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Service (noun) an act of helpful activity; help; aid: to do someone a service
The Partner's Service Focus Team (SFT) is an organization established by the Steering Committee of the Partners User Group, which serves as a conduit to Teradata regarding service related issues for Teradata customers. Our main responsibility is to identify service and support issues or process issues that affect customer service and support while representing the concerns of Teradata warehousing customers.
The SFT can help customers in three ways; the first is to encourage active feedback from Teradata customers related to service and support issues. We do this by submitting requests for service enhancements to Teradata. Service Focus Statements (SFS's) are primarily created by the SFT, but we encourage customers to create their own statements via our website. The SFT reviews each statement and determines if the request is global in nature, and not specific to one customer account. Once approved, these statements are then forwarded to the appropriate department within Teradata for further action and implementation.
Secondly, the SFT contributes to the larger Teradata customer base through active membership on the SFT. The team consists of customer representation from 15 companies internationally. We meet monthly via conference calls, and twice annually in face-to-face meetings where reviews of outstanding SFS's, presentations by Teradata on service related issues, and other issues are discussed. Members have a wealth of experience in Data Warehousing, and the ability to share these experiences amongst team members as well as Teradata representatives is an invaluable asset to both customers and Teradata.
Finally, the SFT works closely with Teradata to influence future service and support directions for the benefit of its customers. We are currently working on reviewing documentation on securing the Unix O/S and Channel and memory configuration, and hope to work closely with the technical expertise on the Product Advisory Council (PAC) on Orange book reviews, and additional documentation where customer input is requested.
This past year has been very active for the SFT. We have been working with Teradata to enhance and implement the new knowledge base search engine in T@YS, and are excited about the next release which will feature the ability to search within the Teradata documentation. A more noticeable achievement of the team was the creation of the Data Dictionary tables and views poster and reference books which were a big hit at Partners. The DR Query tool has been enhanced significantly by Teradata Engineering with input from the SFT, and administrative control over new T@YS id's now allows customers to control access for their users. Many additional SFS's have been opened and resolved this past year, but we are always looking for ways to improve the service provided by Teradata.
We encourage you to visit our website and let us know how you think we can improve the service provided by Teradata.
Our future plans include continuing to attend the various TUGs, speaking with customers about the work of the SFT, and encouraging input from customers. As always, our plans are to resolve as many outstanding service related issues as possible, encourage customers to submit their own SFSs, and continue working with all the Partners committees: the Steering Committee, PAC and AAPAC as well as Teradata.
To apply for membership or submit an SFS, please visit our website at: http://www.teradata.com/teradata-partners/committees/service.cfm. For more information, please contact Kyle Prescott, SFT Chairman (423) 294-3227; KPrescott@UnumProvident.com
Erin Redshaw
Manager, Client Services - EIM
RBC Financial Group
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