I'm curious to hear how other organizations, especially larger ones, have structured their Tessitura support as well as how Tessitura support fits into the overall IT support picture. Some specific questions we have: What does change management for Tessitura look like? Do Tessitura requests go through the help desk? If so, how are they assigned and prioritized? Do you have the same folks doing both application and database support? And of course most of all I'd love any thoughts on what has worked well and what you tried and changed.
Thanks in advance!
Tessitura is treated as a normal application, except when something financial/money making doesn't work. Ours go through the helpdesk as normal and sent to the appropriate person. Tier 1 for (re)installation. For application faults this goes through one of 4 people depending on its relevance (2 of which being Devs - dba&web).
We did have departmental champions who were the first call before the call went in to IT, which worked quite well.
Hi Kjersten,
Technically, Tessitura is an application like any other here. All errors and minor requests (such as granting price type security) funnel through our IT service desk to Application Support, and actual changes to the system (running non-standard sql scripts and utilities, major configuration and usage changes, etc) go through ITIL change management processes. If a department is looking to streamline processes or use Tessitura more efficiently, they would go to their account manager for IT who will look at either turning it into a project, or setting up a subgroup from our internal TUG to work through things. Most everything related to the database side will go to our DBA.
For us this works well most of the time, though I’ll always wish we could specialise in applications rather than ‘everyone must know about all systems!’
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Here are responses to your questions based on how we do things here at Segerstrom Center for the Arts.
Q: What does change management for Tessitura look like?
A: In most cases, we test changes in one of our test environments. Then, once the key stakeholders indicate all is well, we move that change into our live environment. Changes are either logged in a change log on SharePoint so that we know what changed, when it changed, and why the change was made. If the change was due to a helpdesk ticket, then the change is noted in the context of the ticket.
Q: Do Tessitura requests go through the help desk?
A: Typically yes if it is for support (i.e. problems using the system, new account requests, cannot log in, etc) and reports. If the support ticket turns out to be a defect in the software, we open a TASK ticket and also create an entry in a SharePoint list - the helpdesk ticket is closed at that point. We use the same SharePoint site for tracking Tessitura-related projects and tasks, which is referenced regularly by our Tessitura User Group. Many requests on behalf of our ticketing and front of house teams go through a support team within ticketing before they get to IT.
Q: If so, how are they assigned and prioritized?
A: Support requests are generally items that need to be resolved short-term, so those we pretty much tackle as quickly as possible. Tickets are resolved by our support team whenever possible, but they assign tickets to me or other staff members as-needed. The projects and tasks we track in SharePoint are prioritized and monitored on a regular basis by our TUG. The TUG identifies 5 projects or tasks that are designed as Top 5 priorities, and we focus a lot of attention on getting those done. We assign a lead person who is not necessarily the only person involved, but is responsible for getting the project or task done and reporting back to the TUG.
Q: Do you have the same folks doing both application and database support?
A: In our IT department, most team members are involved in Tessitura in some way or another. Our support team handles first and second level Tessitura helpdesk requests. We have another person who does the bulk of our report writing (including SQL stored procedures for those reports) and handles some application-level requests as well. I'm the primary database and server IT person in regards to Tessitura, but also get significantly involved in application issues.
Q: And of course most of all I'd love any thoughts on what has worked well and what you tried and changed.
A: Overall our current approach works reasonably well; however, as additional systems are added in our consortium that integrate with Tessitura, it's becoming more challenging to keep up with everything. A few months after I started, we shifted Tessitura user account creation and management to our staff members who handle helpdesk support. That helped empower them to provision accounts more quickly and took that load off of me.
I hope this helps!
Thanks,David
Thanks everyone! These answers have been hugely helpful. Keep them coming!