Helpdesk User Resources

The FEWS NET Helpdesk team is committed to delivering quality customer service by:

• Responding to requests for support within the published time frames.

• Interacting with users in a respectful and courteous manner.

• Striving to ensure customer satisfaction.

• Requesting feedback for opportunities for improvement.

• Continuously working to improve the quality of service.

• Regularly reviewing and monitoring established performance Indicators.

Helpdesk coverage support spans across multiple time zones. Users can expect assistance from 6:00AM UTC to 11:00PM UTC Monday through Friday, providing approximately 18 hours of coverage per workday for triage.

Open: 6:00 AM UTC Monday - Friday

Close: 11:00 PM UTC Monday - Friday

If a user finds an urgent matter that needs to be addressed outside of operating hours, please mark the subject line as “Urgent” and briefly describe the problem, and a Helpdesk staff member will address the issue during the immediately proceeding business hours of operation. 

Helpdesk tickets should only be created when previously working functionality is broken or a user requires administrative assistance. 

Users should create Helpdesk requests by visiting the Help Desk ticket submission page and completing the appropriate form for the following issues:

• New User Requests

• Password Reset for FDW/FDE, G-Suite (i.e. Email), or Website Accounts

• FDW/FDE Functionality or Usability Issues

• FEWS NET Webpage or Web Content Issues

• Data Upload/Extract Issues

• User Access Concerns (i.e. if a user is unable to access a page that they should be able to, given their role or function)

If a user would like to request a new feature or ability to be added to an application where it did not previously exist, the user should email helpdesk@few.net with the Subject: New Feature Request, a description of the requested feature, and justification for adding it. 

If you are a member of the FEWS NET Early Warning team, please be sure to CC: and/or add as a "Watcher" to a ticket submission, Nour Nourey (nnourey@fews.net) and Linda Scheppler (lscheppler@fews.net) when completing a ticket submission form or emailing the Helpdesk with any issues. 

If you feel you need to email the helpdesk rather than complete a form, please follow these guidelines: Please note that submitting a form will be processed with the same priority and efficiency as an email. 

1. You may cc: a colleague if you would like any colleagues to receive the same updates that you receive as your ticket is addressed.

2. Include a descriptive Subject line that summarizes the issue; i.e. Unable to extract Price data for Kenya. 

3. Include a screenshot or image attachment of the issue, if possible.

4. Describe your issue with as much detail as possible, including the steps you took to arrive at the issue.

Helpdesk support staff will prioritize issues based on severity and time commitments. Users should expect to be notified via email when a support staff has received and assigned their ticket to the Queue. Response time will vary by priority as noted below:

Urgent: The issue affects a FEWS NET Platform and is causing a major loss in functionality. Support staff will work to fix the issue ASAP.

• Response Time: 2-4 hours

High: The issue is causing a minor loss of previously working functionality in the Platform, and a  temporary workaround exists.

• Response Time: 4-8 hours

Medium: The default priority for tickets created. Little to no impact on functionality, but can cause confusion for users. Unless otherwise specified, user access concerns will be assigned a Medium priority. 

• Response Time: <12 hours

Low: The issue does not impact functionality at all, but should be fixed to improve user experience.

• Response Time: 24-36 hours

The Helpdesk procedures for addressing tickets largely depend on the nature of the underlying issue. The following are scenarios that users can expect to experience when interacting with the Helpdesk team. 

If the issue is confirmed to be a user navigation issue

1. The Helpdesk team will provide detailed resolution steps and will reply with a comment update in the Jira ticket, which will then send an email notification to the user.

2. The resolution steps will be added to the issue description and communicated to the user via the Jira system. Resolution should occur within two working days.

3. The issue will be closed once a user confirms it can be closed. If the user does not respond within another two days, the Helpdesk team shall assume the issue has been resolved/closed.

If the issue is confirmed to be a defect or system bug

1. More information may be requested from the user, such as the website address, screen shot, etc if necessary.

2. The Helpdesk team will send out an acknowledgment message to inform the user that the issue is being reviewed.

3. The Helpdesk team will attempt to reproduce the issue and add a comment to the Jira ticket stating whether it has been successfully reproduced. If the Helpdesk team is not able to reproduce the issue in the platform, the team will request additional information from the issue reporter until the issue can reliably be reproduced and verified by the Helpdesk team.

4. The Hub software developers will be informed of the bug once it has been confirmed.  This will happen by duplicating the issue from the Helpdesk Project to the DATA project in Jira.

5. The development team will provide a time frame for the resolution/fix and this will be communicated to the user.

6. The Helpdesk team will follow up the resolution of the issue with the development team.

7. Once the issue is fixed/resolved the ticket will be updated and Jira will send out a notification email to the user.

8. The Helpdesk team will verify that the issue has been resolved on the development and production environments and record the findings by adding a comment to the Jira ticket.

9. Once the user verifies and confirms the issue has been resolved, the Helpdesk team will close the ticket in Jira. If the user does not communicate about the resolution (or non-resolution) of the issue within another two days, but our team has resolved the issue to the best of our ability based on the information provided, it is assumed the issue is resolved and the Jira ticket will be closed.

If a user submits a feature request

The Hub continuously works to improve the functionality of its data and web platforms.  Requests from users submitted either from via the Helpdesk or directly into the Hub’s Jira projects follows a different pathway that problems related to navigation, defects or systems bugs.

At the beginning of each month, the Hub organizes a Sprint Planning process to review and prioritize tickets coming from the existing backlog or recent feature requests. If USAID, which owns and manages the overall FEWS NET project, prioritizes the issue, it can be addressed during that same month; otherwise, it joins other tickets in the rolling backlog. 

Therefore, for users submitting feature requests: 

1. The user will be informed that the requested issue has been accepted as a feature request and that the ticket will be incorporated into the Hub’s normal Sprint process.

2. Feature Requests will take a minimum of about 4 weeks to incorporate.

3. The Helpdesk team will closely follow up that process and inform the user whenever there is a progress in the implementation of the issue.

4. The issue will be closed once the feature is implemented and deployed to the platform and the user confirms it has been done as expected. 

5. The user will be informed that the requested feature has been added. 

In event of on-boarding new FEWS NET staff, a designated implementing partner team member shall complete a New User Request via the Helpdesk Portal with the following information:

1. Name

2. Title 

3. Organization (i.e., Hub, EW Team, USAID, or Science Team)

4. Email (can be corporate email, in case the request is for new fews.net address)

5. Phone Number

6. *Platforms/systems requested on behalf of the new user, which may include:

   • G Suite/email for fews.net accounts;

   • FDW;

   • FDE;

   • fews.net CMS (see Exchange page for more information);

   • Mailchimp;

   • Hootsuite;

   • Google Analytics; 

   • Jira/Confluence

7. *Project-wide meetings (if required), hosted by the Hub unless otherwise noted:

   • Monthly Collaboration meeting;

   • Data Management Platform Sprint Demo meeting;

   • Data Management Platform Sprint Planning meeting;

   • Web Sprint Planning and Demo meeting;

   • Communications Working Group;

   • Data Stakeholders meeting (EW hosted);

   • FAOB (EW hosted);

   • Training sessions (EW hosted)

8. Distribution Lists to be added to (if applicable)

9. FDE/FDW Account Request Details (if applicable)

Once this information is received, Helpdesk staff will inform both the designated team member and the new staff member that the new account(s) is/are ready for use, and how to access it/them. 

In event of off-boarding FEWS NET staff, a designated implementing partner team member shall complete a Decommission Account Request via the Helpdesk Portal, and include the following information:

1. Name;

2. Fews.net email;

3. Last day on FEWS NET project;

4. Systems the user had access to;

5. Distribution Lists to be removed from

6. Project-wide meetings attended.

Once this information is received via the Helpdesk Portal, Helpdesk staff will make the necessary changes to the user’s accounts(s) and remove their access wherever appropriate.

Every 30 days, user accounts across the FEWS NET systems and platforms will be scanned for activity. Accounts that have been inactive for 60 days will receive an email notification, recommending that they log into that account in order to preserve active status. 

If the user does not log into an account within a 90-day period, that user will not have access to that account. That account will not be deleted, however. Should the user require access after 90 days, the user will be required to email Helpdesk@fews.net for re-activation.