June 6th 2024 – meeting notes

IGeLU/ELUNA Customer Support Advisory Group

2024-June-06

Notes  – Further Discussion on Question set #1 

Discussion on the set of ExLibris questions

  1. What works best for Chat-based support or what does not work? What options should we keep, discontinue, add?
  2. Will this group function for testing and feedback to represent the community for Ex Libris changing or deploying new tools for support such as AI-based tools, Support Center functions, etc.?
  3. How is anyone using the Ex Libris Content Issues in Progress?
  4. Some customers have reported cases in Pending Customer Input status are auto-closed too soon. The current practice is that when a case goes to “Pending Customer Input” status it will automatically close if there is no response within 14 days. ITSM best practice definitely says that the user/customer should decide when to close a case—unless the user/customer is not responsive in a reasonable time. There is no consensus on what a reasonable time is but reported practice ranges from 24 hours to 3 weeks depending on a lot of variables. What scenarios don’t work for the current practice and what change do we need?

QUESTION #2: Will this group function for testing and feedback to represent the community for Ex Libris changing or deploying new tools for support such as AI-based tools, Support Center functions, etc.?

We discussed working with other groups for community decisions on support.

We see this group as champions for the other working groups.

Report back to Steering Committees to make the bigger decisions. And widening feedback mechanisms to the user community where necessary.

QUESTION #4

Agree the optimum time period for the status of ‘Pending Customer Input’. Currently it is set at two weeks (14 days)

The group suggested an increase to 28 days.  The group recommended it as a trial setting to be reviewed after IGeLU2024

QUESTION #1: chat support

Do we use chat support? Pros and cons of chat as a tool

The group discussed a wide range of users and use cases. It was clear there was no overall standard way of using chat. Which prompted the question – what was the intended use when Chat was rolled out?

Some of the group’s use cases:

  • New users – to ask questions
  • Triage for incidents
  • ‘Howto’ requests when documentation didn’t provide an answer
  • Quick response to tech issues (e.g. api questions)
  • Known issues

Some of the issues were noted as:

  • Not all staff have been given access to Chat
  • Consortia – not all people reporting issues have access to chat. Different behaviour for centralized support Groups. They want to check an incident before reporting it as an issue.
  • Error logs – first line staff – do they have access to check error pids?
  • Chat transcript is not always good. Would better formatting help?
  • Sometimes the issue is at the library, user needs education and issue can be resolved locally

Specific questions we have for Exlibris:

  • When chat was rolled out – how was it intended to be used?
  • What access to tools do first line staff have? If we have an error pid it would be useful for chat support to be able to check logs.
  • Chat transcript is not always good. Could we look at better formatting? In general – better formatting/checklist for incidents would help standardise the triage process.
  • Could we promote use of the case feedback for chat and Salesforce cases so support can get better feedback.
  • Are there any chat metrics we can look at?

Specific questions for the community

  • When using chat, how quickly things are resolved.  What was resolved?  What wasn’t resolved?
  • Did using chat save the back and forth on cases?

ExLibris would like more of the community to use chat. It should speed up resolution of cases.

Even if the chat person doesn’t have all the tools, they can get the best details for a case

AIMs for the group:

  1. Collaborate with ExLibris to provide better guidelines for using chat.
  2. Promote use of the case feedback for chat and Salesforce cases so support can get better feedback
  3. Gather feedback from us on our users who use chat
  4. How quickly things are resolved.  What was resolved?  What wasn’t resolved?
    1. How do our users feel about resolution cases when using Chat?
    1. Did using chat save the back and forth on cases?
    1. Promote use of the case feedback for chat and Salesforce cases so support can get better feedback.

QUESTION 3: Known Issues for content – are we using it? Is it useful
https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Cross-Product/Providers_Page/Content_in_Ex_Libris_Products/Ex_Libris_Content_Issues_In_Progress

Some of us waiting for feedback from E-Resource Managers on how they are using it.

Not sure if people are using and for what purpose.

Can it be provided in a smart format for searching? Or providing alerts on specific issues?

  • Could we tie the Jira number to release notes? 
  • Can we talk about it in relation to Problem Management?
  • Might be a good use for Chat? or Chatbot? To ‘me too’ or assign incidents to Problem Management.

Known Issue Systems for incident and problem management

The discussion turned to Known Issue systems in general

ExLibris are looking at introducing a known issue system – more details to follow

They are aware customers want ‘Me Too’ functionality but it was unworkable due to compliance issues and GDPR.

The group agreed a standard approach to known issues would be a good idea.

Easier for customers to use and understand. The discussion will be carried over to future meetings.