[daip] New NRAO Helpdesk

[Claire Chandler]

Colleagues,

You are receiving this email because you have been registered as "staff"
in the NRAO Helpdesk system, which will go live in February 2010.
The NRAO Helpdesk will provide the user community with a single point of
entry for obtaining help on all NRAO instruments.  It will also provide
a means of keeping track of the staff effort in user support through the
ticket volume, and will ensure that problems and queries from users are
not dropped.  The new helpdesk is NOT intended to replace the internal
CIS helpdesk, JIRA, or other bug-tracking systems.

Users will see several "departments" on entering the helpdesk system,
which are managed by "department managers" behind the scenes at NRAO.
The department manager is reponsible for assigning tickets to department
staff.  The following departments will be activated initially:

- General
- Proposal Submission (EVLA/GBT/VLBA)
- Observation Preparation (EVLA)
- Observation Preparation (VLBA)
- Archive Access
- Data Processing (AIPS)
- Data Processing (CASA)
- ALMA/NAASC

You have been registered as "staff" in one or more of these departments.
If, when you log into the system, you find that the departments in
which you have been registered are inappropriate or that you should be
included in other departments as well as those you are already in please
let me know.

The helpdesk has been tested using a version hosted by the developers
of the system, Kayako, at nrao.helpserve.com.  On February 2, we will
be transferring this version to an in-house version at help.nrao.edu.
Once this transfer is complete I will be distributing training materials
to staff to explain how to log in, change passwords, answer tickets,
set up personal preferences, etc.

Claire Chandler