Partner Support Ticket Handling

Overview

This is a quick reference for how to handle support requests from partner. These can include questions on Slack, emails to partners@, or action items from meetings with partners.

For the purposes of this article, we define a partner support ticket as a request from a partner that requires action from the Partnerships Engineering team. We include in this definition any updates to the YAML files in the 18F/identity-idp-config repo as maintaining accurate records for our agreements and other partner data is critical in supporting our partners.

Ticket tracking

We currently track all of our partner support tickets in ZenDesk. This allows us to maintain a single view of all of the support activities being handled by the Partnerships Engineering team as well as evaluate our workload and throughput.

Entering tickets

We strongly encourage partners to submit tickets through ZenDesk as to limit the avenues of where the tickets are coming from. If there is missing information or tickets that have not been created, below are some Slack channels that would be helpful:

  • #login-iaa
  • #login-team-kimberly
  • #login-partner-support

If you see or are made aware of a request from a partner that does not originate from ZenDesk, please create a corresponding ticket. Make sure to include as much information as possible, and if the request originates through a channel that can be linked to (e.g. Slack) make sure to include a link to the thread in the “Public Reply” field.

Working on tickets

As you’re working on tickets, please make use of ZenDesk’s “Internal Note” feature to leave updates as to your progress (as needed). For simple requests (e.g. questions that can be answered directly) this is not required but for longer lived tickets (e.g. a new integration launch) it is helpful to have a history for the request. The “Internal Note” section is also a great place to put a link to the Github Pull Request, as this helps anyone else viewing the ticket what progress has been made.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

Reach out to Team Ursula (#login-ursula)!