CISE Help & Resources
Help for the CISE GNATS Problem Tracking System.
This page provides information on using the GNATS Problem Tracking system and contains tips on how to make reports as effective as possible.
Overview
The GNATS Problem Tracking System is designed to aid an organization in reporting and resolving any problems that may arise during day to day work. By assigning a number for each problem reported, and tracking all changes in status and all correspondence for each problem report (PR), both help desk operators and users can see the steps taken to resolve the problem both during and after the problem's resolution.
Most PRs will proceed as follows:
- PR submission: User submits problem report. The user will receive confirmation
of the PR via email in this format:
From: gnats-admin@cise.ufl.edu To: user-who-sumbmitted-pr@cise.ufl.edu Subject: Re: orders/974: ordering stuff Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:15:02 -0500 (EST) Thank you very much for your problem report. It has the internal identification `orders/974'. The individual assigned to look at your report is: orders. >Category: orders >Responsible: orders >Synopsis: ordering stuff >Arrival-Date: Fri Jan 23 13:15:02 -0500 2004
- PR analysis: Systems staff analyzes the PR and may request feedback from the user
- PR closure: PR is closed and user is informed of PR status
There are 5 possible states a PR can be in:
- open: New PR
- analyzed: Problem has been analyzed
- feedback: PR requires user feedback before closing
- suspended: PR cannot be completed at this time, but is not yet closed
- closed: PR is closed
Each time a Systems Staff member changes the state, the user will be informed of the change as well as given a reason why the state changed. To ensure PRs are not left unattended, reminders will be generated at regular intervals until the PR is closed, and the submitter will be informed of the reminder each time one is sent.
Categories
At CISE, we are currently using the following categories of problem reports:
- E-Mail: Problems reading or receiving E-Mail
- Hardware: Computer Hardware Problems
- Logins: Problems logging into CISE systems
- Maintenance: General maintenance (e.g., toner changes, etc)
- Modems: Problems with the CISE dialups
- News: Problems reading news on usenet.cise.ufl.edu
- Orders: New equipment orders and purchases
- Printing: Printing problems
- Property: Requests for adding, moving, or removing property and equipment between offices
- Requests: Requests for new services or software
- Software: Problems running applications
- System: General system problems
- Web: Problems with web browsing or the CISE web site
Users who wish to request a new category can do so by generating a PR with a category of "Requests".
Tips for creating good problem reports.
Here are some tips to keep in mind when generating PR's:
- The most important fields to fill out properly are
- Email address: without a proper E-Mail address, we cannot contact the user submitting the PR
- Synopsis: a brief description of the problem
- Environment: Windows, Solaris, or Linux machine, web-based, home system, etc.
- Description: What is actually happening
- How to repeat: This can be *very* helpful in tracking down problems.
- Please give as much information as possible, e.g., the machine on which the problem is occuring, software versions used, etc.
Keeping all correspondence with a PR.
Users should make sure they keep the original email message from GNATS handy until the PR is closed. In the event that a discussion is required regarding the PR, or information about the PR needs to be appended to it, users can simply reply to the message and report any additional information:
To: requests@cise.ufl.edu cc: user-submitting-the-pr@cise.ufl.edu Subject: Re: orders/1088: New Dell System for my office Here's an E-Quote for my new Dell system: .......
Any e-mail sent to
requests@cise.ufl.edu
with a Subject: line referencing the PR like the above will be appended to the PR.
While this doesn't affect the state of the PR, this ensures all correspondence can be viewed when checking the status at the GNATS Query Page.
Checking up on PRs
At any time after the creation of a PR, the PR's state can be viewed at:
Users can either enter the PR number (by itself, e.g, "1024"), or select criteria with which to search for PRs.
Users can also use the command line tool query-pr(1) to query PRs from a Unix shell.