How queries work#

1. Researchers email their queries#

Researchers email their queries to ask-jgi@bristol.ac.uk.

2. Auto reply#

An automatic email is sent to the querier. This email asks the querier for additional details (e.g. description of aim and problem, description or excerpt of data) and letting them know to expect a response within the next few days. The automatic reply looks something like:

Thank you for your Ask-JGI enquiry. Your query will be picked up by a member of the Ask-JGI team soon.

In the meantime please reply to this email to provide any
supplementary information to your question. 
Make sure you include this phrase somewhere in the email:
{AskJGI-110}. 
This helps us to track how the AskJGI service is used.

Suggested additional information:
1. Your research question
2. Any relevant papers / draft manuscripts etc.
3. A description of your data (and a sample if you can send it)
4. Any relevant analysis scripts/code that you have produced so far.

Note the {AskJGI-110} in the text above. The number corresponds to the Ask-JGI ticket number (110 in this example), which increments with each newly received query. This number acts as a unique identifier for the email thread, which is then used to open a new ticket in the Ask-JGI tracker. All subsequent emails that contain this same identifier will be associated with the newly created ticket (so that the ticket gets updated with each new email in the thread). You can read about how to deal with duplicate tracker IDs in the next section.

3. Ask-JGI student on shift shares the query on Teams#

The Ask-JGI student on shift will share the query in the Ask-JGI Teams channel, and will either:

  • confirm that they intend to reply to the query, or

  • ask whether anyone else is available to do so.

Noting the new query in the Teams channel gives those not on shift the opportunity to collaborate on the query if it is of interest to them, or falls within their own area of expertise. Likewise, the person on shift may not feel that they have the appropriate level of expertise in the relevant area. If this is the case it is also possible to ask for advice from the rest of the team on how to proceed, or to request support to answer the query.

Buddy System#

Some queries might be quite general and anyone from the team can help. Sometimes there will be specific queries that require/are more suitable to be handled by someone with certain expertise. Whilst we want to provide a good support service, we want to avoid Ask-JGI students being pigeonholed into their expertise and give them the space to learn new skills.

You can do this as a sort of buddy system, with one person taking the lead and the other attending meetings to support (perhaps to take notes). It means that in the meeting, the more confident can take the lead, but then the “buddy” can do the task with guidance from the lead. This lets the Ask-JGI team upskill and also increases the spread of skillsets across the team so that we don’t end up with the same people handling all the same queries.

4. Assign yourself on the tracker#

Once it has been agreed who will pick up the query, that team member is responsible for assigning the task to themselves on the tracker, and recording information on the and faculty of the querier, and allocating relevant tags. Instructions on how to fill out tickets on the Ask-JGI tracker can be found here.

5. Respond to the query#

The Ask-JGI team member responsible for the query will respond to the querier to either answer their question or to arrange a meeting to discuss further.

It is important to reply to the latest email in the email thread (which includes the Ask-JGI automatic response) so that the Ask-JGI ticket number is included in the continuing email thread.

This ensures that the same tracker ticket is updated as the email thread evolves.

You can read more about how to set up meetings and what to do in meetings here.

6. Keep the tracker up to date!#

The Ask-JGI team member should use the notes section of their query ticket on the Ask-JGI tracker to record the status and current actions from their query.

7. Resolve the query#

Once the query has been resolved, the ticket on the tracker should be marked as resolved.

Note

You can store any files related to your queries here. Remember to give any folders an informative name, so future shifters can access your files. On the tracker, each query comes with its own unique ID number, including this number in the folder name can be useful if we get queries from the same people in the future.