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Creating a IT ticket best practices

When you encounter a problem and need support from the IT staff, you can help with following a few best practices to ease the error identification and solving.

Support addresses for getting help

for NAF related issues see Getting support and FAQ for which support mail address is best suited for your problem

Best Practices

To identify an issue, some basic information are always necessary

  • a helpful title: short summary of the problem
  • priority of the problem for your work: ranging from observation, annoyance, obstacle to a serious emergency
  • who: your username at DESY
  • who²: your affected job IDs, if jobs have been failing
  • when: the time(s) the issue has been observed
  • where: the server(s) on which you notice the problem
  • where²: the paths of files involved, i.e., where you have been trying to read from or to write to
  • what: the storyline of your problem - what did you actually wanted to achieve, what you did to reach that goal, what outcome you wanted to see and what result you got instead
  • what²: your software environment - how did you set up your environment, which versions of tools you have been using
  • did you source an experiment specific environment
  • did you use a baseline Jupyter kernel or non-default kernel
  • did you use a dedicated a python virtual env?
  • what³: the basic steps for the IT staff to replicate the problem
  • additional comments or observations that might be helpful for debugging
  • relevant passages from job logs in your AFS home

Template

Title: (short summary)

Priority: (observation ... severly affecting global production)

Username: username/uid (your username at DESY, if necessary additional identities)

Time: date (point in time or time frame)

Job IDs if applicable: list (cluster.id)

Computers/Servers affected: list (which server have you been working; if applicable which other servers where involved)

Files/Paths affected: (/afs/desy.de/... , /nfs/dust/... etc. )

Short description of the problem: (describe the problem and how the correct behaviour should be)

Software Environment and versions: (what environment variables are set, what software versions are used, which virtual environments are used,...)

Steps to replicate the problem: (steps the support has to take to reproduce the problem)

Additional Comments: (any additional info. that might be useful)