That’s a lot of ground you’ve covered. Since you’ve brought it up, let’s talk about the reorganization of ESRI Support. Not too long ago, support was organized somewhat differently. Can you talk a little bit about how support's been organized in the past, how it's organized now, and why the change was made? Aaron: Way back when, we had one support group, known as Technical Support. As our product line grew and as our user base grew, at some point it became necessary to have support that was specific to our customers who were developing their own GIS solutions using our products. To answer that need, ESRI created another support group, known as Developer Support. For a number of years we had Technical Support and we had Developer Support, and they both had clearly defined responsibilities and it was clear which group would handle which support calls. However, as our user base grew and as our product line matured, the line between what those individual groups did and what their purpose was became more and more blurred. So we ended up with two support groups that were big, that were basically doing the same support but moving in different directions in the way they did that support. That caused a lot of problems and was one of the main reasons we decided to look into reorganizing both groups into a more comprehensive and focused entity. Jason: Okay. So Technical Support was doing things one way, Developer Support was doing them a different way – and the users were experiencing this difference? Aaron: Yes, absolutely. Users could get different experiences every time they called Support depending on the product or question that they had. There were different call back times depending on which products they were calling on, there was a different experience for how the analysts interacted with the customers. There was a different depth or level of support that was given. The processes for escalating calls or pushing calls through some sort of QFE or Hotfix process differed. The ways we collected and processed feedback to development and sales and other departments was different and inconsistent. The list goes on and on. Jason: So we fixed all that, right? (laughs) Seriously, though, it sounds like these may have been some of the main problems driving the effort to reorganize ESRI Support? Aaron: With the reorganization, we wanted to put ourselves in a better position to interact with all our customers in a consistently effective way. It was confusing for customers when we had two different support groups with two different types of support contracts. It was also confusing internally here at ESRI – our own [non-support] staff weren’t sure which Support group to contact for help with internal or client projects. As an example, the folks in ESRI's Sales and Marketing departments had to go to one support group for maintenance issues, and the other support group to discuss add-on support for certain developer products. It was confusing and a barrier to a lot of folks. Also, the organization within each of the old groups was fairly flat and wasn’t scaling well as the groups grew. Jason: It sounds like all sorts of problems may have been solved by the reorganization of ESRI Support. So now, support is a single group called ESRI Support Services… but in a strange case of déjà vu, it has two groups: there’s the Operations Department, which you're the manager of, and then there’s also a Business Department. This is somewhat surprising, given the problems that arose from having two support groups in the past – can you talk about the new structure and why it was chosen? Aaron: The new structure ties in with scalability and effectiveness. Yes, we still have two groups in support, but they are focused on very different aspects of Support, as their names suggest. In the past, both of the old groups had a primary responsibility of helping and being responsive to customers. But we found that when call volume increased, other responsibilities started to fall by the wayside. These were secondary responsibilities that in some way helped the customer in a more indirect fashion, usually by helping ESRI Support function in more productive or efficient way. Those secondary responsibilities always gave way to the primary responsibility of directly helping customers with their technical issues. For example, organizing and evaluating and planning for the Support Center web site used to be someone else's secondary responsibility, and when the calls got backed up, something was going to go on the backburner and it wasn't going to be our responsiveness to the customer. Jason: Right. And now that particular secondary responsibility is someone’s primary responsibility, namely, mine. Aaron: Exactly. We took those things that were secondary responsibilities and we made them the primary responsibilities of the people in our Business department, separating them organizationally from the Operations department, which contains the analysts and managers who are focusing on the incoming calls. Jason: What else goes on in the Business department? Aaron: Besides the Support Center, there’s our User Advocacy Group, which analyzes issues and trends in our software and feeds those back into the software development process. Beth G. is heading up the UAG, and she works with our Development Technical Leads [DTLs] – these are new positions created during Support’s reorganization. DTLs work for ESRI Support Services, but they sit with our development teams and help prioritize issues and manage communications between Support and Development. The Business department also includes staff dedicated to documentation, internal reports, International Support, Offsite Support, and metrics and standards. Jason: Let’s talk about your department, Operations: how is it organized, and why? Aaron: We chose to organize Operations in much the same way as our Development teams are organized, to help our relations and communications with Development. We basically have four Units based on technologies: Desktop, Geodata, SDK, and Server. Each of these Units is organized the same way; they each have the same types of positions, and they're built to be scaleable as we continue to hire more staff. The new structure also creates more advancement opportunities for the people who work here. In the past, if you were an analyst and wanted to be a technical person and develop a technical career, your choices were to remain an analyst, or leave Support. If you wanted to be a manager or supervisor, your choices were to wait around for a Group Lead and/or Manager position to become available, or leave Support. With our new structure there are many more options for movement and advancement while remaining a part of ESRI Support Services. Jason: That’s a nice aspect, as I can personally attest to. You said that each Unit has a similar structure – what does that structure look like? Aaron: There's a Unit Manager who's responsible for the overall health of their Unit, including operational efficiencies, how well we're doing supporting the customers, the quality of the support that we're giving, the health and attitude of the analysts and other staff in the Unit, and career development and long-term career development of the employees. Each Unit Manager also has two technical leads, there's a Senior Support Technical Lead and a Development Technical Lead. The Senior Support Technical Lead [SSTL] is the internal support expert for their Unit. They help develop overall curricula for their Unit, they help new analysts build expertise, and they're a point of contact for technical communications between the different Units. As I mentioned before, the Development Technical Lead [DTL] is a senior analyst who actually sits with the development team and participates in the development team's processes. The DTL focuses on identifying and lifting up software quality issues that we see here in Support. The DTLs from each Unit work together in the User Advocacy Group to prioritize bugs and enhancements, they do trend analysis on issues that customers are reporting, and they’re a point of contact for technical communications with Development. The rest of the Unit is organized into Groups; each Group has a Group Lead who acts as both a direct supervisor and a technical resource for the analysts in their Group. Each Group has between four to eight analysts, ideally. Some of our Units have as many as four Groups already, and they're meant to scale, so that regardless of how big a Unit gets, any supervisor should only have to manage somewhere between four and eight people. Jason: I see. That’s a pretty deep organizational structure – certainly much deeper than it was before. Aaron: Yes – it’s scaleable, and it really opens up a lot more advancement possibilities for our staff. Jason: Great explanation. That should help paint a picture for our readers of how support is now organized, and the reasons for the change. So how's the new organization been working out so far – has it been fairly successful? Aaron: Yes, absolutely. Like with any major change in an organization, there've been some bumps as people have grown into their new positions, but we're definitely seeing, internally, a lot of improvement in efficiency and in the supporting processes. It's been a good eight months since we've reorganized and we're starting to see some of the intended benefits. Our relationship with other internal departments is getting much stronger, our ability to do things quickly for the user and for the analysts are improving. We’re getting better at cataloguing the information that we get back from the users and turning it into knowledge base articles so it can help other users. One of our primary goals here in the Operations Department is to be able to get back to the customer the same day they log a call with us -- in some areas we're able to do that and in some areas we're not there yet, but we're making changes and looking forward to put ourselves in a better position to be able to do that. Jason: Okay. I was going to ask what objectives you had for support operations for the future. That sounds like a good one. I'm sure all of our users would give that a thumbs-up. What other aspects of performance does Support measure and strive for? Aaron: Sure. There's quite a few metrics we look at for operational excellence. Obviously, one of them is the time it takes to get to a user after they log a call. Our primary goal is to have an analyst ready to speak with the user right when the user calls in, and we aim to provide that kind of service for a certain percentage of the incoming calls. That analyst may or may not be able to actually solve the user’s problem, but at least the user is talking with someone who’s in a position to help them out. In cases where this does not happen, getting back to the customer the same business day is our goal. Another metric we look at is the percentage of those calls that are directed to an analyst that are actually resolved on first contact – we look at both “time to ownership” and “time to resolution”. We can't always control whether a resolution is possible or whether it's well-received, but we can certainly look at resolution times as an overall statistic for calls and see how quickly we’re getting accurate information back to the user. We also look at surveys. Regardless of whether there was a solution or not, we want customers to have had a good experience with support. Did we do everything we could? Did we do the right thing for the customer? So we review the customer surveys and investigate into any low marks we receive. In addition, we perform incident quality evaluations on calls that come through Support. And we feed our findings, the good and the bad, back to the analysts so they know where they’re excelling and where they need to improve. There's a lot of internal ways we monitor how our customers are being handled. Jason: To wrap up, is there anything that you’d like to say to the readers of the Support News blog about support? Aaron: I’d like to assure them that our overarching goal is to help them be successful using our software. We've been mostly reactive in the past, and we’re working towards being more proactive. We're constantly looking for ways to change and adapt so we can provide a better service. We know there are rough times and we're bound to run into issues now and again, so if you experience problems with our service, please let us know, and we'll continue to refocus our efforts as necessary. Jason: Thanks very much for your time, Aaron. Aaron: Thank you.
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The wait for Bugs Online is over. By the time you read this, you should be able to log into the Support Center, perform a search, and see items marked as "Bugs Online" in the results. You'll also see a filter at the top of the search results for Bugs Online. I've blogged about Bugs Online in previous posts, but this is the post to read if you have questions... because we've prepared a set of FAQs in anticipation of your queries and wonderings. We'll put these FAQs up on the Support Center in an appropriate location soon, but once again, the Support Center News blog has the info hot off the electronic press:
Bugs Online: FAQsQ: What is Bugs Online?A: Bugs Online is a public, searchable database containing known ESRI software issues. Q: How do I access Bugs Online?A: To access Bugs Online, follow these steps:
- Go to the ESRI Support Center web site (http://support.esri.com).
- Log in using your ESRI Global Account. If you think you have an account but aren't sure of your username or password, click here. If you don’t have an ESRI Global Account yet, click here to create one.
- Enter keywords or a bug ID number into the Search box near the top of the page, then click Go.
- The search results will include items from Bugs Online, if any were found.
Tip: You can use the hyperlinks at the top of the results to filter on a particular type of result, and “Bugs Online” is one of the available filters. Q: Is there a way to browse the Bugs Online database directly?A: At this time, the only way to access Bugs Online is by performing a search on the Support Center web site as described above. Q: Can I search Bugs Online from other ESRI web sites?A: At this time, the only way to access Bugs Online is by performing a search on the Support Center web site as described above. Q: How can I find a bug in Bugs Online when I don't have the bug number?A. In addition to searching by bug number, you also have the option to search for the bug by a keyword or phrase. Q: When I search for a bug by keywords or phrases, the search results includes bugs that don’t have those keywords or phrases in their Synopsis. Why does this happen?A: This happens because the search looks not only at the Synopsis, but also at the rest of the notes in the bug. Q: Why isn’t ESRI publishing the full notes for each bug?A: There are several reasons, but a big one is customer confidentiality: Many bug reports include specific information about our customers and their projects, and ESRI is committed to keeping that information confidential. Q: Why can’t I find a particular item in Bugs Online?A: There are two main reasons why a particular item may not appear in Bugs Online:
- The item may have been marked as an enhancement. For the time being, we have decided to exclude enhancements from Bugs Online. We’ve done this because enhancements represent potential improvements to future versions of ESRI software, whereas bugs represent known issues in the existing, released versions of our software.
- The item may still be under review. When a new bug is submitted, it gets reviewed to confirm the details of the issue. We also review to make sure the issue is described in a way that should make sense to users (and not just our development teams).
Q: What do I do if I think I’ve encountered a bug but I can’t find it in Bugs Online?A: You may have encountered a new bug! Call ESRI Support Services at 1.877.377.4575 or submit a request via the Contact Support Form (available here) and provide the details of the issue you are encountering. Q: Why is ESRI publishing Bugs Online?A: We want to do everything we can to help you be successful with our software. By publishing Bugs Online, we’re making it possible for you to research potential issues before beginning a project. Also, if you encounter issues during a project, you can research to see whether the issue is already known to ESRI or not, and save considerable time when contacting ESRI Support by quickly identifying the issue. Q: What are the different bug severities and what do they mean?A: The bug severities are defined as:
- Low - Failure or error with minor functionality.
- Medium: - Failure or error with major functionality.
- High: - Crash, data corruption or loss of data.
- Critical: - Showstopper issue.
Q: What are the different bug statuses and what do they mean?A: The bug statuses are defined as:
- New - The bug has been logged by ESRI Support Services and is in the process of being reviewed.
- Open - The bug has been assigned to a programming lead, who is responsible for its continued evaluation and resolution.
- Deferred - The bug will be considered for a future release.
- Contact Support - Please contact ESRI Support Services for additional details.
- As Designed - The software is behaving in a manner consistent with ESRI's intent.
- Documented - The specific behavior referenced in the bug is documented by ESRI.
- Non-reproducible - The behavior specified in the bug could not be reproduced given the current information included in the bug report.
- Known Limit - The bug cannot be resolved due to a limit in the specified application or environment.
- Duplicate - The bug is a duplicate of another bug.
- Resolved - The bug has been addressed for the next software release.
Q: How can I find more information about a bug listed?A: Call ESRI Support Services at 1.877.377.4575 or submit a request via the Contact Support Form (available here) and provide the bug number (for example, NIM001234) in the request.
Again, these FAQs will soon be posted somewhere a bit more accessible on the Support Center. If you have other questions about Bugs Online, leave me a comment, and I'll do my best to respond.
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This week I've got an update for you on Bugs Online. First, though, a bit of news on what we're doing behind the scenes here in ESRI Support.
- Revising our internal search tools. With the most recent set of Support Center improvements safely out to pasture, we're turning our attention inward for a few weeks, with an eye towards improving the tools and resources that our support staff (both here in Redlands and at our Regional Offices) use while they're assisting you with a problem or question. One of goals during this time of introspection is to revise our internal search tools, to give our staff a more central location and a more standardized way to find internal-only information stored in a variety of sources and formats. It will soon be easier for the ESRI staffperson helping you to search for answers in draft Technical Articles, select internal email aliases, and other ESRI-internal information stores.
- Planning for greater use of screen-sharing technology. If you've contacted ESRI Support for help with an issue, the analyst may have suggested using a nifty web-based technology to view the problem directly on your computer. Historically, analysts have been instructed to use this technology only in situations where it's very important to be able to see your screen. For example, when installing ArcIMS with certain web server / servlet engine combinations, there are text-based configuration files that need to be edited very carefully, and if one character is wrong -- a backslash instead of a forward-slash, for instance -- it can cause problems that are very difficult to troubleshoot.
Of course, being able to see what's happening on your screen could be helpful in resolving all sorts of other issues as well! So, we're exploring options for making this screen-sharing technology more available and easier to use for our staff. Bugs Online: Status UpdateWe're very close to unleashing info about our creepy-crawlies onto the Support Center. It might even happen before my next post. At this point, we're waiting on a few last-minute changes that will help make sure that the bug info you'll be seeing will make as much sense as possible. If you haven't already done so, go ahead and set up an ESRI Global Account; you'll need to be logged in in order to see Bugs Online in your search results. There's plenty of other advantages to being logged in, too... click here for the details. Next week, we'll see if Bugs Online has emerged from its cocoon. I may also have another interview to present next week -- this time, I'll be talking with Aaron Z., the Operations Manager for ESRI Support Services.
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A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of talking with Charlie Frye, one of the people behind the new ESRI Mapping Center blog and web site. If you haven't visited the site yet, or even if you have, it's well worth a visit: new information is added frequently, by both the Mapping Center team and the larger User Community.
Jason: So let’s start at the beginning: Where did the idea for the Mapping Center web site come from? Charlie: It was something Aileen Buckley and I thought of, mostly Aileen. Initially, she was looking at the Project Center and realized its purpose was to cover the entire scope of a GIS project and how to use all the tools in a GIS to get the project done. We saw a pretty straightforward parallel in mapping: you often need to use a variety of software, techniques and processes together to produce a map. We saw how the Project Center was laid out, centered around the life cycle of a GIS project, and it gave us some starting ideas. It’s definitely evolved since then, but that was the initial idea. Jason: That’s interesting – so the idea for the Mapping Center came from the Project Center. Not very many people know what the Project Center is, and that's something we’d like to change, maybe revitalize the Project Center, maybe see how the Mapping Center works out and apply some of those ideas back to the Project Center. But back to the Mapping Center, when was it that you and Aileen had this initial idea? Charlie: That was almost two years ago, and it took us about a year to sort out what the concept would be. We talked with Clint B., our director and our main stakeholder, and he thought it was a good idea. We talked a good bit about, okay, what kinds of content do we have? How would we organize that content on the site? How would people interact with the content? What kinds of needs would the people who would use the site have? We wrote up a document a little over a year ago that detailed all of that and then the rest of it was, you know, working with people here at ESRI to make it happen. Jason: And you and Aileen were at the center of that effort. You two have worked together for some time, right? Charlie: A little over four years now. Jason: Besides the Mapping Center, what have you worked on here at ESRI? Charlie: Let's see, I started here almost fourteen years ago. I was in an ArcView GIS team before it was ArcView GIS, and I was originally a “quality assurance analyst”, one of the first people to have that title. I tested a lot of Avenue code and I wrote a lot of sample scripts early on. I soon became a cartography product specialist for ArcView, starting way back at version 2.1 and up through 3.1, and eventually became part of the ArcMap team and was the product specialist there. Oh, and there was a fifteen month space where we worked on the ArcView IMS extension, and I was sort of the unofficial product specialist lead for that by the time we finished. And then about five years ago I started working on this side project, Base map and Cartographic Data Modeling. Jason: Are these the same data models that we see on the Support Center website? Charlie: Yeah. It was around that time when we hired Aileen. The whole “best practices” thing was in some ways what got me wanting to work at ESRI in the first place. I found it really difficult for geographers to get their heads around GIS, which is pretty ironic in some ways, but at the same time, you know, geography curriculum doesn't teach information modeling or understanding how to use the database. The fact is that all these things are tools with their own abstract applications, and geographers just use them in a specific context. Jason: Right. Charlie: And so, something I wanted to do for a long time was to explain how to think about GIS, from a practitioner's standpoint, to explain how you actually get from one state of information to another. Jason: And you’ve finally got an outlet for that explanation, in the shape of the Mapping Center. Charlie: That’s right. When I learned GIS, I learned that there's a database, there's analysis, and then there's communication of the results… but we don't talk a whole lot about that last part. We need to pay more attention to communications theory, or from a broader perspective, we need to be thinking about modeling information to support the data management story, the analysis story and the communication story. If you look at it holistically, the Mapping Center shows techniques for handling the communications story, which is important. Jason: Is the Mapping Center meant to tell a comprehensive story? It sort of seems like a collection of snapshots, where each snapshot describes a specific place within a specific scenario. Charlie: That’s probably the way it's going to seem for quite some time. Trying to explain in kind of an abstract or theoretical fashion, how to think about GIS doesn't actually help you think about actually doing it effectively. But by us actually using ArcGIS to figure out examples about how someone might do a particular task in GIS or a map-making task, we start to see how to think about that task. Aileen and I have thought about these tasks from a couple of angles. Aileen looks at it primarily from a cartographic theory and principles standpoint -- Aileen's has a Ph.D. in cartography, and she teaches as a professor at the University of Redlands, and she'd been in academia for a number of years before that. Jason: Wow. That's great experience she's bringing to the table. Charlie: Absolutely. For my part, I look at it from the standpoint of, well, how do you get this task done in the software? What route does the data have to take in order to become useful in whatever map somebody needs to make? And so between the two of us we can explain what the tasks are, how to do them, and why you’d want to do them that way. That’s what most of the Mapping Center content is, and we’ve come up with a pretty straightforward formula for presenting the content in a way that feels almost like a tutorial. Jason: I see. So your visitors get it all: the how, the why, the best practices, it’s all in there. Charlie: That’s our aim. Jason: Neat. I see you’re looking at a web site page indicating the number of people who subscribe to the Mapping Center RSS feeds. How's that going? Charlie: It's actually kind of surprising, I hadn't gotten to see this until yesterday, but it looks like Mapping Center is already one of the more heavily-used ESRI blogs. We're definitely getting a lot of traffic on it, anywhere from two hundred to four hundred hits a day. So that's actually telling us that people are interested in what the site and the blog. I’ve talked to a number of people who said they like it. Aileen and I have enough content, we could publish random content out there for years, probably. But our intention really is to have the users drive the choice of topics, and that's actually starting to happen now. We have an Ask a Cartographer section that's getting between two and five requests every day now. Jason: People are writing in with questions about how to make maps? Charlie: Exactly. People can read the documentation and find out what a function does, but how do you know how to use it for particular application? How do you think about it in a given scenario? That's the type of questions we’re seeing. Some of them are straightforward answers and some of them are pretty complex. I'm working on one right now where the user asks how to choose a cell size when interpolating points in a raster. It's a complex topic because it depends on their purpose. Jason: Right. Charlie: We've never written a help topic about it, and it's a common enough task, and so it's just a matter of sorting out the issues, like: How do you evaluate your point data to make sure it can support the cell size you're asking for? How do you determine the cell size that's going to make sense for the product you're going to make? Jason: Sounds like coming up with a good answer could require knowing some theory, some of the science. Charlie: That’s true for some of the questions, yes. When it's appropriate, we should offer more information about the theory. At the same time, we don't expect to be the ultimate authority. There are experts out there in the user community who live and breathe this stuff. Jason: Very true. Charlie: And we also kind of hope that these experts find the Mapping Center blog and leave comments based on their own experience. Those comments would be more than my two cents worth, you know, more like twenty dollars worth! Jason: It sounds like one of the things that you're really hoping for is for the user community to get involved. I’ve heard that there’s a way for users to submit an entire post for the blog? Charlie: Yes, and that actually happened for the first time yesterday. Jason: Really? What was the post? Charlie: A user in southern Illinois has created a layout using the default ESRI palette. She’s set it up with CMYK colors, because that's how her organization specifies color values for their maps. There are several different plotters used to make final maps, and they each produce slightly different colors. So she just runs the layout through each plotter and hangs them up as posters on her wall as a reference, so she can be sure of getting the right colors. I think it’s good post in that it reminds people of a good practice, and secondly, here's a real-world example of somebody using the approach successfully. This post was less than 150 words, and she thoughtfully included the MXD to share with other users. Jason: That's really great. It sounds like the blog is really starting to take off and the community is getting involved. Have you had thoughts about the future of the Mapping Center? Charlie: As we prepared for this initial release, there were a lot of ideas that we lumped into a "Whatever's Next" phase, and now we're starting to sort those out in terms of, "What's Realistically Next" and "What's Still On The Horizon". The thing we most want to see show up in the Mapping Center is a search for the general site. There's a search in the blog, but we feel a little handicapped at the moment. Beyond that, we’re thinking of turning the Ask a Cartographer section into a forum—we’ve had dozens of good questions that, for now, only the person asking has seen the answer. We have another section in the works that we’re calling the Cartographer's Eye, where we would take a map that we’re working to improve, show “before” and “after” pictures, and then talk about the processes used to make the improvements. These are often the same processes that we use to produce our User Conference presentations, or when we're helping one of our colleagues make a better demo or map. Jason: “Before” and “after” pictures -- sort of sounds like you’re putting a map on a diet. Charlie: (laughs) In a lot of cases that's actually a good way to think about it. There's lot people who think that the more information and detail you can stuff into your map, the better. I think it was Frank Lloyd Wright who said something to the effect of, “the design is done when you can't take anything else out of it”. Jason: Indeed. (laughs). I'm sure he'd be proud of your effort to apply his idea to the world of cartography. Before we wrap this up, is there anything you'd like to say to or ask of the people who read the Support Center news blog? Charlie: I'd love to see more people commenting on the blog entries. I mean, this kind of blogging is sort of a new phenomenon at ESRI in some ways, and our users are still kind of warming up to it. And I’d like to point out that the blogs that have come up lately, like the ArcGIS Explorer blog, the Mapping Center blog, and the ArcGIS Server Development blog – these blogs have real people behind them who are working on them every day, who get the feedback and respond so that in a very real sense there's someone at ESRI who’s listening if you've got something you want to add to the discussion. Jason: That’s right. So you’d like to see more people taking advantage of that fact. Charlie: Right. These blogs are moderated, but it's pretty loose. Blogs are for the user community, for people who are trying to get work done I'm kind of curious to see how an online community of this nature forms and participates. I think we're starting to see the beginnings of this and I'd like to see it grow so the community is contributing maybe twenty five and fifty percent of the content, so it's not all just Aileen and I talking. We want our users to ground this blog in reality by taking part in it. If you want to see something discussed, you don't have to write a post yourself -- you can just ask us, “can we get a blog entry on this topic?” We're usually able to respond to that kind of thing in a couple of weeks. On the other hand, if you do want to post something, we’ve got a way to do that, too – we figured out a way to accept submissions from the user community, both inside and outside ESRI. Just go to the Mapping Center web site and find the Submit a Blog Entry link on the far right. Jason: Excellent. ESRI is really starting to turn towards increased User Community participation, and the Mapping Center is a good, early example of that turning. Thanks very much for taking the time to talk with me today, this has been enlightening. Charlie: It’s been a pleasure.
Thanks again to Charlie, and congratulations to the entire Mapping Center Team on the success of the site and blog.
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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 UpdateThe 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.
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Hello from San Diego, where the User Conference is in full swing. I'm sitting out in front of the Tech Support Island (it's actually more of a corral), itching to talk with people about the good and bad of the ESRI Support Center web site. The Tech Support staff are keeping busy assisting a steady-ish stream of users, but there's hardly anyone approaching me to ask a question or lodge a complaint about the Support Center. If you're at the Conference, stop by and say hi. And if I don't wake up right away, try saying hi a little louder. Actually, I'm managing to stay rather busy. There are blog posts to write (obviously), and several other projects clamoring for my attention. One of these involves coordinating with colleagues back in Redlands to put a few final tweaks on the new Search Results page enhancements. I didn't arrive in San Diego until Tuesday, so I missed the plenary session where Nick Frunzi presented (among other things) the following slide which lists a few of the ways ESRI is working to improve Support Services:  That last item is the announcement I hinted at in my last post: ESRI is working to give you access to information which has historically been internal-only. What kind of information? Well, how about bug reports? Yes, someday in the not-too-distant future you'll be able to search the Support Center and learn about potential problems before beginning a project. Of course, you'll also be able to search for bugs after you encounter them, to see if the bug has been reported to ESRI, and if so, what's being done with it. Tentatively named "Bugs Online", this new Support Center feature is planned to go live in late Summer 2007, and will be integrated into the existing Support Center search. Here's a few more details (as usual, all is subject to change): It looks like the first release will be a public "beta" during which you'll be able to access Bugs Online, albeit with somewhat reduced functionality and content. During the the beta, you should still be able to access most of the metadata for most of the bugs, including:
- Synopsis: A concise description of the problem and the circumstances under which it occurs.
- Submitted: The date the bug report was filed.
- Severity: Indicates how heavily the problem impacts those who encounter it.
- Version Found: The ESRI software version where the problem was first seen.
- Status: A short text description of where the bug currently is in our handling processes.
Later on this year we'll be working on additional functionality, including an option to allow you to "subscribe" to specific bugs and receive an email when the status of the bug changes. There's more in store, and I'll be passing along more information as the details come into focus. In the meantime, if you have questions about Bugs Online (as I'm sure you do), ask away, and I'll answer as I'm able.
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Another User Conference has come and gone, and I'm back in Redlands, along with most of my colleagues. One of our first tasks after we're back in Redlands (besides catching up with backlogged emails) is to go over the feedback we received from you at the User Conference. There were a few suggestions for the Support Center web site, including:
- Promote the Customer Care site on the Support Center home page. Currently, the Support Center only has links to the Customer Service site.
- On the Support Center home page, move the Announcements section below the "Latest Additions" section.
- When offering video tutorials, podcasts or other downloadable or streamable media, list the running time. This will help users wondering whether to watch/listen now, or later.
- With the Support Center Search, add the ability to filter content by version, like the EDN web site's Search does.
- On the AnswerTree (beta), display the "Start Over" button on each page, not just on the end pages.
Some of these suggestions (like linking to the Customer Care site) are head-slappers: why didn't we think of that? Some of the other suggestions we'll need to consider carefully... moving the Announcements to the bottom of the home page might be a problem for some users, but perhaps the Announcements could move to the right-hand column. We'll give these and your other suggestions some thought, and I'll keep you posted as we plan future changes.
Introducing a Few Familiar FacesStarting this week, you're going to be seeing some new faces in the Support Center News blog posts. I've invited some of my colleagues to send in snippets of info about themselves and what they do here in ESRI Support Services. These snippets will appear from time to time, whenever my colleagues have some timely Support-related information they want to share. Of course, that information will also (when appropriate) go out to the Support Center in various forms of documentation. Readers of this blog have the advantage of finding out things sooner (perhaps even before they happen), and also of getting to know the people behind the information. So without further ado... This week two of our senior Support staff, Hamid and Mark, would like to introduce themselves. Take it away, guys!
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