Support for Front Office personnel
This page provides an overview of the ressources available to Interactive HPC Front Offices as well as instructions on how to use them.
If you are a researcher looking for support, please contact your local Front Office.
The role of Front Offices
Front Offices are obligated to provide the following support for their users:
- Guiding users in existing apps on the platform
- Writing utility scripts for customising apps to accommodate user needs
- Troubleshooting when users encounter problems with the platform
- Reporting system errors to Back Office
- Data management support
- Ensuring acknowledgement of HPC-use according to DeiC rules
- Providing user with relevant links to user guide etc.
- Providing information about different usages and advantages of Interactive HPC
Front Office slack Channel
All Interactive HPC Front Office personnel is advised to join the Front Office Slack-channel.
Chat with your colleagues from other Front Offices and pick their brains on solutions.
Back Office
Back Office takes care of system errors and not user related errors. The Back Office only processes requests from Front Office personnel.
Front Offices are responsible for investigating any issue before handing it over to Back Office:
- Check Interactive HPC operating status. Please note, that this status only reflects technical issues with the cluster/computer. Other issues, such as user overload, are only visible to Back Office personnel. A setup ensuring Front office access to this information is underway.
- Check the application documentation on Interactive HPC and make sure the user complies with this.
- Ask the user experiencing an issue to send you a step-by-step description of the process that causes the problem, screen shots, code etc.
- If possible try to replicate the issue
- Try to solve the problem using resources at hand
- Ask for help in the Interactive HPC Slack Channel for Front Offices
Only if the issue is identified as an actual system error, can it be sent to Back Office.
Front Office personnel can create a ticket for Back Office via the servicedesk portal. If, for some reason, you are unable to use the servicedesk portal, you can also email the back office.
UCloud user support
Interactive HPC users cannot contact Back Office directly. They are required to reach out to their local front office for assistance, and if the issue requires Back Office support, the front office will handle the redirect.
If non-Front Office personnel contacts the Back Office directly the ticket will be closed and redirected to the appropriate Front Office. Therefore, always instruct users to contact their Front Office directly.
Don’t forget to acknowledge the use of national HPC
As Front Office personnel it is your responsibility to inform your researchers that they are required to acknowledge their use of DeiC Interactive HPC in all their publications, book chapters, posters etc.
Acknowledgement is mandatory and only accepted when the researcher uses an HPC reference number – provided to them by their Front Office.