MnPALS Support Center Urgency Levels

Revised October 2007

The purpose of this document is to explain how the PALS staff interprets the meaning of the urgency levels used in the PALS Support Center http://pals.custhelp.com.

When you send a question, you are required to set the Urgency of a request before it can be sent. The four possible options in the drop-down list are:

An Urgency Level of 1 means that the system is totally down—action is taken immediately by PALS staff. Urgency Level 2 means that there is a software bug that may not have a work-around. Urgency Level 3 means there may be a work-around. Urgency Level 4 is used for requests of a general nature.

Urgency Levels are used by the PALS Support and Training Staff to manage workload. Urgency Level is used as a guide when setting priorities each day. As much as possible, the Support and Training Staff uses the ‘first-in, first-out’ method within each Urgency Level. You can help the PALS staff by selecting the Urgency Level most appropriate for your problem/question. When a problem is received with a Urgency Level that is not appropriate for the problem, the Urgency Level will be re-assigned to another Urgency Level by the agent to whom the request has been assigned.

The Urgency Levels definitions are more thoroughly defined in the following paragraphs. The last section of the document describes how you can escalate the Urgency Level of a request.

1. Site Down/Software Not Responding

Urgency Level 1 means that the entire system or module is down, either for one library, a few libraries, or all libraries. No work can be done by your staff, and/or the Web OPAC is unavailable. Data integrity may be compromised and work in progress may be lost. Since immediate attention is required, the PALS staff recommends that you send a question to the PALS Support Center http://pals.custhelp.com, note the reference number of your problem, then call the PALS support phone number (507-389-2000).

Examples of level 1 question:

Cannot connect to the server through the Aleph GUI client or through a web browser
LibProxy Down
Cannot load GUI software

You can expect that Urgency Level 1 problems will be investigated as soon as the PALS office becomes aware of the problem. If this is an entire system outage, email messages will be sent to the PALS mailing list. Our goal is to provide a satisfactory response within 4 hours.

2. Major Functionality Problem

Urgency Level 2 means that major functionality is disrupted and prevents normal work. Usually there is no work-around and that a software bug fix is most likely needed before the feature works correctly. Typically, an SI is submitted to Ex Libris for these issues. The problem does not prevent using other features in the current module, nor does it prevent using other modules.

Examples of level 2 questions:

When invoicing an order with multiple items, some of the line items do not have the budget attached. The order record shows it is invoiced, but they are not being debited to the budget assigned.
Self check is not working

Expect that Urgency Level 2 problems will usually be reviewed within 2 working days. Our goal is to acknowledge that the problem has been reviewed by a person by the end of the first or second day and provide a satisfactory response within two weeks of submission.

3. Minor Functionality Problem

Urgency Level 3 means that functionality loss prevents normal work. You are still able to get your work done. For most Urgency Level 3 problems, a work-around may exist or one may be developed while researching and testing. The problem does not prevent using other features in the current module, nor does it prevent using other modules.

Examples of level 3 questions:

Patrons are not being blocked.
Not getting correct error messages in OPAC
One person cannot connect to LibProxy

You can expect that Urgency Level 3 problems usually will be reviewed within 5 working days. Our goal is to acknowledge that the problem has been reviewed by the end of the second day and provide a satisfactory response within three weeks of submission.

4. General Questions

If your problem or question does not match the description of Urgency Level 1, 2, or 3, you can submit it with Urgency Level 4. This level typically consists of “how to” questions, installation and configuration inquiries, enhancement requests, or documentation questions.

Examples of level 4 questions:

job_list request for ret-03 and print-08
Date format for General Retrieval form - arrival date

You can expect that Urgency Level 4 problems usually will be reviewed within 5 working days. Our goal is to acknowledge that the problem has been reviewed by the end of the second or third day and provide a satisfactory response to each question within one month from submission.

Escalation

As you review your list of questions in the PALS Support Center, you may see some requests that fall outside our goals to provide a satisfactory response. If your expectations are not being adequately satisfied, you may escalate the issue by one of two methods:

Enter additional information to the existing problem report form in the PALS Support Center.
Contact the User Support and Training Services Coordinator with your specific issues.