Unidata User Support
Winter 2010/2011

Tom Yoksas
March 25, 2011

Strategic Focus Areas

The group's work supports three of the funding proposal's six focus areas:

1. Broadening participation and expanding community services
4. Enhancing user support services
6. Promoting diversity by expanding opportunities

Unidata Inquiry Tracking System

• Since January 26, 2006 over 26300 user support "transactions" (new inquiries and follow-ups) have been processed through the Unidata inquiry tracking system.

Relevant Support Metrics

Support by Category

Fig. 1: Above are histograms that portray the number of Unidata email responses for categories of support for a one year period ending March 28, 2011. The histograms are arranged by yearly activity averages with the highest on the left and lowest on the right. Each quarter year within the period is depicted from oldest to newest from left to right. The number of responses has been normalized to weekly averages so that the support load over the various periods can be easily compared.

Individual support activities included in the categories depicted above are listed in the following table.

Category	Packages, Groups, and Lists
data	casestudies, casestudies-list, conduit, c2-linda, craft, craft-nws, craft-ty, datastream, difax, level2, level2-linda, level2-ty, noaaport, noaaport-ty, noaaportldm
dods	dods, dods-core, dods-list, dods-tech, dods-team, linda-dods, opendap, opendap-core, opendap-list, opendap-tech, opendap-team
gempak	gempak, gembud-list
ldm	ldm, ldm-users-list
lead	lead, leadusers
idd	cluster, idd, idd-antarctic, idd-brasil, idd-caribe, idd-inject, idd-status, scoop, suominet, tigge
idv	idv, idvlist, idvsteering, metapps, visad-list, visad-renderer
mcidas	mcdevelop, mcidas, mcidas-list
miscellaneous	esupport, fxlinux, license, misc, network, notrack, platforms, wxp, wxp-list
netcdf	data-models, libcf, ncml, netcdf, netcdf-misc, netcdfgroup-list, netcdf-hdf-list, netcdf-java, netcdf-perl
nws-changes	nws-changes
outreach	agu-linda, agu-ty, ams-linda, announce, argentina-ty, barbados-ty, brazil-ty, cbmet-ty, chile-ty, egrants, egu-linda, external, iai-ty, meteoforum-ty, mexico-ty, noaa-linda, nws-linda, unidata, workshop
thredds	java-dev, java-dev-list, thredds
utilities	decoders, ldm-mcidas, udunits

Support by Topic

Fig. 2: Above are histograms that portray the number of Unidata email responses for individual topics of support for a one year period ending March 28, 2011. The histograms are arranged by yearly activity averages with the highest on the left and lowest on the right. Each quarter year within the period is depicted from oldest to newest from left to right. The number of responses has been normalized to weekly averages so that the support load over the various periods can be easily compared.

Comments

• The total support provided by the UPC remains high, and yearly totals have been relatively steady for the past two years. Overall support activities vary by somewhat by quarter. Spikes in support for individual packages is largely correlated with the release of new distributions, and, for the IDV in particular, jumps after training workshops.
• Support for netCDF continues to be substantial, and is understandable given the large number of users of the package worldwide.
• The IDV support load is second only to that for netCDF; no large increases have been seen over the past 6 months.
• Support for netcdf-java continues to grow steadily.
• Support for the legacy visualization packages GEMPAK and McIDAS continues to be substantial.
• Support for LDM, IDD, and data continues at a high level and shows some variability throughout the year.
• Taken as a whole, the support required for visualization packages (GEMPAK, IDV, and McIDAS) is comparable to the support related to data reception (LDM, IDD, noaaport).
• The high numbers for outreach reflect the high level of activity in organizing sessions at various national meetings.

Notes

These numbers and conclusions should not be taken too literally, for several reasons:

• For some packages, multiple responses in the same thread may be bundled into a single archived email. Other packages have each response in a thread counted separately.
• After a new release of software, there may be a flurry of the same or similar questions, which can be answered in separate emails or in a single mailing list posting.
• The graph primarily represents support of end users and site administrators, not developers. Support for non-Unidata developers in projects such as THREDDS, IDV, GEMPAK, and McIDAS requires significant resources, but is difficult to assess.
• Not all support records were indexable for this report. Given this, the above numbers are an underestimate of the actual support being provided by the UPC.

Additional User Support Inquiry Metrics

Unidata Website Update

• New site released. Jen is scouring content to correct any formatting errors (may take awhile). If you see any errors or encounter any anomalous behavior, please send a message to: support-plaza@unidata.ucar.edu.

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by Tom Yoksas and Jennifer Oxelson