1.9. Cardinal Communication Practices and Standards

Last Updated 02/20/2024

How to communicate support needs to the Cardinal team

HelpSpot is our help ticketing system, the tool we use for managing the wide variety of requests that we receive from staff at Cardinal libraries.

What Should Be a Ticket

In general, if you’re reaching out to us to request that we take action of some sort, it is helpful for that to be a ticket. You can create a ticket by filling out our Request for Assistance form or sending an email to help@nccardinalsupport.org. This allows us to keep track of the status of a specific issue, see the history of a request, work on questions as a team and know what issues still require effort on our part. It also allows us to interact with external vendors like Mobius.

Help Us Help You

When sending in tickets, please provide as much specific information as you can: barcode numbers of the patron and/or item, links to the catalog, screenshots of error messages. If your question is related to placing holds, please include the usernames of the person placing the hold and the workstation name and branch. The more specific information you provide, the easier it is for us to track down the issue.

Ticket Response Time

Our goal is to respond to your ticket by the end of the next business day. If we can resolve your request in that time we will, but if we are unable to complete the task or have more questions, our goal is to respond to you in that timeline. Sometimes tickets require us to troubleshoot and test, interact with external vendors, or implement fixes which may impact resolution times.

Closing Tickets

We are always trying to work towards resolving tickets in our system. Generally, if there is no further action necessary for a ticket, we will close the ticket. If it is unclear if the issue is resolved for you, we’ll ask if it is OK to close the ticket before doing so. You can always reopen tickets when you need to later on by replying to the email messages you received related to the ticket.

Basecamp

We also make significant use of Basecamp for projects and discussions with the Cardinal community. You can interact with the Basecamp groups through the website or by responding to the messages via your email. We try to keep an eye on all traffic there and answer questions that require our responses. Basecamp also has the benefit of being a space where staff members from Cardinal libraries can ask questions of their peers and find the answers to questions without requiring the Cardinal team.

Please visit the "Join Our Mailing List" section, under the Submit a Request link to request access to our Basecamp Teams.

Basecamp Best Practices

Here are a few practices and techniques that have been established to assist library staff with using Basecamp to produce effective and meaningful communication.

Does your response add to the conversation? When you reply to a Basecamp thread, your response goes to a few hundred of your peers in other Cardinal libraries. That is great because it provides an opportunity to reach a lot of other people that may be able to respond or help if you have a question. But, if there is too much extra chatter, people stop paying attention.

Consider using Basecamp’s Boost functionality on a post to add an emoji or reply that is up to 16 characters in length. Something like “Me too!”, “That’s great!” rather than posting a response that generates an email to everyone in the group.
If you get too many email notifications about Basecamp posts, consider setting up an email filter that filters messages from a sender that has (NCC) in the name to put all the Cardinal team’s posts into a different folder.

2. Strive to be positive and kind. It's good to raise issues, suggestions and challenges, but nihilistic rants don’t help the conversation.

It's hard to communicate intent when conversing over the internet. If your words can be perceived in different ways, they may be understood in a way which you did not intend.
“Now” is often the wrong time to say what just popped into your head. It’s better to let it filter through the sieve of time. What’s left is the part worth saying.
Text typed in all caps may be interpreted as yelling or displaying a emotion of anger
If something’s going to be difficult to hear or share, invite questions at the end.

3. Before creating a new thread, please check if there is an active thread that covers the same topic (particularly when encountering an issue with Evergreen performance, as it is likely that you’re not the only one experiencing the problem.)

Please read the post instead of just subject line before responding
Try to make sure that your post is in the right group. The right communication in the wrong place is not likely to reach its intended audience.

Incidents: specifically for Evergreen performance issues that may be affecting the entire Cardinal community
Resource Sharing: for any topics about resource sharing practices, shippers, the FedEx website, etc.
Cataloging/Reports/Serials/Acquisitions/etc.: anything targeted specifically at people that use these components of Evergreen
General Discussion: All the other communication that may appeal to the broadest audience in Cardinal

Communication often interrupts, so good communication is often about saying the right thing at the right time in the right way with the fewest side effects.

4. Once an issue has been raised on the Incidents list and a Cardinal team member has responded to let you know we’re troubleshooting, there’s no need to continue to respond to the thread with “me too”. If we announce that we believe the issue has been resolved and you’re still experiencing issues, then please weigh in and let us know if you’re still experiencing the problem.

5. Don’t get personal.

Whenever possible, communicate directly with those you’re addressing rather than passing the message through intermediaries. Example: OK to mention who has copies on a problem bib, but in a public context like this it is not polite to point out a specific cataloger that made a mistake (we’re all learning)
If you’re experiencing a specific issue that is related to another Cardinal library, consider reaching out to them directly via the Points of Contact list. If you have a challenging issue with another library, feel free to reach out to the Cardinal team, as we’re happy to communicate diplomatically on your behalf.

6. Should this be a ticket?

In general, if you’re reaching out to us to request that we take action of some sort, it is helpful for that to be a ticket. You can create a ticket by filling out our Request for Assistance form or sending an email to help@nccardinalsupport.org. This allows us to keep track of the status of a specific issue, see the history of a request, work on questions as a team and know what issues still require effort on our part. It also allows us to interact with external vendors like Mobius.

Knowledge Books

We’ve also built a significant amount of documentation in our Knowledge Books. Generally, if there’s a question that may come up on a regular basis, we’ll try to find the right place to document it there.

How to communicate bug or suggestions to the larger Evergreen community

Launchpad

The Evergreen software community also has a website for reporting and tracking bugs with the Evergreen software. Generally, if an issue you find is a flaw or functional request, the Cardinal team will post a bug report or wishlist item there. You may find it useful to search Launchpad to see if the issue you’re reporting is a known bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/evergreen

Evergreen Mailing List

There are a number of public mailing lists for people interested in Evergreen open source library software – general, governance, documentation, taskforces, development & commits. For details https://evergreen-ils.org/communicate/mailing-lists/

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