Three Ways to Improve Troubleshooting

In the world of IT Support, you end up being faced with issues of all shapes and sizes, ranging from a simple forgotten password to a broken connection between software and data directories and beyond.

However, sometimes what may be on the surface to be a complicated issue with file permissions may instead just be as simple as an expired credential for the file location.

Or a fix that may seem out of reach, is common knowledge for someone else.

The right steps and processes when investigating an issue can make all the difference when trying to figure out the cause, and the solution.

Today we would like to go over a few guidelines that can help fast-track you to a resolved issue, and a happy end user.

Getting to the Root of the Issue

While it may seem obvious, getting all the information possible from the onset can make the entire process far easier.

Where possible, have the end user show you the exact steps to recreate the issue they are facing, and any error messages they experience along the way.

Through doing this, you can get the full process mapped out to make further investigation easier – or you may even spot along the way something the user is doing incorrectly and point them in the right direction.

But ultimately, with all the information from the start, it can be clearer to tell where the fault lies.

If there’s an error with loading the required file, it can be seen if the file is missing from where it should be, the software is looking at the wrong location, or if the user still has any issues accessing the location themselves.

Keep Documentation Up to Date

Whenever you finish with a particularly difficult issue, consider putting together a few notes together and saving it somewhere – or even for any issue that may come up, especially if common.

Having an internal knowledge base of fixes for issues can cut out a lot of time later when an issue returns as there would already be a process in place to fix the issue without the need to take the issue away and research into a solution again.

In a similar vein, keeping an overview document for any given customer up to date allows a quick reference to software and services they commonly use, if any software has a built-in support package that can be turned to if required, quick references to a list of authorized contacts/approvers for change requests or anything that can reduce the time spent dwelling on a specific issue.

Ask the Team

Unless you are just a one-man-band MSP, don’t be afraid to ask the other members of your team. With a range of experiences and interactions with issues of their own, a colleague may be more familiar with the software/application and may know a simple solution to an issue that otherwise may seem unsolvable to someone less familiar with the affected service.

Linking back to documentation, once finding out the solution – work with your team to update the knowledge base to have it noted down for future use.

If you are alone, then getting all the information together as from the first point – can make it far easier in looking at documentation online for the relevant services or forums of people who had experienced the issues before.

Written by Elliot Doyle