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Answering and Tracking DODS Support Questions

There are three goals we need to keep in mind while answering support questions:

  • Answer the Users question
  • Archive the discussion so our responses can be used (by users and by us) to more easily answer future questions.
  • Track the discussion so the user's problem doesn't get dropped.

Here are the three main situations in which you will find yourself and the steps involved in dealing with the situation:

  1. You get a support question
  2. You need to reassign the support question to someone else, i.e., the questions gets into details best answered by another support person.
    • Determine who to reassign the problem (see our list of developer responsibilities).
    • email the user notifying them of change to new support person, why, etc, include last email and CC to support-dods so new support person can look at and figure things out
    • reassign Bug in Bugzilla
    • email new support person
  3. A support question is reassigned to you

Search for Existing Bug in Bugzilla

You can search the DODS Bugzilla entries on the query page. You may want to change the selections in the "Status" list. In the "Program:" list, select "DODS", in the "Component:" list, select "Support".

Search Support Email Archive

You can do a text search on the support email archive.

The support email archive is also available for browsing by date or by thread.

Add a New Bug to Bugzilla

First, go to the new bug page. Select "DODS". Under Component, select "Support". Enter any information you think is pertinent along with these specific items:

  • For "Assign To:", leave blank or assign to yourself. If assigning to yourself, add edavis@ucar.edu to the CC: list. If leaving blank, add self to CC: list if desired.
  • For "Summary:", give a brief description of the problem.
  • For "Description:", include the support email header information. After that add a more complete description of the problem including any important details.

Add Comments to Existing Bug in Bugzilla

From the DODS Bugzilla page, enter the bug number (should be in "Keywords:" tag in emails) and click on "Find" button.

Enter summary of current exchange with user in the "Additional Comments:" box. Click on the "Commit" button.

Reassign Bug in Bugzilla

From the DODS Bugzilla page, enter the bug number (should be in "Keywords:" tag in emails) and click on "Find" button.

Just above "Commit" button, select "Reassign bug to" option and enter the new support persons email address. Enter any comments in the "Additional Comments:" box and click on the "Commit" button.

Send email response to user

  • Follow the support email guidelines
  • Include pertinent sections of incoming email
  • Respond in one of these ways:
    • Answer question
    • Ask for clarification
    • Got your question. I need to look into it. Will get back to you later today, tomorrow, etc
    • Got your question. I don't know much about this. I'm passing this on to someone more knowledgable in this area for them to answer.

Support Email Guidelines

The steps laid out in these guidelines are the means by which our user support emails get archived and how the individual emails are linked into conversations. The archive is available on the web and searchable (see above for links).

There are a number of steps that need to be taken when answering a user support email:

  1. CC the message to support-dods@unidata.ucar.edu:
    This step actually places the email into the archive.
  2. Include the support header information:
    This step provides the means by which individual emails are linked into a conversation. The header information must be the same throughout a conversation. The header will include the "From:", "Organization:", and "Keywords:" tags. (See the NOTE on Keywords below.)
  3. Preface the subject with the date rather than "Re:":
    E.g., change "Subject: Re: I have a DODS question" to "Subject: 19990430: I have a DODS question". This is convenient when searching the archives.
  4. Reply-to: support@unidata.ucar.edu:
    This is so all follow-up user emails will come through Unidata Support. That way any follow-ups can be handled even if the original answerer is on vacation.

Here's a snippet from a question I answered with pointers to the items above: 

       From: Ethan R. Davis <edavis@ucar.edu>
       To: Brian Schlining
4) --> Reply-To: Unidata Support <support@unidata.ucar.edu>
1) --> CC: support-dods@unidata.ucar.edu
3) --> Subject: 19990430: DODS
       Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 16:30:57 -0600 (MDT)

2) -->  > Organization: MBARI
2) -->  > Keywords: 199904301737.LAA16064 DODS Java

        Hi Brian,

        Brian Schlining writes:
         > Are you going to port all or part of the DODS API's over to Java?
        ...

Note on Keywords:
The first item in the "Keywords:" tag is a unique string. (This string is generally the message ID [generated by the Unidata mail system] of the first support message in a conversation. If you are answering a question that didn't get redirected from Unidata, find some hopefully unique string and use it, perhaps a message ID of some sort.) This string is used to thread individual emails into a conversation. So it is very important that the same "Keyword:" line be included in all the emails that make up a single conversation. The Second item in the "Keywords:" tag is the number of the Bugzilla "bug" corresponding to this conversation (see the Bugzilla comments above). Other items (words and phrases) may be added to the "Keywords:" tag to help archive searches.

Developer Responsibility Areas

  • James Gallagher <jgallagher@gso.uri.edu>: DODS C++ DAP (core library), DODS HDF server
  • Dan Holloway <d.holloway@gso.uri.edu>: DODS JGOFS server, DODS JGOFS, Matlab, and IDL clients
  • Nathan Potter <ndp@coas.oregonstate.edu>: DODS Java code (DAP, test server, DODS SQL server)
  • Ethan Davis <edavis@ucar.edu>: DODS build/install scripts
  • Reza Nekovei <rnekovei@ieee.org>: DODS netCDF, DSP, and FF servers, DODS netCDF client library
  • Tom Sgouros <tomss@ids.net>: DODS documentation