Central Information Hub PRTG 1: Support for the Tech Support

If you break down the functions of a network monitoring solution, three core elements remain:

• Collection (and archiving) of data
• Analysis of data
• Publishing data (and alerts)

If you look close enough this functionality provides, theoretically, everything you need for a “central information platform”! With minimal effort we can exceed expectations of standard network monitoring solutions by leveraging PRTG’s API, custom sensors, business process sensors and maps. Paessler uses PRTG in this way already: We have various internal systems integrated into PRTG via the API. This data is shared directly with individual departments via PRTG maps and display monitors around the office.

In this blog series we want to give you some examples of how we use PRTG to enhance business processes, starting with the support ticket integration and our support dashboard:

Everything at a glance

The Paessler support dashboard shows the number of current tickets, the ticket-trend for the last day, week and year, the late shift calender, the status of the ticket email system and some general information such as traffic around the headquarters or status information of Paessler's international data centers.

Optimizing Customer Support

PRTG publishes the number of tickets from our support system to the development and support team maps. In these maps we distinguish between new and unresolved tickets, and with defined escalation thresholds we can see when we need to act to resolve tickets. 

• At the first escalation level unresolved tickets are highlighted yellow. The team sees this and should act accordingly. 
• At the next escalation level the tickets are highlighted red. This means the team must work urgently to reduce the number of open tickets.

If the number of open tickets does not go back to the yellow or “normal” range within a specified time period, PRTG sends an email alert to the development team. This alert ensures intervention from the team: They must respond to customer inquiries together with the support team. 

Implementation of such escalation levels allows Paessler to avoid “ticket overload”. It is a largely automated process whereby all parties are informed in a steady and timely manner, ensuring a response time of approximately 24 hours. Stress caused by peaks of intense workload is prevented and the quality of support is maintained.