Problem:

What are the options and what are the rules regarding notifications
from the NC State Remedy system?


Solution:

There is a great deal of flexability in the type and frequency of
notifications that the NC State Remedy system can provide to the
Remedy user.

The Remedy system can provide support staff with two types of
notifications related to calls:

- No Call Owner (NCO) - This notification is intended to inform
  workgroup members (subscribers) that a call in one of their
  workgroups has remained in a "non-closed" status for a specified
  period of time without anyone accepting responsibility (ownership)
  for the call.

- Dormant Call - This notification is intended to inform subscribers
  that a call in one of their workgroups has remained dormant (the call
  "Text" field has not been updated) for a specified period of time.

For each of these two types of notifications, the Remedy administrator
can further constrain the criteria by specifying a priority and a
relationship that a call must meet before a notification is generated.
For example: Priority >= Medium  In this example, notifications will
only be generated for calls whose Priority is set to Medium or higher.

Further, the notification can be delivered using a variety of delivery
methods, including email, Remedy notifier, and pager. This can be
configured on an individual user basis.

These notifications can be setup to be delivered once, or on a
repeating basis, continueing as long as the condition continues,
at a specified interval.

Notifications can be setup to skip over holidays and non-work hours
when calculating the time when the notification should be delivered.

Dormant notifications can be delivered to a specific set of
subscribers, or to the owner of the call. Dormant notifications can
also be configured to skip notifying the subscriber(s) if the call
Status=Waiting. The notification will either be requeued to be
delivered at the next interval if it is a repeating event, or
discarded otherwise.

To specify a notification, the Remedy administrator will need the
following information:

- Workgroup - the name of the workgroup that is to be monitored.

- Notification type - "No Call Owner" or "Dormant Call"
  notification.

- Delay - The amount of time that the call is to remain in the unowned
  or dormant state before the notification is delivered. This interval
  can be spefified in minutes, hours or days.

- Priority - The minimum priority that a call must have before it will
  produce a notification of this type. One of: Low, Medium, High, or
  Critical.

- Repeat - Yes or No indicating whether the notification is to be
  delivered once (No) or if the notifications should continue as long
  as the condition continues (Yes). If Yes, specify the repeat interval.

- SkipWaiting - Yes or No indicating if the notification should be skipped
  if the call Status=Waiting. Default value is "No". Not recommended
  for use with "No Call Owner" notifications. Best when used with
  Repeat=Yes.

- Holiday business-time calendar to be used when calculating notification
  delivery times. The default is to use no holiday calendar and deliver
  notifications 365 days per year.  
  
- Workday business-time calendar to be used when calculating notification
  delivery times. The default is to use no workday calendar and deliver
  notifications 24 X 7. 

- Remedy users - The login names of the Remedy users who are to receive
  this type of notification.

- Notification method - How each Remedy user is to be notified of the
  event. One of: email, notifier or pager.

Some examples:

Workgroup         Type          Delay        Priority
CONSULT           NoCallOwner   5 Minutes    >= Low

A notification of this type would be generated anytime a call in the
CONSULT workgroup with a priority of "Low" or higher has remained
unowned for 5 minutes.

Workgroup         Type          Delay        Priority
CONSULT           Dormant       1 Hour       = Critical

A notification of this type would be generated when a call in the
CONSULT workgroup with a priority of "Critical" has remained dormant
for 1 hour.

Workgroup         Type          Delay        Priority       Workday
CONSULT           Dormant       3 Days       < Medium       8-5 M-F

A notification of this type would be generated when a call in the
CONSULT workgroup with a priority less than "Medium" has remained
dormant for 3 days. When calculating the "3 days", only the hours
between 8 AM and 5 PM, Monday through Friday will be considered. The
"dormant clock" does not advance outside of the specified hours and
thus, not notifications will be delivered outside of those hours.

In addition to the notifications related to calls, the Remedy system
can also notify workgroup members of the following four events related
to the optional customer satisfaction surveys:

- Poor Survey - Customer has indicated a "below average" response on
  one or more of the questions on the survey.

- Survey Followup - The customer has requested a supervisor followup
  while completing the survey.

- Survey Comment - The customer has added comments to the survey
  response.

- Survey Score - This notification is delivered whenever a customer
  completes a survey, regardless of the responses. It is a summary of
  all of the information provided including survey numerical scores,
  comments and if the customer requested a supervisor followup.

All of the delivery options outlined above for Call notification are
also available for these Survey notifications.

In addition to the notification methods described above, there is also
a Remedy RSS Feeder. This tool will allow you to view the current state
of Remedy workgroups through an RSS reader. See the following web
site for additional information:

      http://web.ceo.ncsu.edu/remedyRSS/

To review the notifications associated with your workgroup, use the
Remedy Windows client to open a search on the Group form. Search for
your workgroup and you can see the details of the notifications under
the Escalations tab. You can see which workgroup members are
subscribed to which notifications under the Subscriptions tab.

Workgroup information is also available via the Remedy Project web
site at:

      http://remedy.ncsu.edu/project/metrics/workgroup_info.php


Requests to add or modify Remedy notifications for your workgroup can
be emailed to:

   remedy@help.ncsu.edu

or you can create a call in the REMEDY workgroup.