Workshop

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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.
Summary
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.
Workshop
Q&A
Q A user says that her workstation hasn’t changed, but I’ve traced the problem down to her
workstation. What could it be?