Aspen Discovery Support

These settings are where ByWater Solutions' adds your active ticket feed from Request Tracker (RT), which allows the display of your active tickets within Aspen. If you see links to View Active Tickets and Set Priorities with the Aspen Discovery Support module, then these settings are already in place and you're good to go!

View Active Tickets

To view your currently active tickets from ByWater Solutions' Request Tracker (RT) system, visit Aspen Administration > Aspen Discovery Support > View Active Tickets.

Tickets will display in the order they have been updated, with the most recently-updated ticket at the top. 

Clicking on the ticket ID will open the ticket in RT. If you are not already logged in, you will be prompted to do so.

Permissions

In order to view active tickets, you will need the View Active Tickets permission in at least one of the roles your account has been assigned. This permission can be found in the Aspen Discovery Support section of user permissions.

Submit Ticket

To submit a ByWater Solutions' ticket from within Aspen Discovery, visit Aspen Administration > Aspen Discovery Support > Submit Ticket.

On this form, your name will be automatically populated based on your account information -- edit this field, if needed.

Next, enter in your email address, subject, and your question or a description of your issue. Please provide as much information about the issue as you can, which might include library account numbers, record URLs, search terms, or any steps to take to help us reproduce the issue you've encountered.

Selecting a criticality level or ticket component is completely optional, but if you can see an applicable component that applies to your question/issue, feel free to select one or more.

Submitting a ticket through the Aspen interface will create the ticket in our ticketing system (RT). You will receive an email when the ticket has been created and when we respond to your ticket.

Permissions

In order to submit a ticket through Aspen, you will need the Submit Ticket permission in at least one of the roles your account has been assigned. This permission can be found in the Aspen Discovery Help section of user permissions.

Set Priorities

Setting your ticket priorities is a great way to communicate to the ByWater Aspen Discovery development team what issues are most important to your library. We use these priorities to help us identify common issues and request trends, which in turn help us to plan our releases. You can add any kind of ticket to your priorities.

1. To set your ticket priorities, visit Aspen Administration > Aspen Discovery Support > Set Priorities.
2. Click Add New.
3. Each dropdown menu contains a list of all your currently active tickets. Select a ticket for each priority, "Priority 1" being most important.

4. Save your changes.

Permissions

In order to set ticket priorities within Aspen, you will need the Set Development Priorities permission in at least one of the roles your account has been assigned. This permission can be found in the Aspen Discovery Support section of user permissions.

Release Notes

To view Aspen Discovery release notes, visit Aspen Administration > Aspen Discovery Support > Release Notes. The notes for the most recent release will display first, but notes for any previous release are available as well.

Each release is named for the year and month of that release. This means that 22.05.00 was released in May of 2022; 21.09.00 was released in September of 2021; and so on. Patches in between official releases will be denoted at the end with increments of .01, .02, etc. 

To view the most up-to-date notes for releases not yet pushed to production sites, visit help.aspendiscovery.org/Admin/ReleaseNotes

Release Calendar

View the Aspen Discovery release calendar

Check the status of Aspen Discovery and other ByWater Solutions' supported products here:

status.bywatersolutions.com

Libraries can close/resolve their support tickets via Request Tracker (RT).

Watch this short video to see how to close tickets: https://bywater.solutions/closetickets

Tip #1: It’s all in the details.

The more information you can provide to us up front, the more thoroughly and quickly we can assist you in return. This is especially important for issues that will require troubleshooting. Include any relevant information such as:

• Steps to replicate the problem
• Account number for an impacted user
• Login information for a test account we can use to duplicate the behavior (always send sensitive information to us via Sharepass)
• Whether the issue happened in Discovery, LiDA, or both
• Screenshots or screen recordings
• Links to records or search results
• For LiDA: version of the app you’re running
• For LiDA: device info (type of phone/OS version)

Tip #2 - Testing, Testing!

If patrons or staff have reported an issue, see if you can duplicate the issue yourself first. As mentioned above, providing us with the account number of an affected user will allow us to use Masquerade Mode to act as that user and attempt to replicate the issue. If you can provide us with login credentials for a test account, that’s even better! This is especially important if the issue is happening in LiDA since we’re unable to masquerade as users within the app – logging in with an account is the best way for us to investigate any issues. This also helps if you’re using an ILS other than Koha, since we do not have access to your system to create a test user ourselves.

Remember, you can always use our Sharepass tool to send us sensitive information such as account credentials. You can find the Sharepass link from every Reply or New Ticket screen in RT.

Tip #3 - Ticketiquette.

Here are some helpful guidelines for creating tickets to help you (and us) keep track of issues and distinguish between them.

• Split up separate issues into separate tickets. If you’re not sure if an issue is related, that’s okay! If we need to create a new ticket to pursue a separate issue, we’re happy to. We can also merge tickets for you if they’re related after all.
• Add descriptive keywords to the ticket subject line. This will help us all see at a glance what the tickets are about and more easily find them at a later date. (Example: “Creating lists in LiDA” vs. “LiDA Help”)
• Let us know when your issue is resolved or if we’ve answered a question to your satisfaction. If everything looks good to you, a quick “Thank you, this ticket can be closed” is greatly appreciated! You can also close your own tickets at any time.
• If submitting a feature request, provide details about a use case. A “use case” is an example of how or why a feature would be used, and provides details about why it’s important to your users. This can help us better understand your needs, and sometimes we might be able to provide other solutions that already exist within Aspen.