As part of Information Systems & Technology's (IST) plan to effectively communicate technological/system changes, the Service Updates (SU) section has been added to the Request Tracker (RT) interface.

Anyone with privileged access to the RT system will see Service Updates. If your group does not have access and you would like to see Service Updates, please email helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca with your request

In this article:

Who can submit Service Updates

Only certain IST groups can submit requests. If you feel your group should be able to do this, please email helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca explaining what types of Service Updates you would like to submit.

Viewing Service Updates

If you are in one of the RT groups that has permission to see the Service Updates, you will see them as soon as you log into the request tracker system. If you do not have permissions you can request permissions for your group via helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca.

1. Log in to the request tracking system

2. You will see any current Service Updates in pink across the top of your main RT page that meet these criteria:

   • New/open, or

   • Starting in the next 24 hours, or

   • Resolved sometime in the last 48 hours
     
     

     Open

     

     
      

3. To view the details of any of the Service Updates, simply click in its title and then scroll down to view the details

4. After clicking on a service update or after clicking on the words 'Service Updates' you will have the following options:

   • List All SUs (to view a list of all current Service Updates)

   • New SU (to create a new Service Update - details on this are described below)

   • Search SUs (to search for specific updates - details on this are described below)

5. To see a full list of Service Updates click on Service Updates above the pink banner or click on Service Updates from the lefthand menu. The full list of Service Updates shows any Service Updates that meet this criteria:

   • Open, or

   • Pending, or

   • Resolved (within the last 5 days)

When to submit a Service Update

Enter an event into the Service Updates system if:

• Event on a system (including Network) impacts greater than 20 users if it breaks, (e.g. change a server setting or plan to patch it), or

• A change to a standard set of options expected for greater than 20 users, (e.g. new Firefox is to be deployed), or

• An event that could impact greater than 5 production or 10 development machines, or

• An event where an application is critical to a whole Organizational Unit (OU)

Do not enter events related to a cluster where the entire cluster is not impacted by the event.

NOTE: An event refers to any kind of change, outage, or scheduled change/outage

Submitting Service Updates

1. See the information above about When to Submit a Service Update

2. Log into the request tracking system

3. Click on the words 'Service Updates' in the pink ribbon at the top or choose Service Updates from the menu on the left-hand side

4. You will see a list of current Service Updates sorted by start date. The full list of Service Updates shows any open, pending or resolved (within the last 5 days) Service Updates

 NOTE: the criteria for Service Updates in the banner are different from the criteria for the list you see after clicking on Service Updates

1. Click on New SU near the top left

2. Enter the information about your Service Update (sample below)

   1. Originator is the group that is performing the service update

   2. Affects is a keyword associated with the areas that would be affected

   3. The Starts date indicates when the change is being made and will appear in the banner 24 hours before its 'Starts' date

   4. The Ends date is when it will be resolved (or when the change is scheduled to be finished) and will appear in the banner for an additional 48 hours after the Ends date

3. Click on the Submit button in the bottom right corner after you have entered all the required information

Submitting Service Updates via email

1. Service Updates can be submitted via email by emailing rt-ServiceUpdates@rt.uwaterloo.ca and including the following in the email message (note we have included sample text/dates below):
   Due: 2009-10-03
   CF{Affected}: Software Planned
   CF{Originator}: CSS
   Starts: 2009-10-02 12:00:00
   Add CC: username (this is optional — if you want to CC someone)
    

2. General documentation for submitting requests via email is found on the CPAN website

Editing Service Updates

1. To edit a service update:

   1. Click on its Subject from the ribbon on your RT Home page, or

   2. Click on the Service Updates button and click on the Subject of the one your want to edit, or

   3. Search for it (see Searching Service Updates below) and then click on its Subject

2. You will see a screen like in the screenshot in the above section Submitting Service Updates

3. Edit the information as required

4. Click on the Submit button to save your changes

Searching Service Updates

1. Log into the request tracking system

2. Click on the words 'Service Updates' in the pink ribbon at the top or choose Service Updates from the menu on the left-hand side

3. Click on Search SUs near the top left

4. Enter your search criteria

NOTE: matches=contains; to enter the date you may click on the 'Calendar' link to choose a date

1. Click on Add these terms and Search once you've entered your search criteria or, if you want to do a more advanced search, you may click Add these terms and then:

   1. Select AND or OR beside Aggregator and enter additional search criteria and then click Add these terms again

   2. You can scroll down and edit your search before actually performing the search by clicking on Add these terms and Search

Open

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