Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Lotus Notes Doesn't Work - Help Desk Answers #1

Help desk refrains pop up in my world every now and then. Here's one:

I just got 20+ emails from 10AM and it's 4PM what's wrong with the server?

The answer is nothing of course.

The server was fine and working for every one else (it's always this way, isn't it).

Digging deeper, well, simpler, I went to the server log, looked up usage by user and expanded the date/time. It shows 2 replications, one in the early AM, one in the late PM. No others. Checked other people, replicated all day long.

Problem is customers never want to admit they did something, but facts are facts.
I could look into the log file on their client but it won't tell me if the person switched off replication or changed locations.

So the moral of the story is you may have help desk calls, but they should not be listed as Lotus calls unless truly a Lotus problem. I would bet if you filtered your calls this way you would find you should be training your customers better.

5 comments:

  1. Because of exactly this call, we now delete all but the "Office (Network)" location for any non-mobile client. There is no reason for a PC or thin client to have the other options, IMHO.

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  2. So, I am compelled to ask, why did you not give this user a policy with a replication schedule? So no need to manually replicate unless they want an immediate replication.

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  3. This type of issue is in large part responsible for the bad rap Notes gets in the enterprise. Something or someone failed, somewhere along the line, unfortunately because Notes is affected, it "must be a problem with Notes." So after a bit of troubleshooting you resolve the issue with said failed "something" or "someone" and behold! Notes works again, but Notes is still labeled as the culprit! It's up to us in the trenches to make sure everyone knows that it "Notes was fine, it was some other issue that caused the problem."

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  4. MBR, She has been set up for replication schedule from day one.
    I can't control if she changes locations.
    She only manually replicates because every 5 minutes is too slow for her.
    Go figure :-)

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  5. Brett, Exactly my point, I may start posting more of these just because so many people misdiagnose the problem.
    Remedy, if is still out there, sucks.

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