| A Newsletter about Remedy at NC State University | September 2000 |
In This Issue:
Updating Remedy Customer Data
Have you ever wondered why you can not use Remedy to update the information that appears for one of your customers? This is because the database table that contains the customer information is not a Remedy table. It is a database table that resides outside of Remedy, and is actually reconstructed daily from data from a variety of sources. These sources (Registration and Records, Telecommunications and Administrative Computing Services) are the authorative sources for the information. So rather than create yet another place for the data to become out-of-date, we decided to pull the data in from the real sources. The advantage of this decision is that as our customers update their own contact information (via the web or through other means), the Remedy customer data will be self-correcting. The disadvantage of this decision is that it is up to the customer to keep their contact information current. If you encounter a Remedy customer record that is incorrect, please send the customer a copy of Remedy solution number 849, which describes the process for updating contact information.
Remedy Reports - With Customer Data
Speaking of customer data, have you ever wanted to do some reporting on the "call" data that is in the Remedy system, but couldn't figure out how to get the reports to include information about the customer? Well, you are not alone. Most of the problem has to do with the fact that the customer data that Remedy uses does not reside in a Remedy database table, as describe above. To alleviate this problem, we have created a Remedy table out of the customer table mentioned in the article above. By creating a new Remedy form which contains fields from the Calls table and this new Customer table, we now have a way to report on Calls and include customer data in the reports. This new form is call "Calls_Cust". You can access it the same way that you access the Calls form in Remedy. Alternatively, if your reporting needs exceed that capabilities provided by the Remedy User tool, you can use any SQL reporting tool that you like to access this form. Just make sure that you use the Remedy ODBC drivers to access the form. The Remedy ODBC drivers are automatically installed on your PC when you install the Remedy User tool. Been to the Remedy web site lately? They are very excited there about the latest version of the Remedy User tool, version 4.5. We have done some preliminary testing of this new version in our environment, and we have discovered some problems with it. We are working with Remedy technical support to resolve them, but until we do, it is suggested that you stick with the version 4.0.3 Remedy User tool. If you have new Remedy users in your department who need a copy of the 4.0.3 client, please contact us and I will make a CD for you. Need to run Remedy under Windows 2000? A patch to the Windows client (version 4.0.3) is now available to enable use of the client under Windows 2000. You can download it from: http://remedy.ncsu.edu/project/patches/patch889/ Does your organization use Remedy Solutions? Are you confused about how the solutions interface in Remedy works? We have made some dramatic changes in the solutions interface to make it much easier to locate (and create... see next article) Remedy solutions.As an introduction, you should know that each Remedy solution has one or more keywords associated with it. Keywords are the primary mechanism used to locate solutions in Remedy.
To search for solutions from within the Calls form, select the "Solutions" tab. The "Query/Keywords" box is where you type the keywords. If the box is prepopulated with a reasonable query already, just press the "Search" button. If there is no query, or it is not appropriate, you can type any combination of known or suspected keywords there, and then press the Search button. Within a few seconds, the table field at the bottom of the tab will be populated with all of the solutions whose keyword list contained any of the words that were in the query above. They are sorted by the number of keywords that matched.
As you select solutions from the list, the fields above will be populated with the information from that solution. If you find the one that solves the problem, then leave it selected, and you can deliverer it to the customer. If you want to refine your search, simply make changes to the "Query/Keywords" box, and press "Search" again.
Whichever solution is displayed in the Solutions tab is the one that will be associated with the call when it is saved. If you did not find an appropriate solution, be sure to press the "Clear" button in the Solutions tab to make sure that no solution will be associated with the call.
Do you find that you are delivering the same solutions to your customers over and over again, and wish that you did not have to search for them each time? Remedy keeps track of the solutions that you have used, and by pressing the "Recent" button, you can display a list of the (15 by default) solutions that you have delivered, sorted by how many times that solution has been used by you.
Should you discover a solution that needs editing, simply press the "Edit" button. This will open a window into the Solutions form where you can edit the text, or the keyword list associated with a solution. For more information about creating and editing Remedy solutions, please see Remedy solution number 2226. Its easier than ever!
Did you know that your customers can follow the progress of their calls by visiting the Remedy Call Status Page? Just type in the call number, and a short display of basic information about the call will appear. For calls in most all workgroups, the text of the call is not displayed. However, at the request of some organizations, we have enabled the display of the text of the Remedy call. If your organization would like for your customers to be able to see the text of the calls in your workgroup, contact us and we will enable this feature. This was implemented so that it can be deployed on a workgroup-by-workgroup basis. Also, it is possible to only expose the call text of calls that were created after a certain date, just in case there might be information in one or two older calls that would not be appropriate for customer viewing.
[Contributed by Dr. Charles J. Brabec - ITD.]Do you ever just wish you could check Remedy without starting the GUI? Hate wading through tons of Call mails to find the ones relevant to you?
I do.
So, I discovered the ARSperl module, and found that it was already installed on /usr/local/bin/perl. I put together a script to check Remedy for interesting items. After a bit of tweaking, I've packaged it all up and installed it into /ncsu/remedy/bin/ARSchk. It looks for calls the are not 'Closed' or 'Solved', that either belong to one of the users you specify, or that are in one of the workgroups that you specify but are not owned.
Run the script the first time, and it will create a ~/.ARSchkrc file for you. Put your Remedy password in there, and it should work fine after that.
See the ~/.ARSchkrc file for a description of the options you can set.
All the params can also be set from the command line, run:
'ARSchk -h'
for the options. You may also put your password
in the ENV under ARSPASSWD, if you don't want it saved in a file.
Play with it. Steal it and customize it to your own needs, if you like. Send me suggestions, if you have any.
Now if I can just figure out how to write a 'closecall' script :-)
- Broadcast facility to convey critical information to logged-in Remedy users
- Additional information in History field
- Attachments in Remedy