iCompass Technologies Blog

iCompass Customer Empowerment Series

Reporting Problems in Software

In part three of the Customer Empowerment Series, I’d like to take a high-level look at the pieces of a computer and how they interact in hopes that when something goes wrong, you’ll have the ability to effectively describe the problem area to someone tech-savvy, such as myself.

When something goes wrong with a computer - and this is especially true of phone support - as a user you need to be able to describe the problem and the problem area in good detail. You must also use terminology that’s common to all computer users, otherwise a lot of time can be wasted trying to determine “where” something is happening before getting to the much more important “what”.

Think of yourself as a professional error reporter. In your report you need to include various pieces of information and we’ll cover how to discern them throughout this post. We need Operating System and Program Information, the type of problem, and recreation steps.

The biggest piece of software you have on your computer is your operating system. Most people have some version of Windows (XP, Vista, or 7). There are other operating systems like Mac OS X, Ubuntu, Fedora and others. Be sure when reporting an issue, you know what operating system and version you have on your computer. In Windows, you can hold the Windows Key (between CTRL and ALT) and press Break (usually on the top right area of the keyboard) and it will show you what version of windows you’re using.

Running on top of the operating system are all of your programs. Examples of programs are: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. When reporting problems, it’s good to know what program it is, as well as the version. Most programs will show you the version if you find the help menu and click “About.” You can look at this example to see what it looks like in Internet Explorer. Here we can see that it is Internet Explorer 8.0.7600.16385 64-bit Edition.

Talking about browsers, there are a very large number of people who think that Internet Explorer is the internet. This is a common misnomer and it’s these types of mix-ups that can cause confusion when reporting issues. To clarify, Internet Explorer is a web browser and only facilitates browsing the internet. Sometimes Internet Explorer can have a problem and it has nothing to do with the internet connection. When this occurs, you can use another browser like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome to browse the internet.

Now let’s take a look at identifying the different types of errors that you’ll typically encounter while using iCompass services.

JavaScript Error: The symptoms of a JavaScript error is that a webpage just “stops working”, most buttons don’t work but links are still clickable. In Internet Explorer it’s easy to see if there’s a JavaScript error. Simply look at the bottom-left corner of the screen.

Double clicking on the exclamation mark will bring up the error message which you can then describe to a technical support person. Just think about how smart you’ll sound when you say: “I’m receiving a JavaScript error on this page. The error details are….”

In Mozilla Firefox there is no warning that there has been an error so you’ll have to go to the error console which is located under the Tools menu (or you can press CTRL+SHIFT+J) to see if there has been an error.

The details of a Javascript error will rarely help you solve your problems, but they can be very valuable to a technical person.

Program Errors: This is when a program (like Internet Explorer, for example) locks up, or crashes altogether. These problems can be caused by a variety of things and reporting them is usually difficult because often times, you cannot re-create them. The best thing to do is to find a re-creation scenario; otherwise it may have just been a one-time issue. Computers are incredibly complex things and sometimes just the right conditions can be met to cause a lock up or crash. Keep reading to find out how to go about retrieving re-creation steps.

iCompass Errors: An iCompass error (where our product tells you there is a problem and that you should phone Customer Support) is a little bit of a different beast. The iCompass error usually has more to do with our software than with the operating system or software on your computer. The most important information you can gather when you encounter an iCompass error is the recreation steps.

Getting re-creation steps is the most important part of reporting an issue. Maybe you clicked a specific button, changed a dropdown and clicked a save button and that series of steps produced the error. Once you get the error, you should venture onward yourself and try to re-create it by remembering what you had previously done. If you can re-create the error and report the steps you took to achieve that error, the problem will be solved with great haste. You won’t always be able to get re-creation steps or maybe you’re just not able determine what they are without help. In this case, just try to provide as much detail as possible around what you were doing at the time.

That’s all on reporting issues. Remember to try to get the three pieces of critical information: 1) Operating System, program names and versions, 2) Error type and, 3) Re-creation steps. Hopefully this will help you gain confidence when preparing for a technical support call. When you make the call, you will be equipped to provide useful information and hopefully get back on track quickly. Hopefully you won’t need to utilize this skill often but when you do it will certainly be handy to have.

 - Aaron Lefkowitz, Application Developer

CivicWeb needs your help!

Call for Pilot release participants – Item Flow and Minutes Numbering

Interested in aiding the iCompass team in bettering our services?

An upcoming release of CivicWeb has been scheduled and we would appreciate your involvement prior to its release to everyone. Our approach to releasing new software features incorporates a ‘Pilot’ phase, whereby a subset of our customers use the new release prior to updating all of our customers. This would be a great opportunity for you, as a valued customer, to participate in the development of our services.

The upcoming release has improvements to our Item Flow and Minutes Numbering functions and includes other minor improvements requested by our customers. These changes touch only a few aspects of CivicWeb which include:

1. Item Flow: Consistent and improved means of copying meeting items to other meetings (from the meeting item detail and from the agenda build page) and of exporting AT items into meetings

2. Item Flow: MS Word style of ‘Save,’ ‘Add New’ and ‘Close’ – more standard approach to leaving an item detail page after working on it

3. Item Flow: Creation of ‘Temporary Item’ – removing awkwardness of multi-step item creation – now all item tabs available on initial creation.  This is done in both Action Tracking and Meeting Management

4. Item Flow:  Improved tool for adding item attachments – control over security of attachment, drag and drop ordering, more standard ‘select item – take action’ approach – i.e. select attachment, then delete

5. Minutes: Enhanced Minutes Numbering capabilities – new tool providing much more flexibility in Numbering Minutes – set at Meeting Type level and applied to related Minutes when they are created

6. FilePro: deletion changes to support deleting the file you are looking at – was not intuitive how to delete current file

7. A handful of ease-of-use improvements and requests from customers

This Pilot phase has already begun. We have several customers using this release but we would like to add more as soon as possible.  We have created Quick Reference Guides for these enhanced features and we have Pilot overview webinars scheduled for:

• Mondays at 1:00 pm Pacific (4:00 pm Eastern)
• Fridays at 10:00 am Pacific (1:00 pm Eastern)

We are working toward adding another group of customers to this Pilot release for use starting the morning of Tuesday, August 31^st.  We also expect to add more to the Pilot group weekly, as customers wish to sign up.  We expect to update our entire customer base to this release no later than September 14^th. 

Your input is of utmost importance to us and we would love your feedback, therefore YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THIS PILOT RELEASE WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. Your early involvement provides an opportunity for us to incorporate your specific feedback quickly into the system.

Please contact customers@icompasstech.com to schedule your participation in our expected August 31^st update and in the related Pilot overview webinar.

Thanks very much!

-Paul Blanchet, VP Operations

Today iCompass unveiled Customer Advisory Board

iCompass officially unveiled its first ever Customer Advisory Board.  The members of the inaugural iCompass Customer Advisory Board include:

• Cindy Bouchard, Manager of Legislative Services, City of Williams Lake, BC (also Chair of the iCompass Customer Advisory Board)
• Connie Maden, Director of Administrative Services, North Valley Hospital District, Tonasket, WA
• Vicki Hodgkinson, University Secretary, University of Guelph, ON
• Sherry Davis, Manager of Legislative Services, City of Abbotsford, BC
• Lyle Huntley, Clerk & Director of Community Services, Thompson-Nicola Regional District, Kamloops, BC
• Marlene Beaulieu, EA to the President and College Board, College of New Caledonia, Prince George, BC
• Candace Dueck, Chief Administrative Officer, Village of Mannville, AB
• Lynn Suskin, City Clerk, City of Kenmore, WA
• Sue Dawe, Director of Corporate Services, Municipality of Port Hope, ON

“We are thrilled that we have successfully assembled a world-class Customer Advisory Board consisting of highly experienced and diverse individuals from the local government, post-secondary and health sectors,” said Todd Stone, President & CEO of iCompass Technologies.  “Our Customer Advisory Board was established to more richly engage iCompass customers who are widely recognized as ‘power users’ of our Meeting Management services, and who are willing to assist us in our obsession to eliminate the meeting and tracking pains suffered by public agency professionals across North America,” added Stone.

The iCompass Customer Advisory Board was created in April 2010 and has held several meetings over the past couple of months.  The creation of the Customer Advisory Board fulfills yet another of the Grand Slam Service Commitments published by iCompass in January 2010

The Customer Advisory Board is chaired by a customer representative - Cindy Bouchard of the City of Williams Lake - and it is tasked with advocating and promoting the interests of all iCompass customers in the following key areas:

• New product ideas
• Priority areas for enhancement / improvements to existing services
• Priority areas for customer service improvement
• New methods to foster improved collaboration between customers

Please feel free to click here and meet the members of the very first iCompass Customer Advisory Board.

iCompass and FileBank Announce a Marketing Affiliation

KAMLOOPS, BC - November 17, 2009 - iCompass Technologies, a leading meeting management software provider, is pleased to announce its newest marketing affiliation with FileBank Professional Services to refer their document storage solutions to hundreds of public sector organizations across North America.

Taking advantage of each company's expertise as leaders in their respective fields, this affiliation aims to make it easier for organizations to streamline their document storage. Our users now have a proven, reliable service to assist them in document storage and imaging needs. This relationship enhances iCompass' whole product offering by making it easier to prepare hard copy documents for upload into the CivicWeb Solution from iCompass making it easier for the public sector to find key documents using keyword searches.

The affiliation marks a very important business development initiative and reflects iCompass' commitment to continuous improvement of solutions for customers. "We recognize the increasing requirement for document management and see tremendous business opportunities for both iCompass and FileBank," says Jason Cacaci, Director of Business Development at iCompass.

About iCompass

iCompass provides CivicWeb, the leading web-based Meeting Management Solution for City Clerks and Board Secretaries who are swamped with never-ending process related to managing the preparation, approval and distribution of agendas and minutes AND tracking mission critical deliverables within the organization. CivicWeb automates the entire meeting process within one system. It also reduces paper consumption, contains ‘smart' templates, and enables the shifting of time savings to tackle other key priorities.

About FileBank

FileBank has been a leader in Records Management for over 20 years, managing over 10,000 000 bar coded containers, files, data tapes, digital images and x-rays for our clients across Canada.  We provide custom solutions for our customers back office requirements through Document Management, Offsite Backup, High Speed Digital Imaging, Secure Shredding and IT Consulting and Repairs.    While offering a customized solution is definitely one of the keys to our success, our clients will tell you it's our commitment to customer service that really sets us apart.   Customer Service is the inspiration behind everything at FileBank.

Granite Falls, WA Embraces FilePro

Today, the City of Granite Falls, WA embraced the iCompass FilePro module. "We are excited to welcome the City of Granite Falls to the iCompass family," said Todd Stone, President & CEO of iCompass. "Local Governments are faced with the challenges of managing huge amounts of data, and responding in a timely fashion to constituent requests all the time," added Stone. "Granite Falls is an example of the fact that now, for the first time ever, Local Governments no longer need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on over-built and complex ‘one size fits all' solutions for managing their information assets. Rather, with CivicWeb, they can embrace hosted applications that are tailored to their workflow processes and are much easier to use, at a significantly lower cost than was previously available to the market." With CivicWeb, no capital expenditures are required for web server infrastructure, client software licenses, and software upgrades, and there is no reliance on internal IT resources or expensive IT contractors. The iCompass service program ensures that our customers are always on the cutting-edge of technology. The qualified iCompass staff provides the customer training, answers the customer's questions, and works with the customer in addressing their meeting management challenges.

Todd G. Stone, President & CEO

CivicWeb FilePro