Using org-mode as a personal help desk tool

Using org-mode as a personal help desk tool

[Roland Everaert]

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Hi,

I am working as a sysadmin, In the organization, we use 2 tools to keep
track of requests sent by the customers/users. As you can expect, those
tools are not meant to be used to track all the gritty details of a
sysadmin's job.

So I am turning to org-mode (that I used for years) and its community to
find a way to organize my job and being able to track what I have done and
store the hundreds of lines of output from a command-line.

I was wondering if it was possible to create directories and files with
org-capture, based on data given interactively by the user.

My intention would be to work this way:

1. Create a directory for a request or a group of tasks or a project, in
short, an aspect of my job.
2. Create a file that will contain the information related to the request
in addition to a journal allowing me to keep track of what I have done and
store all the data that are useful to me.
3. Store anything that is related to that request or aspect of my job into
the related directory.
4. Being able to search for a particular aspect or getting a list of them
and access it.
5. When the job is done for an aspect, archive the directory.

So far, I was using the configuration of norang, but I don't thing it is
really adapted to my work-flow anymore.

I know that org-mode is capable of a lot of things, but I was wondering if
this is not a little bit to broad for org-mode to be an efficient tool. I
was even thinking that all of this should be done through a server, with
emacs being the interface to communicate with it.

I would like to ear from others, how they are dealing with a similar job
than mine using org-mode.

Hope everything is clear, and don't hesitate to ask for clarification.


Regards.

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Re: Using org-mode as a personal help desk tool

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Roland Everaert <reveatwork@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi,
>
> I am working as a sysadmin, In the organization, we use 2 tools to
> keep track of requests sent by the customers/users. As you can expect,
> those tools are not meant to be used to track all the gritty details
> of a sysadmin's job.
>
> So I am turning to org-mode (that I used for years) and its community
> to find a way to organize my job and being able to track what I have
> done and store the hundreds of lines of output from a command-line.
>
> I was wondering if it was possible to create directories and files
> with org-capture, based on data given interactively by the user.

You can use org-attach in conjunction with org-capture, to create a
directory connected to an Org heading.

> My intention would be to work this way:
>
> 1. Create a directory for a request or a group of tasks or a project,
> in short, an aspect of my job.
> 2. Create a file that will contain the information related to the
> request in addition to a journal allowing me to keep track of what I
> have done and store all the data that are useful to me.

I'd say you don't need a separate file for this, simply the subtree of
the heading you're using to track this job.

> 3. Store anything that is related to that request or aspect of my job
> into the related directory.

That's org-attach again.

> 4. Being able to search for a particular aspect or getting a list of
> them and access it.

I actually don't think there's any built-in way of searching files in an
org-attach directory.

> 5. When the job is done for an aspect, archive the directory.

I think that would happen automatically with org-attach.

> So far, I was using the configuration of norang, but I don't thing it
> is really adapted to my work-flow anymore.
>
> I know that org-mode is capable of a lot of things, but I was
> wondering if this is not a little bit to broad for org-mode to be an
> efficient tool. I was even thinking that all of this should be done
> through a server, with emacs being the interface to communicate with
> it.

Beats me!

Re: Using org-mode as a personal help desk tool

[John Hendy]

On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 9:10 AM, Eric Abrahamsen
<eric@ericabrahamsen.net> wrote:
> Roland Everaert <reveatwork@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am working as a sysadmin, In the organization, we use 2 tools to
>> keep track of requests sent by the customers/users. As you can expect,
>> those tools are not meant to be used to track all the gritty details
>> of a sysadmin's job.

[snip]

>> 4. Being able to search for a particular aspect or getting a list of
>> them and access it.
>
> I actually don't think there's any built-in way of searching files in an
> org-attach directory.
>

I wasn't familiar with org-attach. Seeing the gist of it, and with dir
creation handled, what about updating org-agenda-files with the new
files (script or something), or just defining a top level dir to
search:
- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11384516/how-to-make-all-org-files-under-a-folder-added-in-agenda-list-automatically

If this could be done, a file tag matching the directory name could
perhaps be used. Or just match the file name to something related to
the customer/user (in my standard agenda search you just see the name
of the file and the tags, not the parent dir name).

Just an idea.


John

Re: Using org-mode as a personal help desk tool

[Roland Everaert]

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org-attach was the feature I needed.

Thank you.

On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 4:10 PM, Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>
wrote:

> Roland Everaert <reveatwork@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am working as a sysadmin, In the organization, we use 2 tools to
> > keep track of requests sent by the customers/users. As you can expect,
> > those tools are not meant to be used to track all the gritty details
> > of a sysadmin's job.
> >
> > So I am turning to org-mode (that I used for years) and its community
> > to find a way to organize my job and being able to track what I have
> > done and store the hundreds of lines of output from a command-line.
> >
> > I was wondering if it was possible to create directories and files
> > with org-capture, based on data given interactively by the user.
>
> You can use org-attach in conjunction with org-capture, to create a
> directory connected to an Org heading.
>
> > My intention would be to work this way:
> >
> > 1. Create a directory for a request or a group of tasks or a project,
> > in short, an aspect of my job.
> > 2. Create a file that will contain the information related to the
> > request in addition to a journal allowing me to keep track of what I
> > have done and store all the data that are useful to me.
>
> I'd say you don't need a separate file for this, simply the subtree of
> the heading you're using to track this job.
>
> > 3. Store anything that is related to that request or aspect of my job
> > into the related directory.
>
> That's org-attach again.
>
> > 4. Being able to search for a particular aspect or getting a list of
> > them and access it.
>
> I actually don't think there's any built-in way of searching files in an
> org-attach directory.
>
> > 5. When the job is done for an aspect, archive the directory.
>
> I think that would happen automatically with org-attach.
>
> > So far, I was using the configuration of norang, but I don't thing it
> > is really adapted to my work-flow anymore.
> >
> > I know that org-mode is capable of a lot of things, but I was
> > wondering if this is not a little bit to broad for org-mode to be an
> > efficient tool. I was even thinking that all of this should be done
> > through a server, with emacs being the interface to communicate with
> > it.
>
> Beats me!
>
>
>

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Re: Using org-mode as a personal help desk tool

[darcamo]

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Another option can be using a webservice such as trello and an emacs
package to access data on it. There is an org-trello package that is worth
investigating.

2016-06-22 9:26 GMT-03:00 Roland Everaert <reveatwork@gmail.com>:

> org-attach was the feature I needed.
>
> Thank you.
>
> On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 4:10 PM, Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>
> wrote:
>
>> Roland Everaert <reveatwork@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > I am working as a sysadmin, In the organization, we use 2 tools to
>> > keep track of requests sent by the customers/users. As you can expect,
>> > those tools are not meant to be used to track all the gritty details
>> > of a sysadmin's job.
>> >
>> > So I am turning to org-mode (that I used for years) and its community
>> > to find a way to organize my job and being able to track what I have
>> > done and store the hundreds of lines of output from a command-line.
>> >
>> > I was wondering if it was possible to create directories and files
>> > with org-capture, based on data given interactively by the user.
>>
>> You can use org-attach in conjunction with org-capture, to create a
>> directory connected to an Org heading.
>>
>> > My intention would be to work this way:
>> >
>> > 1. Create a directory for a request or a group of tasks or a project,
>> > in short, an aspect of my job.
>> > 2. Create a file that will contain the information related to the
>> > request in addition to a journal allowing me to keep track of what I
>> > have done and store all the data that are useful to me.
>>
>> I'd say you don't need a separate file for this, simply the subtree of
>> the heading you're using to track this job.
>>
>> > 3. Store anything that is related to that request or aspect of my job
>> > into the related directory.
>>
>> That's org-attach again.
>>
>> > 4. Being able to search for a particular aspect or getting a list of
>> > them and access it.
>>
>> I actually don't think there's any built-in way of searching files in an
>> org-attach directory.
>>
>> > 5. When the job is done for an aspect, archive the directory.
>>
>> I think that would happen automatically with org-attach.
>>
>> > So far, I was using the configuration of norang, but I don't thing it
>> > is really adapted to my work-flow anymore.
>> >
>> > I know that org-mode is capable of a lot of things, but I was
>> > wondering if this is not a little bit to broad for org-mode to be an
>> > efficient tool. I was even thinking that all of this should be done
>> > through a server, with emacs being the interface to communicate with
>> > it.
>>
>> Beats me!
>>
>>
>>
>

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