Name: Don Michaels and David A. DoughertyInstitution: SUNY Oswego
E-mail Address: michaeld@oswego.edu and ddougher@oswego.edu
Title of Presentation: Automating User Request Processing with EARP
Format: Paper Presentation
Suggested Audience: help desk personnel
Presentation Outcome:
1. see the automated system demonstrated
2. appreciate the issues involved in tracking user requests
Presentation Content:
Don Michaels and David A. Dougherty, Instructional Computing Center, SUNY Oswego, Oswego, NY 13126
EARP (the Easily Accessible Request Processor) has been designed around the idea of having an easily accessible online service for Help Desk operators and users of the Instructional Computing Center at SUNY Oswego. The knowledge base is a collection of tools designed to interact with users through the World Wide Web, taking advantage of the ease of use provided by browsers like netscape, mosaic, and lynx. EARP consists of a series of interlocked databases designed to support rapid indexing, on-the-fly FAQ generation, searching, user submissions, a mail interface, and easy manageability. Written entirely in-house, It provides for: user request submission (via email or WWW form); posting of the request for Help Desk personnel; convenient reply form (via email) filled out by resident expert; collecting, indexing and posting (in searchable form) of requests and replies; and automated FAQ generation on a specific topic from answered requests. Users can: submit requests; list entries in database by subtopic (OS, location, software, hardware); view the latest database-generated FAQ's; and search (via keywords) for specific information. Help Desk personnel can: monitor requests accept a request for research and answering post a response track responses perform statistical analyses of responses (most asked questions, etc). This simple but robust tool streamlines the process of dealing with queries from the over 9,000 users of our campus community.