EscalationHelpRequirements
From Edition
This is an email I wrote to my team when I was the escalation engineer (Goto). It's pretty specific to ACS for Windows (A Cisco product), but the principles can be applied to almost any tech support escalation situation.
Team,
I've noticed a lot of help requests coming in before the engineer has contacted the customer or tried to obtain information. For the most part, this won't do. Sometimes the customer will provide enough information up front for me to decipher the problem, but this is rare.
Below is a list of things that I'd like you to have available before coming to me for help. I know that you won't always be able to get these bits, but I'd like to know that you've at least tried.
I will be printing this list and posting it at my desk. If you wish to have a copy to post at your desk, come over and I'll get it for you.
Thanks, Shawn
What to have before asking for help:
- Complete configuration and version information from all devices and software involved.
- Operating system type, version, and service pack
- Exact ACS release/build
- User database - internal, NT, NDS, etc.
- IOS - sh run, sh ver
- CATOS - show config
- Network topology.
- Complete and accurate problem description - include the following as an absolute minimum, but try for more detail:
- What doesn't work?
- Did it ever work?
- What changed - even if it doesn't seem to apply?
- Is there anything that you can do to make it work, even temporarily?
What you may need to get right away:
- Debugs from network devices.
- Package.cab - make SURE the customer knows to turn on detailed logging, restart services in the GUI, manually stop/start CSADMIN, and duplicate the issue.
Someone brought up a very good point. There are occasionally reasons to come see the goto before contacting the customer. The biggest of these is when you have absolutely no idea what the customer is even talking about.
If you're coming for this reason, make sure you let me know up front that you haven't contacted the customer and you're looking for a translation from customer gibberish to reasonable tech-ese. :)
