Folks,

I'm probably a bad person, as I'm not very good at documenting my work.
Yesterday I spent 3 hour or so on the phone with Symantec support on a Backup
Exec issue, and he had me apply several updates to Backup Exec, and as a
result, I had to reboot last night. I rebooted the server from home, but
after 15 minutes I still couldn't ping it.
So, I drove in and found the machine had come back up, but the network
didn't seem to be working. I rebooted again and watched the screen the whole
time, and it came up normally and everything was working.
However, it got me to thinking (especially with a presumed upgrade to
SBS2008 on the horizon) that I haven't done a good job of documenting
changes/updates/installs on my servers, so that in the event of a failure and
a complete reinstall that I know what I need to do.
For instance, I had to add IMAP for a user's Iphone to connect to the server
for e-mail and such, but would I remember that once Iupgrade to new HW and
OS? Probably not without documenting my work.

So, do you document your work, and how detailed do you get with it? Do you
use Excel or Word? Keep a copy next to the server, and another copy given to
your boss in case you get hit by a bus? Any advice for me?



Mike

Mike <Mike@newsgroup> wrote:

> Folks,
>
> I'm probably a bad person, as I'm not very good at documenting my
> work. Yesterday I spent 3 hour or so on the phone with Symantec
> support on a Backup Exec issue, and he had me apply several updates
> to Backup Exec, and as a result, I had to reboot last night. I
> rebooted the server from home, but after 15 minutes I still couldn't
> ping it.
> So, I drove in and found the machine had come back up, but the network
> didn't seem to be working. I rebooted again and watched the screen
> the whole time, and it came up normally and everything was working.
> However, it got me to thinking (especially with a presumed upgrade to
> SBS2008 on the horizon) that I haven't done a good job of documenting
> changes/updates/installs on my servers, so that in the event of a
> failure and a complete reinstall that I know what I need to do.
> For instance, I had to add IMAP for a user's Iphone to connect to the
> server for e-mail and such, but would I remember that once Iupgrade
> to new HW and OS? Probably not without documenting my work.
>
> So, do you document your work, and how detailed do you get with it?
> Do you use Excel or Word? Keep a copy next to the server, and
> another copy given to your boss in case you get hit by a bus? Any
> advice for me?
>
> Mike

I document changes in my company's database whenever the change is large
enough to warrant it. I keep backups of my firewall configs offsite, etc.

BTW, you don't need IMAP for the iPhone. Use Exchange Activesync. Much much
much better.

In article <994A12BD-B0D9-49E0-B4CD-5E96D6AB6275@newsgroup>,
Mike@newsgroup says...

> So, do you document your work, and how detailed do you get with it? Do you
> use Excel or Word? Keep a copy next to the server, and another copy given to
> your boss in case you get hit by a bus? Any advice for me?
>

For each customer I have a folder called SUPPORT, in the support folder
there are specific folders for machine drivers (server), specific fixes,
etc... There are multiple TXT files that indicate DATE, AREA (like
Network, Drive, SQL, Web, Firewall, Security, etc...) and then a
detailed description.

I only enter things that are non-standard in those files.

As for tracking my time, while I have Time-Slips and my phone connects,
I often use a cheap Sales Order Book so that I can hand the client a
"slip" as I'm leaving - and I use it when I work remotely for each
client. This lets me validate charges as well as provide the customer
with that "feel good" paper path.

--
You can't trust your best friends, your five senses, only the little
voice inside you that most civilians don't even hear -- Listen to that.
Trust yourself.
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