Name: Kathryn F. Gates (Co-authors are James F. Ball, Carl E. Raffa, and Krista H. Vernon)Institution: Mississippi Center for Supercomputing Research
E-mail Address: cckathy@cypress.mcsr.olemiss.edu
Title of Presentation: A Lightweight Call Tracking System for Adapting to Changing Technology Needs
Format: Paper Presentation
Suggested Audience: User Services Staff/Managers
Presentation Outcome:
1. See the call tracking system in action.
2. Understand the benefits of the call tracking system.
3. Download related scripts and database tables.
Presentation Content:
With rapidly changing technology, user services teams must likewise adapt to meet the needs of their academic users. Determining which applications to support and which seminars to offer can be a challenging task. Mississippi Center for Supercomputing Research (MCSR) consultants have developed a "lightweight" call tracking system to assist in this area. The World Wide Web-accessible call tracking system is useful in that it: (1) dispatches calls as they arrive to the designated contact, (2) provides a knowledge base which can be accessed by users during and after normal work hours, (3) allows users to find out the status of their calls, and (4) collects access statistics ("hits") which help consultants know how to focus their efforts. The MCSR call tracking system is implemented with CGI programs and a MiniSQL database. While it has been in use for only a short time, it is already proving indispensable in meeting the needs of the Mississippi academic community.
Outline I. Motivation for Developing a Call Tracking System II. Requirements A. User Interface B. Consultant Interface C. Manager Interface III. Design Choices A. Universal Accessibility through World Wide Web B. Effective Management of Calls with a Database C. Information Flow D. Necessary Data Structures IV. Implementation Details A. The MiniSQL Database B. CGI (Perl) Programs C. Maintenance of State Information V. Results VI. Future Development