The VESG Morning Call process enables VESG and subcontractor personnel to identify, analyze, and resolve issues that interfere with the delivery of high-quality Internet access service to VESG customers. This process provides a measure of VESG quality and a means for correcting problems and improving service. Morning Call consists of a database of incidents and resolutions and a regularly scheduled meeting that enables all affected VESG departments and subcontractors to address perceived or real problems as reported by shift-leads in the client support organizations.

The Morning Call Process provides an ongoing executive synopsis of significant quality issues affecting VESG dedicated business clients, corporate dial, ISDN-LAN and DSL customers. The Call Tracking database (Remedy) is a separate tool, from which many client calls are distilled into Morning Call incident reports for cross-functional presentation and management review.

The Morning Call process generates a Business Impact Index (BII), an ADSL Impact Index (AII), and a Consumer Impact Index (CII), which are the VESG Quality Measurements for the company. The impact index is also tracked by product and by root cause. These measurements are critical in running the VESG business and servicing clients better.

The Client Impact Index is calculated based on the incidents entered into the Morning Call database. The number of clients affected, times the impact values as reported by the client (Major = 1; Moderate =.25; Minor = .05; None = 0), are added and averaged on a weekly basis.

All client impacts should reflect what the client reports, which means it is very important that accurate assessment of client impact is done by the analyst taking their call. This will help ensure client focused Morning Call entries and a reliable Client Impact Index. Use the Severity Impact Chart below in gauging the severity level of client impacts.

Target Audience: All Customer Service and Technical Support

Date: March 20, 1997

Cover by: Immediately

Effective date: Immediately

Author: Harriet Cobern

Attachment: Severity Levels of Customer Impact

• For purposes of measuring the quality of the service we provide our customers, analysts are required to record in each Remedy ticket the impact of the problem or issue to the customer.
• The categories of impact are Major, Moderate, Minor, No Impact.
• What is required is the impact as the customer sees it, not as the analyst sees it.

• Sometimes you will know from the customer’s words or tone of voice that the problem is having a Major impact on him or his business.
• If you can’t reliably discern the impact, please ask the customer – after the problem has been resolved. A recommended script can be employed: "We have a quality assurance process in this company and try to understand how problems affect our customers. Do you feel this problem had a Major, Moderate, or Minor impact on you or your business?"
• If you are unable to determine the impact to the customer by voice "cues," and it would be awkward or inappropriate to ask the customer, refer to the impact severity chart to assign an impact to the case.

• Try, if at all possible, to have the customer identify the impact himself/herself.
• Every Remedy ticket must have the Impact field filled in.
• Please use common sense as you're overriding guideline. We want to know what impact our service problems have on our customers. They are the best ones to tell us.

2. The CSS Incident Entry System

1. How To Access the Morning Call Database

Support personnel can access the Morning Call database by using IE or Netscape Navigator to access the URL for the Morning Call start menu (https://csbmcall2w.ba-dsg.com/mcroot/ for VESG users or https://csbmcall4w.ba-dsg.com/mcroot/ for non-VESG users and then choosing the "Morning Call's Incident Entry System link. (See Figure 1).

Figure 1. Morning Call Web Page Start Menu

Figure 2. Incident Entry Menu

Figure 3. Entry /Maintenance /Reports - Main Menu

1. Data Entry Constraints

• The system does not recognize double quotes. Any quotes in the text should be single quotes.
• All text fields will wrap automatically during input. The system will not honor any hard carriage returns in HTML output screens or formatted reports. You must use
  to show line breaks.

1. How To Enter A New Incident

1. From the "Incident Entry Menu" (see figure 3), click on "Enter A New Incident" (see figure 2).
1. Incident Date (*): On the "Add a new Incident" screen (See Figure 4), the system fills in the date automatically. For incidents occurring prior to the date of entry into the Morning Call system, you must change the "Incident Date" to reflect the date on which the incident actually occurred.

 

 

Figure 4. Add a New Incident Screen

1. Root Cause (*): If known, choose the root cause of the problem from the choices in the drop down list. If the cause is known, but not listed in the choices, then choose "Root Cause Not Listed". If the cause is not known, leave it blank and it will be discussed and agreed upon during the Morning Call meeting. Normally the OPEN issue owner will input the root cause when they Move To Close the incident. A root cause code MUST be chosen BEFORE selecting the "Move To Close" option.
1. Move to Close: If the incident being reported has been resolved and there are no process issues outstanding at the time of entering the incident into Morning Call, check the "Move to Close" box. The New Incidents report will then automatically append the text "(Move to Close Requested)" to the "Actions Taken" description. The request to close will be reviewed at the next day’s conference call. If everyone agrees, the administrator will move the incident to the closed category.
2. Potential Problem: If no clients called to report an incident, check the "Potential Problem" box. This will result in suppression of the "Add Clients To Incident" screen (See "How To Add Client Impacts To A New Incident") and the steps associated with completing that form. This generates the following confirmation message: "Incident yyyymmdd has been recorded as a Potential Problem, No Client or Impact Needs to be Entered." The user can then choose to enter another incident or return to the main menu. Only client-reported impacts are recorded in the Morning Call database with an associated impact value, which means potential problems will not be used in calculating the Client Impact Index. Potential problems are entered to resolve internally discovered problems that pre-empt potential client impacts and, thereby, prevent future calls for support.
1. Use If Outage: If the incident being entered involved an outage of VESG hardware, network or GSP services, use these four text boxes to enter the dates and times of the outage start and end. Enter all times based on a 24-hour clock in HH: MM format. If any of this information is unknown at the time of entering the incident report, leave it blank. These fields can be edited later using the "Update an Incident" feature. Check the Intermittent box for non-continuous outages, like "hub busy signals", so the outage will not affect outage reporting. If a start or end date is entered, the corresponding time field must also be completed. The start date must also be the same as the Incident Date or you will receive an error.
1. Product (*): Select the affected product from the "Product" pull-down menu. If the product is known but not listed, choose "Product Not Listed."
1. Sub-products: Select the affected sub-products from the "Get Sub-Products" pull down menu. (Figure 5)

Figure 5: Get Sub-products Tab

1. Title (*): Enter a short title. This field is important for summary reporting.
1. Problem (*): Use the "Problem" field to describe the problem(s) that affected the client(s), giving the details of the symptoms as experienced by the client(s). This field is set to wrap automatically during input. The HTML output screens or formatted reports will not honor any hard carriage returns you input. It is better to number any separate points you wish to make in your problem statement, i.e. 1) Problem one 2) Problem two 3) Problem three…or…use standard HTML tags to make the text more readable (i.e.

   ;
   ; etc.).

1. Actions Taken (*): Use the "Actions Taken" field to describe the initial actions taken by the support representative taking the call and/or other VESG personnel involved in fixing the problem. This field is also set to wrap automatically during input. The HTML output screens or formatted reports will not honor any hard carriage returns you input. It is better to number any separate points you wish to make in your action statement.

Caution: If more than one action update is entered prior to a NEW incident appearing in the Morning Call report, only the last action entered will appear.

1. Entered By (*): Enter your name in the "Entered By" field.
1. Root Cause: If known, select the appropriate cause of the client impact and if unknown at the time of entry, select "Not Yet Determined". If known, but missing select "Root Cause Not Listed".
2. Submit: Select the "Submit New Incident" option, which will take you to the "Add Clients to Incident YYMMDD" screen (See Figure 4), unless the "Potential Problem" box has been checked. In the latter case, the system displays a confirmation stating "Incident YYMMDD has been recorded as a Potential Problem - No Client or Impact Needs to be Entered," and you can choose to enter a new incident, or return to the main menu. Choose RESET if you want to clear all fields and start your entry over.

To access the White Board go to https://csbmcall2w.ba-dsg.com/mcroot/ for VESG or https://csbmcall4w.ba-dsg.com/mcroot/ for non-VESG users (See Figure 1) and click on the link for Morning Call's White Board System.

Figure 6. Add Clients To Incident Screen

1. Client Type (*): Select a client type. There is an Impact Index value accumulated and calculated for each client type (CII, AII, etc.). "Consumer" is the default, which represents any switched customer callers. The pull-down list allows selection from one of the business (dedicated access) or Web Services client names. If the client affected by the incident is not in the pull down list, select the " **Client Not In Database**" choice.
2. Get Clients: Select the client type from the pull down menu.
3. LATA: Select the LATA impacted by the issue or select ALL if the issue impacts all customers.
1. Impact (*): Select the Impact (Major, Moderate, Minor, or None - See Chapter 1, "Client Impact Guidelines"). This should be the client’s assessment, which Help Desk Operators obtained in response to the question during the call and documented in the call tracking system.
1. Number Affected (*): Enter the number that reflects how clients were affected by the incident. The default is 1. (Each caller ticket = +1)
1. Description: Describe the specific effect on this particular client’s business. If the client name was not in the pull-down list, use this field to record the client name and address, so the administrator can add it to the database for future use. This field is soon to be made optional, but should be completed for any affected Business clients. Choose "Client Not in Database" as a default holder – if client’s name is not available.
1. Call Ticket Numbers: If known, enter the call tracking system ticket number(s) of clients affected by the incident. As noted in red on the input screen, enter multiple call tracking system case numbers separated by a comma and a space. Using slashes or dashes can create a long contiguous string that would be truncated when output. (NOTE: For Morning Call incidents that are posted from the VESG white board, the case numbers are not necessary, but can be viewed by accessing the "Display Cases" link from the associated white board item.)
1. Submit: Select "Submit Client."
1. The system will respond, "The client has been added to incident YYMMDD." At this point, you can add another client to this incident record, enter a new incident, or return to the main menu.

1. How To Edit an Incident

1. To update a Morning Call incident, access the "Morning Call's Incident Entry System" main menu page (See Figure 1)
2. Click on the Incident Entry Menu (See Figure 2)
3. Select the "Edit an Incident" link. Choosing this link will display a table similar to the one in Figure 7. This table lists the incident number, status, affected product, and description for each incident that has been submitted to the Morning Call system. This screen also shows "Major" in the status column if at least one client was affected in a major way. For "Open" status incidents, the owner(s) are indicated along with the indication of "(MTC)" if the owner has moved to close the incident. A date will appear in the "Deferred To" column when the owner of the item has requested that an incident reappear at a later date in the Open Issues report. A "(P)" in the status column means it is a Potential problem, with no client impact records having been input for the related Morning Call incident. An "(O)" in the Product column means the incident involves some sort of outage.

Figure 7. Update an Incident Screen

4. Select an "Incident #" link to display the "Edit Incident" page.
5. Make the necessary changes to the incident and select "Submit Changes" (Note: Always make sub-product changes first, otherwise your changes can be lost when the pull-down choice causes the screen/form to refresh) or…

Figure 8. Update an Incident Screen

Figure 9. Add New Action Taken Screen

Figure 10. Edit, or Delete Actions Taken Screen

Figure 11. Clients Affected Screen

3. Editing Morning Call Incidents Using the Admin Custom Report

1. Go to Morning Call's Incident Entry System
2. Go to Maintenance
3. Click on Admin Custom Report (See Figure 13b)
4. In the Data Range, type in the oldest date that was discussed in Morning Call
5. In the Status to Include field, Select New and Open and then Create Report
6. Click on the Incident that you want to make changes to. On the bottom are the options:

Figure 12. "New incident" Report Screen

7.4 Create A Custom Report

The "Create A Custom Report" option enables users to request and generate their own custom reports, in various sorts, by specifying their own selection and output criteria. Currently, it allows displaying Morning Call incident information by status, dates, products, owner, Sub-Categories, Root causes, LATAs, Client Types, and location, (See Figure 18).

7.5 Product / Sub Category Report

This report lists all existing products and sub-categories as the currently exist in Morning Call.

7.6 Product Frequency Distribution

This report produces a table showing the count of incidents by product code, displaying the product code that has appeared the most frequently in Morning Call at the top, and then lists subsequent incident counts by product code in order of descending frequency.

7.7 Root Cause Frequency Report

This report produces a table showing the count of incidents by root cause code, displaying the root cause code that has appeared the most frequently in Morning Call at the top, and then lists subsequent incident counts by root cause code in order of descending frequency.

 

Chapter

3

3.Owner Update Activities

The owners of the incidents can add, edit or delete information in the Morning Call incident reports by using IE or Netscape to access the VESG Morning Call main menu page, via the URL (authenticating with NT sign-on and password):

https://csbmcall2w.ba-dsg.com/mcroot/ or https://csbmcall4w.ba-dsg.com/mcroot/

 

Figure 14. VESG Morning Call Main Menu Page

1. How To Add, Edit or Delete Actions Taken On An Incident

Steps 1-4 below will get you to the top (Figure 16a) or bottom (Figure 16b) half of the "Add, Edit, or Delete Actions Taken" screen. During the life of an OPEN issue in Morning Call, these are the same screens that are optionally used to DEFER or MOVE TO CLOSE an incident, which is explained in sections two and three in this chapter.

1. Access the VESG Morning Call main menu page. (See Figure 14)
1. From the "Morning Call Links" pull down menu, select "Morning Reports. This will cause another menu to appear in the left-hand frame of the multi-framed main menu screen.
1. Click on the "Owner Updates" link under the "Incident Management" section of the "Morning Call Reports" menu.
1. On the "Open Issues By Owner" screen, find the desired incident number under the appropriate owner’s name. The owner names are displayed alphabetically by the owner’s first name. (See Figure 15) The "Last Status Update" date and time is also displayed here.

Figure 15. Open Issues By Owner Screen

1. To ADD a new action to an OPEN issue, click on the "New Action/MTC/Defer" link on the "Open Issues By Owner" screen. Update the "Action Taken" field on the "Add, Edit, or Delete Actions Taken" screen for the selected incident. (See Figure 16a)





Figure 16a. Owner Updates - New Action Screen

 

1. To EDIT or DELETE an existing action, click on the "Edit Actions" link on the "Open Issues By Owner" screen (See Figure 15). Click on EDIT or DELETE next to the "Past Action Taken" that you want to edit or delete. EDIT allows you to modify the action text or the fields for entered by, deferred action date, move to close, or root cause. DELETE allows you to delete the associated action, but does not cause the actions to be re-numbered. It is usually best to edit an action, versus delete it, particularly if it is the first action associated with the incident. (See Figure 16b)

Figure 16b. Edit or Delete Past Actions Taken Screen

1. To ADD or EDIT an action taken, it might be necessary to update the "Entered By" field with your name. This field is pre-filled with the name of the currently assigned owner of the incident.
1. If applicable when adding or editing an action taken, fill in the "Deferred Action Date" field. The Open Issues report will then automatically suppress the appearance of this item until the date entered (Valid date formats: 9/12/1999 or Sep 12 1999). The "Incident Summary" report will still show this incident is pending resolution and will report the deferred action date in the "Deferred" column until it is again reported on in Morning Call.
1. If appropriate when adding or editing an action taken, check the "Move to Close" box. The Open Issues report will then automatically append the text "(Move to Close Requested)" to the "New Action Taken" description. The request to close will be reviewed at the next day’s conference call. If everyone agrees, the administrator will move the incident to the closed category. The "Incident Summary" report will also indicate items with a "Move to Close" request pending by displaying "(MTC)" in the "Owner" column.
1. When adding or editing actions taken, if moving to close the item, the owner MUST select a "Root Cause" from the pull-down list, which best describes the primary cause of the incident. If the cause is known, but you don’t see a suitable choice in the list, select "**Root Cause Not Listed**". These can be discussed in Morning Call and updated by the administrator later. If the root cause is truly unknown, select "Cause Unknown".
1. Select "Submit" to update the database.

1. Deferring Updates To An Open Issue

Follow the instructions for section one in this chapter, making sure that step 8 is completed. The incident will still appear on the "Open Issues By Owner" screen, but it will indicate "Deferred until" in the status line until it is to reappear in Morning Call. This will help remind the owner to include a status prior to the incident’s reappearance in the Open Issues report.

If you wish to defer an incident, when there will be no change in status, simply follow the instructions in section one in this chapter to EDIT the last action taken. Then fill in the "Deferred Action Date" field and click SUBMIT. The Open Issues report will then automatically suppress the appearance of this item until the date entered. (Valid date formats: 9/12/1999 or Sep 12 1999)

2. Moving To Close An Open Issue

Follow the instructions for section one in this chapter, making sure that steps 9 and 10 are completed. Always ADD the final resolution to the problem in the new action text box, to provide complete status information in the historical record of all CLOSED Morning Call incidents.

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