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Fortunately, this is not a “free” applet, and the supplier is eager to make it work for you. The supplier talks you through taking a network trace, and you email it off to him. He responds that you do have quite a lot of traffic, but not an unreasonable amount. Because you’ve gathered a lot of notes and have sent them to him, he has a good idea of what’s going on and understands that it’s probably his problem. Because he wants you as a customer, before too long, you’ve got a “patched” program emailed to your desk, which you install to your user’s PC—problem solved.
In a situation like this, you want to make sure you document the problem—either informally (via email to your colleagues) or formally (say, as an addendum to the product documentation in your library). You might write something like this:10/20/98, JF: Applet has problems running on a busy network, use Patch 1.2, located on the ‘Barbarian’ server’s ‘FIXES’ share.
Sound crazy? A software supplier fixing something you reported? Not really. Our shop has reported many bugs to suppliers over the years using this procedure, and with great success. When you follow careful SOAP note-taking procedures, you’re likely to convince your technical support people that you have a bona fide problem that needs to be addressed. However, it’s even more likely that you’ll come up with the answer yourself—which is really the objective.
Computer networks have been around less than a century—as network troubleshooters, we should learn troubleshooting techniques from any source we can. The medical profession uses SOAP notes, which can be highly effective in pursuing complex problems. Because you don’t necessarily have all the facts when you start chasing a problem, using the SOAP format for note-taking encourages you to analyze your data objectively, collect more facts, and form a plan.
Q A user says that her workstation hasn’t changed, but I’ve traced the problem down to her workstation. What could it be?
A Remember that what a user says is always subjective. You need to take a look for yourself to see what the facts are. Also, talk to other people in her office. Look at her workstation yourself. Odds are that something has changed. This is change analysis, to be sure; however, SOAP reminds you that any user reports are subjective—you need to corroborate the facts yourself.
Q I’ve reported bugs to manufacturers before, with no success. Granted, there are manufacturers who listen, but how do you tell which ones will?
A Assuming you reported the problem in great detail, my sense is that the smaller software vendors are really the ones who tend to respond to their individual users’ problems. The larger software vendors, without naming names, tend to send you a form email that says something like “This will be fixed in the next release” or “Software is operating as designed.” Believe it or not, even shareware vendors tend to be really, really responsive to you—particularly after you’ve registered a large number of licenses with them. They appreciate the business, and it shows.
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