My Note from May 30, 2024 Meeting

Notes from note-taker from May 30th Meeting

May 30th Meeting Notes:

• Meet with ExL reps on June 6th

• Going to create a page on Basecamp to capture cases to use as examples (positive & negative)

• Each person present at the meeting gave an example of something good and something bad about support cases or responses

  • Positives:

    • Meeting with ExL support team is helpful

    • ExL communicating with vendors on metadata/content issues

    • Consortia access to cases to see pattern of issues

    • All products (ProQuest/ExLibris) are all in SalesForce

      • easier to report issues

  • Negatives:

    • Responses saying issue fixed but no information on what was wrong

    • Cases get closed after support says issue is fixed but it isn’t fixed

      • no metric on why the support person thinks issue is fixed

    • Communication with vendor can become a back and forth “blame game”

      • ask library for clarification of issue to stop the blame game

    • Faster updates of System Status page when there are issues with Alma/Primo

      • Page updates 30 minutes after issue is reported

    • Faster responses between Tier 1 and Tier 2

      • no more vague answers to case resolution

      • need standard communication responses

• Going to gather information from CCOP and RUG for support

  • What are their burning issues with support

  • Create a formal survey and gather information for ExL Support

• Liaise with Content Working Group

  • Documentation for support needs to be better

  • Support needs to share documentation on issues to “prove” their cases/results

• Create list of cases as examples to prove why resolution was not ideal

  • Communicate that if it will take a year to fix an issue, give details on why and what will be fixed

• ExL Support said that 40% of their cases are “how to do something”

  • Documentation needs to be easier to find and clear on how to do the task

• Support is going to test the extended life of the case and not auto-close the case after 2 weeks

  • they will try 4 weeks but industry standard is 3 weeks

• Create a better Known Issues page and communicate that page more often

  • keep updated on a regular basis

·         Top issues working well

o   SalesForce – being able to CC people in a case – to get support from others

o   Escalate straight from the ticket 

o   Tier 1 try hard to support us

o   General willingness & intention to solve problems

§  Willingness to let us know that they have no intention to fix a problem

o   Communication in case between publisher and vendor – especially metadata, can see the back and forth

o   Meetings with ExL- very helpful

·         Top issues not working well

o   Response times – many cases older than 3 months with no response

§  Lack of communication 

o   Predefined text on a case – templates uses lose impact over time – not useful

o   Once cases get to T2 or Development, the cases bog down

o   Closing cases that haven’t been fixed

§  Wait for confirmation as to whether the “fix” actually worked before closing

o   Related to metadata fixes – need to switch gears and go to try to work on a different approach.

o   Will get responses on cases with documentation that is outdated

o   Unevenness across different areas about responses – if Alma or Primo, answer is pretty quick.  If an API or other, they linger, not clear.

o    

·         Communications from call management products, would be nice to be consistent and targeted.

o   Higher visibility stating the specific product 

o   Notifications are wordy – more concise language

·         Documentation – dates and currency on information

o   40% of calls that come in are about how to do something

o   Searchability needs to be improved – need to know what it’s being called

o   Would be good to have this support gave have representation on the documentation group – Karen G. to ask about the Documentation group

o    Documentation needs to be updated 

§  Alma API – shortcut query that allows you to search by barcode, but is only listed in blog, not in documentation

·         Get a Basecamp page to capture use cases for these type of issues

·         Would like to have something to report out in Fall

o   What are you not getting from Support 

o   ExL needs actionable items

·         Suggestions

o   OK to close cases early if identified as not worked on – got to known issues list

o   Be mindful of own visibility – let folks know about Advisory groups

·         Will be setting up monthly website page, & monthly updates

·         For updates to outside groups

o   RUGs

o   Working Groups

o   Communities of Practice

o   Communication methods

§  Surveys

§  Burning Questions – not for individual cases

§  Look at TOR to see if there is information about our scope

My Notes from June 6th Meeting with Ex Libris

Notes from note taker - June 6th

Note June 6^th

Did introductions:  Dave (Australia( is in Texas)

Zi (ExL) in Texas

Suggested time from exl is two weeks to close cases.

Group suggested 4 weeks (Run until Sept)

            Report impact on the change at next Eluna/igelu

Standard practice is 3 weeks (industry wide)

Luda agreed to 4 weeks for a short period of time while at Eluna

But review with other groups to make sure they are not negatively affected by the change

            Waiting for confirmation this won’t neg affect customers and other software areas

Udi Porat is working on this part.

Will change Salesforce when accepted by other areas

*Best option to communicate: share with all community. Work on the communication with exl and then send out to community about change to 4 weeks.

Next question: chat support

Groups has different ways we use Chat and want to know who it best helps, ie. New users

Use chat to find out what errors, for immediate response to errors

For those who staff chat, how does it work behind the scene:

            How much knowledge do they have? What tools do they have to check on issues?

            What type of user does exl think is using Chat?

            What is the use case for using Chat?

Exl reply:

            When released by exl, it was slowly rolled out

            Want to know why some staff don’t use chat

                        Consortia want to to see what the issue is first, before allowing staff to report issue          (I don’t do this, everyone is free to chat, come to me ifyou hear back from support that it is a consortia-wide issue)

                                    Sometimes the issue at the library, user needs education and issue can be resolved locally

                                    Consortias report issue for library

Emily (Harvard) asked if Chat would be useful if there is an immediate issue since staff don’t have access to logs.  If a job fails, the library wants to know why it fails and wants chat to help out quickly.

Chat transcript is not great.  Better formatting.  But chat moves it up to tier 2 and opens a case.  Not a quick process.

Who staffs chat? Tier 1 only??? Tier 2 on chat???

Libraries would like the folks on Chat to be able to look at logs if there is an error to get a quicker resolution to those type of errors.  Chat is not currently set up for that type of response.

Alex (Edinburgh): ask chat if there is a known issue to save time investigating an issue that is already known

At FLVC, we only activate chat for central office support staff, and generally only for documentation questions, API information and our Analytics group use it from time to time to ask specific questions. Anything more detailed goes to a case.

In the BIBSYS-consortium it's only in the Network institution we have activated the chat, meaning that it's only us working in support on behalf of the institutions using the chat.

Exl wants more community to use chat, speeds up resolution of the cases.

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

            Use chat as triage???

            Come back with better guidelines for using chat. (exl)

o   Want feedback from us on our users who use chat, how quickly things are resolved.  What was resolved?  What wasn’t resolved?

o   How do our users feel about resolution cases when using Chat?

o   Did using chat save the back and forth on cases?

o   Promote use of the case feedback for chat and Salesforce cases so support can get better feedback.

o   One month worth of data collection: anecdotel

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.

            Steering committees make decisions on specific areas.

Exl is working with Content WG as well for decisions, as an example.

Steering chairs report to other working groups.

Known Issues for content:

ExL : they know we want to share known cases across all users. A way that we can all look for a known issue when reporting to ExL.

ExL needs to make sure legally they can share the known issues

            They want more information on expectations users want from exl on known issues.

            Liron’s group started publishing articles on content known issues

                        Working with providers on issues and report these issues and timeline in the known issues article.  Individual pages on specific vendor content issues.

                        Dave Allen asked: how will this fit in with the overall problem management strategy:

                        ExL gave a generic response

Looking for a tool for users to look up known issue.  No timeline on when a tool would be available.  We want the “me too” option like before in Salesforce, so the community doesn’t need to keep open up individual cases.

Exl will ask us to look at the tool once they pick one.  They will have formal questions for us once they pick up. 

ExL said that known issues used to be in Alma. Wants to know if is was helpful.

            It was helpful to have that in Alma -saves time on troubleshooting for customer and exl.  ExL doesn’t have to sift through cases to release the issue is affecting multiple customers.

Agenda:

Notes – discussion 28th March

QUESTION 1: Chat functionality - feedback

General Recommendation - to ask ExLibris what they expected the service to cover.  And what access to the full set of support tools do Clarivate Staff have access to? e.g. error logs for Alma jobs. Can we have more information in general about lifecycle of calls?

What do we think it’s good for.

o   Karen G, Emily K - More useful for new users? 

o   Craig R - Chat gets tickets seen more quickly? When working with api specifically.

o   Use cases - log checking (e.g. publishing jobs) - can tier one support be given access to some of those tools?

o   Triage for new calls to capture incident details.Saves time mailing to and fro to capture replication steps.

Who are we all giving access to Chat? Is it all Staff or only some?

o   Is it the case that we all enable for Subject Matter Experts and Sys support only?

o   Liya L - different setup - more centralised for Consortium?

o   SLSP don’t use chat at all - no additional benefits.  Need a ‘Consortial View’ which is on ExLibris roadmap for Support Cases in general.  Will the same access to a consortial view apply to Chat?

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.?

The group discussed this briefly, more discussion is required. We can’t be the only forum but could we advise in partnership with Steering Committees, Working Groups and the wider community? Some tools/functions would need a wider set of testers.

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 issues - was there an Alma known issues page?

Sites are mainly using listservs for problem management - in place of ‘Me too’ so we can show the impact of incidents. 

Good customer examples - CARLI, Harvard

https://wiki.harvard.edu/confluence/display/LibraryStaffDoc/Alma+Known+Issues

https://www.carli.illinois.edu/products-services/i-share/alma-primo-ve-known-issues

Would we like to see an interface like Ideas Exchange for Problem Management -  to show status of Problems. So that sites can search for themselves.  Would we then be able to add a ‘me too’ vote?

QUESTION 3:  Automatic closure of calls 

Can we advise on 4 weeks as a trial. To be implemented and announced at ELUNA 2024 and reviewed at IGeLU 2024. Giving a six month’s trial.

Do we want to provide our customer feedback on formats/wording of automated mailers? Some mails might be shorter with more emphasis on actionable content?

My Meeting Notes from June 27th

Notes Note-Taker from June 27th Meeting

June 27^th SAG Meeting:

IN next meeting, talk to Luda about the Known Issues new feature next week.

·      ExL has a product or tool to show us next time

·      What would we like to know from them about Known Issues platform progress.

·      I shared the known issues page for Content issues.

o   Do not like that you have to download a spreadsheet every time you want to see it

o   Suggestion: put is back in the Known Issues in Alma at the Blue Grass UG meeting

§  Bring it back and strip out the privacy details

§  Could search for known issues from Alma instead looking for the Known Issues wiki page and get the spreadsheet

§  Would list what known issues are from ExL

§  Should there be a way for the community to share their known issues

·      Yes: Having both would be the best but would at least take the ExL Known Issues

·      Make it highly as searchable as possible

o   Allow for institutions to “endorse” this issue (sort of like the “me too” option)

o   The big issues might “pop” and then ELUNA and ExL would know it is a big issues that needs immediate fix

·      Make a special section for testing of new releases so that those who are testing right away can make ExL and the community more aware of a regression

·      Find out what ExL considers a Known Issue and what the community thinks is a known issue

o   There is difference between the two.

o   ExL Support will say, this only affects your institution so we won’t fix it

§  Need community input on these type of issues

§  Idea from Emily: Community create a known issues list to have ExL read over so they can see this does affect others

§  Have an archive of known issues to see if a regression was fixed or if it previously existed if the regression comes back

·      What be nice to know what exactly will be in this new known issues tool from ExL

·      Need more issues that are outside of content on the spreadsheet

o   What release created the issue?

o   List workaround for issues while waiting for a fix

o   What group (i.e. NA03) is affected?

o   How would you set up search for known issues?

o   Needs a description or summary name so that it is easy find

§  Like ideas exchange: make it easier to find a known issue if we think there is something wrong may affect other institutions and we are not alone

·      Include a roadmap of fixing the issue

o   Is it with Tier 2 or Development?

o   What is the priority of the issue?

§  High or medium

§  Waiting for the vendor to do the fix on their end

·      Let us know that in a known issues tool

o   Make a point that this is good for ExL to make things more transparent

§  The more information the better so that libraries understand where the issue is in the process of investigation and applying a fix

§  Report the number of issues reporting the problem or have that same problem

·      This is the SalesForce Known Issues page

o   https://issues.salesforce.com/

·      Are there other things we need to know from the community about support?

o   Not looking for satisfaction but what is or isn’t working with support?

§  What do we like and what do we think needs an adjustment with support?

§  What changes would we like to see with support/support tool?

§  Suggestions for the support team?

·      They send the case back asking for more information and it is all there, examples are attached and you have to tell each person who has touched the case you have sent all the information.

·      Users have to repeat themselves to each support person who is looking at the case.

·      More training for support????

·      How much research does a library/reporting person do before submitting the ticket

o   What is the trail of support: does reporting person send to a central office (CO) and they report the issue????

o   Confirm reporting person does look for the documentation before reporting

§  For those who have tried to find the documentation, what is the best way to ask ExL where the documentation is

§  What pieces of information they need from us?      

·      Is there a check list they look at what they need, what is in the case? Is there something missing from the case and send it back to customer???

·      Meet with ExL in 2 weeks

Customer Support Advisory Group Meeting Notes – June 27, 2024

Next meeting with Ex – discuss what is needed from a Known Issues perspective

·       What to ask Community in a survey

o   Insights on Known Issues progress

§  Content

o   High Level – what other issues

o   Other topics

·       Content KnownKnown issues platform – example of what we’re looking for

o   What are the privacy issues from known issues from the old KI doc?

o   Ability to search in Alma

§  Not need to go to a different location to download

§  Something webbased, searchable with tags from categories

o   How searching           

§  Content – by vendor name

§  Narrow by product/functional area then search for keywords

§  Needs descriptive or Summary name

·       Ex.  CDI not indexing

o   Would like to see issues that have both been raised from the community & the ones identified by ExL

§  If can’t get both, at least ones identified by ExL

§  Would like info on how ExL classifies issues

o   Based # of cases submitted, or some other criteria

o   Ability for for insts to endorse or “Me too” issues

o   Question about owner column – not sure what this is related to in the Content KI spreadsheet

o   Separate Section for issues reported after a Feature Release

§  These

§  Also good for regressions – issues that were fixed and recur

o   Need an archive of resolved or completed cases (Keep closed and fixed issues tab, similar to Content KI)

§  Sometimes takes a while for information to be trickled down, would be good to be able to review older ones

o   Not relevant for Content but for other platforms

§  What platform

§  Which functional area in Alma

§  What server – NAXX

·       Usually related to performance issues

o   Could be long lasting

o   Include Workarounds

§  Can link to article if available

o   Include Analysis

o   Status – where is at ExLibris Support

§  Tier 1, T2, Development. etc

o   Priority

o   Include # of inst reporting the issue

What do we want to ask the community for the survey?

·       Would having a known issues document solve most problems?

·       How long it takes to solve issues

o   Lifecycle of support

o   Seems like there are no updates on cases unless it’s escalated (don’t want to abuse/cry wolf for most cases), or wait to get updates from

·       Acknowledgement of case

·       Needing to repeat the issue

o   Asked for examples, screenshot when one is already provided

·       How is chat used?

o   What level of support is solved via Chat – Would like to know what chat should be used for

·       How much research is done before submitting a ticket?

o   For consortia – do cases go through a central support office to be vetted first

o   For local institutions – is there an IT or support office that helps troubleshoot issues

·       Do you find that cases are closed before being fixed?

·       Do you get responses on cases with documentation that is outdated?

For Exlibris

• What pieces of information does ExL need from a case – let us know that specific

• Is there a checklist/rubric of what should be included

o   Let customer know exactly what is needed upfront

Next meeting – July 11 @ 8am ?

July 18th Meeting Notes: met with ExL to discuss Known Issues (KI) tool:

SAG July 18^th Meeting notes:

Introduction on the Known Issues tool from Ex Libris:

ExL: Luda, Matt Baker couldn’t make it, Udi Porat, Liron Levy, Orit, Claudia Heineman, Martin Buscher, Zuvi Vogal

Known Issues:

Luda: ExL wants to discuss meeting at IGeLU -present

 Orit discuss Known Issues Portal:

Customer Care Operations:

Look at screenshot

Objectives:

·      Improved Transparency

·      Enhanced Visibility

·      Enpowerment and Self-Service

·      Better Prioritization

New Platform of Known Issues ( see slide)

Shown at ELUNA

*Central location and full transparency

• Build with SAG

• Review

• Subscribe

• Track issues

• Up to date

• Created together with customer support advisory group

Known Issues Scope and Definitions

(see slide)

• Starting with just Alma for this portal (mainly content at first)

• Add other products eventually

 Mockup main page from work group (see slide)

Flow lookup component (see slide)

• Can click on a button: Report

•             It is like the old “me too” button

•             Library can click the Report button to report they have the same issue

Timeline for product:

• SAG will get early access to collaborate on testing 2024 Q4

• Soft launch and go live 2025 Q1

Questions:

Who was asked questions, Internal teams or customers?

It was internal teams: Product team and Development teams, Clarivate software, not just Ex Libris, but starting with ExL products

 Zvi: said that across all knowledge articles

 Karen: how are issues getting into the system?

Zvi: use current cases/known issues in the system

Osnat: looking at issues that are high profile/priority

•   Users can follow and gets updates on those issues

Alex: new issues, will they be put into the system, even if here is no expected fix available yet?

Luda: said, yes, they would eventually so that libraries can click on that Report button

Alex: say on a Monday morning libraries find an issue

Orit: it will need to be looked at before posted on the Known Issues tool

Karen: what is considered an known issue?

Luda: showed slide on KI scope and definition

•             If a lot of libraries all start reporting the same issue, goes to high priority so that libraries can see the issue and fix date

•             Save time on having to report the same issues that has been already reported

Liron: You will be eventually be able to use facets and locate different products

• Will only have Known Issues Content Issues, at first

• Will consult with SAG on the different phases, ask for feedback

•  If Alma is not involved with issues, it won’t initially be in Known Issues tool

 Ann-Louise wanted to know what is a “code fix” example:

Osnat: Known Issues that require a “code fix” would a collection that needs updating for linking or functionality.

Alex: Will not auto-escalate on an issue?

Luda: Case comes in from support, they work on it, gets priority and then ID’d as a Known Issue and added to that tool for libraries to follow that issue

Still have to report issues so that support knows this needs to become a Known Isssue

 Alex: if users are clicking on “report” button, does that tell ExL feel like the issue will escalate

Exl: yes, if they see more and more libraries clicking on the Report button, it will carry more weight with support and development

 Alex: statistics from the KI tool? 

ExL: There will some sort of analysis from the tool (Nothing specific reported by ExL)

 Ann-Louise: what boxes need to be ticked for issue to appear to KI tool?

Wants to know even if an issue is high priority but only affects a few libraries, will that still get priority, treated the same as an issue that affects more customers.

 Luda: will work similar to now on their spreadsheet that can be downloaded

Udi: product management and support -cases will continue to work on as they, KI is not a replacement for that, it to let others search for issue and track them

Knowns Issues is mainly for defects, not for required changes by a region (if a law in a country changes and Alma needs to comply)

 About 9 extra cases a week for known issues, it is extra work on ExL side to investigate and determining if it is a KI

Luda: ExL has certain boxes that need to get checked before a case becomes a KI

Luda: Scope of definitions for KI will grow with time

 Claudia: will ExL use analysis or AI to determine if an issue is a KI?

Luda: issue will be reviewed by people, will post with clear description of issues with specific instructions on how to fix issue

 Martin and Dave will meet at IGeLU to discuss KI tool

•             Figure out faster way to post issues to this new tool

Ann-Louise: can we look at closed cases?

Udi: yes, you can browse old cases to see resolution and if you are having an issue that looks like the old closed issue.  Can use the KI to be used in opening a case.

 Pending Customer Input: (see slide We Asked You):

PCI Time extended to 28 days -see We Hear you slide

Alex will present at IGeLU on this change. 

ExL had a lot of meetings for it be ok to have 28 days.

*Share this information with libraries to start get stats

July 25th SAG Meeting notes

IGELU/ELUNA Customer Support Advisory Group meeting notes July 25, 2024

Meeting Notes:

• Discuss the previous meeting with ExL and their notes and mock ups of a Known Issues module.

• Manual Process managed by dev teams

  • They will write in the known issue and will post when something will be fixed

  • Will post workarounds until a fix

• Is not affected by first come, cases, or how many are affected by issue

• Asked if older KI would be in this module

• Check list of what can be pushed into this module

• We believe will have a lot of testing in Q4

  •  Early release in Q4

  • Soft launch Q5

• Discuss Defect List with Luda

  • They say high impact get first priority

  • Then normal defect will get normal priority

  • What makes an issue a high impact?   “do a bug blitz” that Uri mentioned so ask Luda

• How are they defining “high impact?

  •   Label the high impact cases e.g. high, medium, low

• Who’s job is it to monitor those cases?  Luda is head of support but what makes an a high impact issue?

• SAG is going to create spreadsheet with topics and have Exl answer them about KI

• SAG create a survey to send out about Support Issues, not specific cases

  • Not looking for satisfaction

  • What are customers expecting from support

  • Q: Do you feel this case has been open for too long?

    • Update the survey given at the end of a case closin

    • Measure support person or the performance of the resolution

• Ask for definition of a lifecycle of a case so that we know their support staff know, when they know it, when does it move to next Tier

• Cases that don’t have much information, just say, we will check on it.  Need more information in the case, what is going, more details

• Will post release defects also be included in the KI system?

• Right now, the list serv is how we find out if something is broken

• Look at other ELUNA GROUPS and see if our format looks good

• Once we get the KI, take a look at it, get feedback, then send out to other working groups in ELUNA/IGeLU

            We want to do a deep look and then afterwards, share with the WG’s

• Continue to update the other groups, like CCOP

• Do survey that has all the questions: Cases time/closure and KI

• Use Survey Monkey for our survey

  • ExL is giving us access

• Use Google Forms as a fall back if SM is ad-ridden

• On basecamp

            Capture questions we want to ask in survey

Status Information on Status Page needs to update quickly.

Next meeting August 29^th

Alex sent an email with the wording for the extended days in support cases before auto closing

Announcement to community from SAG:

Dear Colleagues,

 In response to ELUNA and IGeLU community feedback a change has been made for increasing the inactive time a call can remain in the status ‘Pending Customer Input’

It has been doubled from two weeks (14 days) to four weeks (28 days). 

This means that if you have an open call with Support and have been asked to supply further information, you will now have 28 days to do so.

Change in effect as of 17^th July 2024. It will only affect cases which transitioned into ‘pending Customer Input’ status on or after the 17^th of July.

This change came as a result of a joint initiative by the ELUNA and IGeLU Communities and ExLibris Senior Support Management.

We will be reviewing early feedback by the end of IGeLU2024 – Sep 2024.  

More detail can be found at https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Cross-Product/Knowledge_Articles/What_is_Case_Status_and_What_Does_It_Mean

If you have any comments or questions please let Karen or me know.  Contacts below.

 If you want to read more about what that group is doing please check out webpages.  (N.B. I still need to update these…before sending the mail)

If you want to read more about the ITIL Thinking behind call management for inactive calls, there’s a good article here. 

https://itsm.tools/service-desk-basics-what-to-do-when-the-end-user-doesnt-respond/

 All the best

Alex and Karen on behalf of the Joint ELUNA/IGeLU Customer Support Advisory Group.

Igelu.alex.forrest@gmail.com

Karen.glover@library.gatech.edu

Joint meeting on July 18 with CSAG & ExL

·       Luda reviewed work done so far on the Known Issues Platform (KI), how decisions made, where info came from

·       Also from Dev, tech staff, product mgt, as well as CSAG

·       Showed screenshots of Interface

Roadmap Timescales

See timeline screenshot.

·       Soft launch in Jan, Full launch end of the QTR

·       Originally for Alma only, then later for others

·       Initial Scope – some Subtleties to what will be included.  The following to be included:

o   Anything with code change (incl fix date)

o   Published workaround

o   Content related issues with provider w/short term fix date

§  Product MGR will decide what will be included in KI Platform

·       Long Term – include other products

·       See Screenshot of Known Issues sample product

·       Setup separate chat to capture

·       Link to Resolved issues and this Known Issues Platform – would be nice to have a link between the two.

o   The ticket number is not helpful, not allowed to view in SF.

o   Would like to see the underlying issue

·       Entry into known issues

·       Waiting on information about Lifecycle to KI platform which documents the escalation of issues

·       Escalation based on how many people reported the issue, no answer as to what # triggers escalation

·       Question about AI – addl workload on Support tech team to take time on filtering cases

o   Who is doing this work on what level, are there any plans to automate this process

o   Estimated 9 more case per week?

o   If there is a huge amount of KI, makes no sense to have KI

·       Defect list

o   Can they indicate what triggers High, Medium, Low impact

o   High impact – resolved quickly

§  How is this defined

·       Criteria should include impact to large groups/consortia or if a library is unable to function due to issue

o   Medium and Low impact – linger longer

o   Bug blitz impact –

·       Get a page on BaseCamp with issues

o   Include use cases we’ve captured so far

Survey

·       Do we compile and come up with high level questions for a survey

o   Do we want a dedicated section

o   Do in parallel with targeted work for specific issues

o   When is best time?

§  Avoid start of Fall Semester

o   Any survey experts

§  FLVC has one who might be able to help, if needed

o   Our purpose – what is the customer expecting  from customer support

§  Do you feel like this case has been going on for too long

§  May have no problems with how support  team managed the case, but may have problems about the result of the issue

§  Q.  How quickly do you expect your issue to be resolved?

§  Do they have internal trigger times for looking at cases. 

·       We know how long they take to close cases due to no customer response, but how long should we be expected to wait.

§  Post QA cases

§  Question about time sensitive cases repeatedly not looked at quickly enough.  If the case is not responded to in time, the issue/situation gets removed or deleted because it’s a problem in the system, ex.  Resource Sharing errors – need to delete the request if there is an error after a few days and no resolution, but them support team have no logs/details to look through.

§  Question about issues with support staff not fully reading cases, for example asking for input that has already been provided.

Luda wants to give an update at IGELU & wants pictures – got Zoom screen capture

·       Provide brief meeting notes

·       Group link on ELUNA https://el-una.org/leadership/advisory-groups/support-advisory-group/

·       Should run the survey to get feedback about the timing of when cases are closed

·       Should we Schedule a call to discuss the survey to be released in October

o   Will allow from July 18 – Oct to determine if the 4 week closing time for issues pending customer support

o   Long survey just as bad as too many

o   Have access to SurveyMonkey if desired – is it ad-ridden or not

§  Karen to verify

§  Google Form can also be used if needed

o   May want to get people involved from outside of the group to review

·       CloudStrike incident – took a long time for ExL to respond to cases

o   Crucial to have status page – everything was in green with little information circle – needed to click in on the link to see what the problem was.

o   They should’ve changed the codes to red (amber) or at least yellow

o   Need more information about how the system is tracking system performance/outagers

o   Took 3 – 4 hours to get a response for this issue.

Next meeting: July 29th

August 25th SAG meeting notes

IGELU/ELUNA Customer Support Advisory Group meeting notes

My Notes:

ExL Bug Blitz to fix bugs in 6 months.  Was announced  recently but did not come to SAG yet.

Came out of what Gem said at ELUNA.  Knee-jerk reaction to what she said so ExL wants to fix the bugs immediately.

Went around SAG for the plan.  Why didn’t they come to us?  Need to chat with Luda on the plan for the bug blitz.

Lost a few members and want to get more added, more diverse members

Craig quit his job so he dropped off, part of a small college -fill him

Someone on IGeLU side that never came to meetings so he is being replaced

I’m going to be the Content WG liaison contact.  SAG wants to make sure they have someone who knows content and can speak to them.  Alex said we can share our meeting notes with CWG

6 month review for SAG:

Need to update the webpage for SAG – Liya is going to update the page

Claudia will lead a sub-group

            No idea on what that sub group will be yet

Fix the running notes section of our meeting notes

Put in an out of scope statement on page; we are not working on specific examples

            More general support topics

Send out a survey to the community

            Have a separate area for us to have a discussion that ExL doesn’t see right away

We want feedback from the community but we don’t want cases

            Put up a form on our website and let the community know to not send us a specific cases

            Use WordPress to create the form

            MD and Alexandra will work on that form

Wendy and I will monitor the listservs to pull out issues that are getting reported heavily and ExL then has to jump and fix the issue but it takes time to fix it

            Will ask Chris if he can send me information from Rapido

            Share my ERM weekly updates with the group so they can see what I’m reporting out

                        They want to see what I’m sending out after I said I watch the listservs so I can send out ongoing issues to Tech Services

Ask ExL to give us a line to line lifecycle of incidents

Also ask about system down or component down

Impact and escalation

            Gather questions for ExL on a Google Spreadsheet

Want to discuss with support why they are closing cases without confirmation from the customer

            support needs to know that we have to check in with folks who reported the issue to us to see if it is fixed

            what is causing the trigger to close the case without hearing back from customer???

Consortia access for support

            I told them about the 90 days drop off for users that don’t login regularly

            Said we declined to test since it didn’t seem to be feasible for the CSU

            MD said their consortial office only has one person allowed to see all the cases

                        Wendy and I said that our office can see the cases, not just one person

                        The group wants clarification about the “new” support view of consortia cases

                        Make sure to add consortia questions to the survey

For survey: pick an item in the spreadsheet of questions

            MD said, When creating the questions, know what answers you are looking for and then ask the question

            Ask in the survey if the 4 weeks case stays open, is that working for libraries??

            Do we show it to ExL first? No, we want this to come from the community.

CSAG – Aug 29, 2024

Attendees: A. Forest, W.Ellis, J. Hartwigsen, E. Kelly, A. Marshall, K. Glover, C. Heinemann, MD Galvin, A. Skager, L Louis

Link to Agenda: https://docs.google.com/document/d/192fCoNjzdMd-3s5RaW_LGkd4rKBQnqYP/edit

New Project to fix the bugs – 6 month bug blitz

·       From discussion with Yariff, Luda

·       Came from ELUNA session Q&A re: don’t care about AI, want bugs fixed

·       Circumvented this group regarding this plan

·       Karen and Alex will meet with Luda to discuss why CSAG was not involved

Alex & Karen plan to send the agenda the Monday before the meeting.

Lost a few members, will reach out to get additional members:

• Craig – no longer at institution, small college

• 2 IGELU people – one from Natl Library of Poland

o   Have a backup person

Content seems to be concerned with this committee

• *Want to have a content expert on the committee – Jessica

Updates to website with meeting notes and web updates

• *Liya volunteered to help

• Topics to include:

o   Have Terms of Reference – maybe translate to reasonable format

o   Need an Out of Scope statement

§  Not responsible to fix individual issues/escalations

o   Include information about extension of SalesForce cases

o   Include 6 month plan once it has been decided

• *Special Area to help with – Claudia

Link to Website:  https://igelu.org/support-advisory-group/

Question about Basecamp:  Do we want a separate site for discussions that ExLibris does not have access to

• Once we start including feedback from the survey, we may want to have responses in a separate place – prevent knee jerk reactions from ExL

Question: Should we give out a contact address for other groups & members to ask questions & give us feedback:

• *Include a form on the website to collect input from the community

Question:  Monitoring listservs to collect problems based on multiple instances

• *Jessica and Wendy will work together to monitor Content, Alma, Primo, RapidILL

• *Jessica to share Content Issues list

Specific issues to follow for the next six months

• Capturing questions that have come up

o   Any outstanding questions, ex.  End-to-End information about lifecycle of an incident. 

§  Alex shared a document: Working sheet of questions

·       Questions for ExLibris, Questions for Community Survey, Questions – Known Issue System

o   Track when a question was raised to keep track of how stale an issue is.

o   Track where the question came from in case we need to followup

Discussion about Including Consortia views for member institutions

• Based on feedback from consortia members, Consortia office can view all cases from member institutions

• Staff from members institutions do not have access 

o   ExL offered a process where one person from each institution can view all cases, but their login would be removed after 90 days with no activity

• Need a special section for consortia in the surveys

o   Need more time on cases to solve issues, testing at member institutions and get feedback from member to ExL

Tools that can be used:

• ELUNA can give us access to Survey Monkey

• *Karen will get one started with basic questions

Question:  Would like to get feedback from ExLibris about statistics on how long cases are kept open.

• Should we try to determine the type of cases, based on difficulty

o   low level/simple – easy, quick answer, referral to documentation

o   Medium Level – requires some followup examples and back and forth to identify and fix the problem or suggest solution/workaround

o   High level – Similar to Medium, but with no current solution.  Needs to go to Development

October 24, 2024 SAG Meeting notes

Wendy’s notes from SAG Meeting 10/24/24

These are my notes for the SAG meeting. It was a short meeting, a check in meeting before our meeting with ExL next week, October 31st  

• Chatted a bit about Research Assistance and Metadata assistant

• Supposedly going to see a demo of KI application next week

• Bug Blitz: cleaning up defects in Primo and Alma

  • 6 months of clean up- no new items (Ideas) going to be added

  • ExL went to ELUNA/IGEGLU chairs about bug blitz, to see if it was a good idea to do it

  • Alex asked if ExL should talk to SAG about Bug Blitz, outcomes, what exactly are they doing. Impact???

• What will our next 6 months look like?

  • Look back on the questions ExL gave us

  • Create a survey???

  • Side note, Alexandria (not Alex F.) is going on maternity.

  • Looking for new members (contact Brandon -talk to Karen and Alex)

• Consortia Signature Success (Wendy said she talked to someone at ExL about coming up with metrics of what is success for support in their consortia)

  • Alex asked Wendy about the metrics and Wendy shared the email from ExL :

  • added a couple of screenshots from email to Wendy (FVLC) from ExL

• Discussed some cases we are all seeing and if they are related to the bug blitz

  • ACQ invoices - incorrect invoice numbers when exporting to accounts payable. 100’s of duplicate invoices. Decided not to approve invoices for the next few weeks as they figure out the issue

  • Loading ebooks/matching only on physical title bib records

  • JSTOR end dates

• Need more “root cause” analysis to figure out the deeper issues – similar to this

• Mentioned the JSTOR issue and how support just dropped in the information in the case that they would be removed the 2023 end dates because they can’t get a correct list from JSTOR (which makes no sense since there is an autoholdings option for JSTOR).

  • Said that I’ve seen nothing on Content-L or Alma-L. I’ve been waiting to post to the listserv until my conversation with Tamar.

IGELU/ELUNA Customer Advisory Group

October 24, 2024

Attendees:  Alex Forrest, Karen Glover, Jessica Hartwigsen, Ann-Louise Skajager, Liya Louis, Alexandra Marshall, Dave Allen, Emily Kelly

§  Meeting invite sent late

·       Next Thursday’s meeting with ExLibris – Oct 31

o   Luda to give more information about New Issues platform

o   Also want to find out about the Bug Blitz, (defects)

§  Initially for Alma, but will also include Primo

§  ExLibris will spend 6 months cleaning up bugs – no new features coming from Idea Exchange

·       Next 6 months- what will the group be looking at

o   Survey

o   Looking for new members – Oct 24 is Alexandra’s last day

§  Karen has a one potential new member – needs to followup with them

·       IGELU – had a meeting with general support staff

o   Consortium – each seems to get a different set of tools from support when joining

§  Asking for a standardized setup/process

§  Question about whether consortium are so different that different tools are needed

§  Some consortia have access to see all Sales Force cases, some do not – who has a central login to see the content

o   Any chance to ask ExL about tickets that are closed without being updated

§  No, but this is on the radar

·       Jessica (CSU)to meet with Support Group to discuss content issue

o   Dates missing which caused a problem

o   Clarivate to drop dates if no end date for JSTOR content, per comment on support call

o   Have not seen any updates about this on Content

o   Jessica to followup with us afterward

·       Wendy ( FLVC) met with Clarivate reps to regarding Signature Success program (Claudia Balby, Evita Rodrigues)

o   Customer Support Manager, Evita Rodrigues was introduced to us at our regularly scheduled Support Call with ExLibris

o   Targeted support to cover high level issues that need to be addressed from Consortia Office perspective

o   Asked FLVC to come up with priorities for a strategic plan for Fall 2024 – Spring 2025

o   Mentioned Knowledge Acceleration Program

§  Webinar series designed to cover the most frequently requested topics – help unlock full potential of Alma

§  60 minute sessions of expert guidance from Training Services Team

§   Good for onboarding new staff, deepening understanding and optimizing library performance

o   Want to schedule monthly meetings at first, then adjust meeting times based on our comfort level

·       Emily (Harvard):  Regression in last update with invoices – where numbers don’t match

o   Caused many duplicates

o   Asked Acq staff to hold off on approving invoices until the issue is resolved

o   Emily to follow up on this

·       Liya:  Issue with order record for  ebooks that automatically uploaded

o   Changes to list prices automatically

o   Changes to physical book

·       Request to Record next week’s meeting – Oct 31 – some members unable to attend

October 31, 2024 meeting notes

Notes from MD (Wendy couldn’t make it)

• October 31, 2024 (missed first 10 minutes, had zoom issues)

• KI Application:

• Orit is leading the team working on KI app

• Testing early Q5 2025

• Hope to rollout at ELUNA 2025

• Only ExL can post cases to KI, not customers

• Customers can look up KI

• 

• Consortia: When will it come?  How do we login? How many people can have accounts?

• If they don’t use Alma - View the known issues without signing in.

• If you have a vote if it is a known issue then you will need to login

• Account management of the KI app:

  •  How do things become a KI?  Will we get documentation before or will it be released together? How do you vote if something is a known issue?

• Case gets submitted, goes through support, Tier 3 decides if development considers it is a known issue.

• It will be marked as a KI and published to KI system

• How does an issue get escalated to get pushed to a KI issue?

  • Any high priority defect will be automatically published to KI

• If not high priority, there will be some decisions that can be made to publish to KI

  • If something gets high votes it will be published

• What if there is a consortia with 100 members, how will they be counted?

  • When doing triage, they take the consortia into account, that it is many libraries affected by the KI.

Next topic: “Bug Blitz” Ex Libris wants a new name.

• How do we want to proceed to communicate the term “bug blitz” and ExL wants a new name. “Defect clean-up project”

• New initiative to clean up defect reports from customers

• ExL came up with framework with the how they are going to do this and the timeline of how long they will take to fix the issues.

• ExL is going to release the first set of fixes in December 2024 but they want some communication tips from us to share with IGeLU and ELUNA.

• Time line for planned defects December 2024

• Starting in December, a list of the defects fixed will be released.  Feb and May will also see defected as well as the enhancements.  Enhancements will be put on hold for the first defect resolution release.

• Communication will be shared in normal channels of a fix.  Customers who reported the problem, will be notified that the issue will be resolved.

• ExL would like examples of communication:

• They have a plan but want our input.

•             Create a support article with the wording and send out November 11^th.  The release notes will be released November 17^th (for December release) and want the wording included in the release notes.

• What is the plan after the defect project?

•             ExL plans to fix other defects (not high priority) 6-9 months for both Alma and Primo after the big defect fix.  Normal communication about what was fixed will be in release notes.

•             They hope to have the clog of defects fixed at the end of that time.

•             Focus on backlog of defects by Q2 will allow normal defect work to start up. That is the 6-9 month clean up project for non-high priority cases but they are still part of the back up defects.

• Then normal work on the defects begins after that time period.

Terms of communication:

• Think of best way to communicate:  have SAG and/or ExL send out the wording

  • Should it be sent out by both groups.

  •  Dave Allen said that Clarivate is doing it but with discussion with SAG since they are doing the work

  • Want to be sure that users see the message.  Does SAG want to also send the message?

  • Advertise with Regional User Groups and working groups (like Alma committee, Content working group, etc)

  • Send us the wording at the end next week to look at before ExL sends it out.

  • Dana M. said she is going to meet with the head of the Alma and Primo group and communicate that a message is going over the announcements to all the email groups.  SAG should share with different user groups.

  • Not going to provide numbers of what was fixed in the release but they will be in the release notes.

•  

Next meeting with ExL:

• Do we need to discuss the breakdown of the support tiers? The work is being done internally to speed up communication and response time and ExL doesn’t think we need to communicate that information out to the user groups.

• The goal is change in structure is to make sure the case gets to the expert as quickly as possible.

• Get better resolution, better communication, faster.

Will they review this process to see that it is working? 

•  Exl said they are always looking at what they can do better with support and if they have pivot, they will.

• Alex said that as a customer she doesn’t need to know where the support is coming from, as long as the case is being worked on.  Maybe the Steering committee should know the information.  Support will look into, about sharing the change.

• Agenda items for next meeting:

• They want to discuss the surveys that will be created and sent out by SAG

  • Not sure where we are on that.  I started collecting information on consortia support.

Alex asked if the group needed to go over the original questions first posed to the group. ExL would rather we spent time on the KI application and communicating the KI application and the “defect clean-up project”

December 5th, 2024 meeting notes

SAG Meeting Notes December 5th

Brandon is in the group now! 

Going to put out a call for new members, lost a lot of members

Picking a specific time (will be 6am for me now!) to see who can join the group with all the time differences.

Going to put call out to members, have a set time to get members

Call ExL, Clarivate now, instead of using ExL

ASK about AI in discovery. 

All have tested but turned off at those who tested.  Ann-Luise said her responses came back in Spanish. 

You have to say, yes or no, if the results were helpful before being able to change the search. Extra steps in the process. 

Discussed the defect project: no announcement was released on listservs-when will Clarivate send out an announcement about the defect project.

I had to explain to our folks that the defects would be in the December release

No indication of who’s cases were being fixed, just case numbers

So I looked up each case listed to see if any belonged to CSU and there was one case that belonged to CSU.

Confusion on what the defect section should look like in the documentation

What is being fixed??

Issues with support:

Response times and understanding of the product

Copy and paste answers

Send documentation when the library already sent documentation

Sense of slowness in understanding the institutions workflow

Ask us about our local workflow

Tell us the impact of the fix-they don’t tell us what would happen

Should we ask ExL/Clarivate what can we do to make it better for support to speed up response times

Is the motivation to close cases as quickly as possible one of the issues with slow the resolution?  No sense of collaboration, they want plug and play.

Communication is a big issue, let us know that cases are being worked on.

The move from Tier 1 to Tier 2, no communication that TIer 2 got it or is working on it

Let us know what development is doing when they get the case.

We get it, it takes a long time to fix, tell us, that’s all we want

Maybe also help with a workaround

Ask for end to end process for support, what we can tell our folks

If the issue is huge, they need to understand it has an impact on workflows

When the case is passed onto Tier 2, it goes into another system so the communication is happened Offline from SalesForce.  We aren’t getting updates

Lack of knowledge in support

How will this affect the Known Issue application????

Collect examples of great support - do more like this!

Great experience, what we would like to see

-example of what it would be good response, they listened, they worked through the issue, 

-do a survey to see what is a good response to a ticket (yes, we need to do this)

-are they tracking this current system, responses to cases, satisfaction of resolution?

What are they going to do to track satisfaction of KI app?