I agree wholeheartedly. The whole concept of ticket system is great but it doesn't work as intended. Sometimes when the issues cannot be addressed properly, it would be great if IB offers another channel which people can forward unresolved issues to senior team or board. There's one - email system. I hope this will not be abandoned.
IBj, I understand the logic of eliminating email, but I think this is just a little bit too extreme, and a slight adjustment is needed to this approach. I guess what we are trying to say is that the trouble ticket system will be sufficient communication under NORMAL circumstances, when it works, but that we will always need access to regular email to higher levels of authority, as a LAST RESORT, for those EXTRAORDINARY cases where the trouble ticket system breaks down, and where it is not possible to initiate any further meaningful communication through the ticket system. So I ask you to preserve email access, as a last resort, for the limited purpose of addressing extraordinary breakdowns of the trouble ticket system, where individual employees, or the system itself, wrongfully block meaningful communication.
100% on the ET PM issue. Though I used it once to my satisfaction and doing so didn't require the tranmittal of sensitive information. But then again, I don't consider my account number all that sensitive. And it's the most IB needs. From a hacker standpoint, it's sort of like having a credit card number without the CVV2 and expiration date. In any event... As a backup and for the purpose of a paper trail, what about fax? I know it's old school but it's worked flawlessly for me in the past with other brokers. I'd telephone in an issue then print up the same and transmit it via fax. (But then again, I don't have many issues.) The trouble ticket system though hasn't failed me yet. Though that's no excuse for not having a backup. And I agree with you that ET PM is not the most suitable of backup systems. But it does work, I have to say.
I will check the measurement point for the 30 day counter. I agree it should be 30 days from 'last touched date' not create date and I can easily imagine it was coded to create date. I think I know why you think tickets are disappearing. It relates to the way you have configured and used your account. We will explain this via ticket since it is non-public info. Matt was incorrect in some points. The logic works like I described and is transparent to the CSR. We allow other CSRs beside the "ticket owner" to contribute to the response thread. Solves basic issues like people being sick or on vacation, etc. * Bugs: send to customer Service. We will provide a cleaner interface specifically for bug reporting in ~4-6 weeks. In the meantime, I would report related issues together in one ticket * Suggestions: submit via the polling system
IBj, This has been a most informative discussion. Good to hear that you're adding a visible bug management system. Is there a process where tickets escalate for management attention if left outstanding too long or some other flags occur? How should customers escalate if they are not happy with the results currently being achieved by the trouble tickets?
Update on ticket system Mattm confirms only 10 tickets can be displayed on each page. There used to be a "next" link at the bottom of the "Inquiry / Trouble Ticket" view. It allowed the trader to view additional pages of tickets. However it appears that this link was removed for some weird reasons. Anyway this finding has little to do with my problems. There are only 2 tickets left (1 opened by me, 1 opened by 1 CSR to address ticket system bug). Even if the "next" button is missing, I should at least able to see max. 10 tickets. Why it is still two? I reopened the trouble ticket. The following problems are still unresolved: - The fact on my side is my open tickets (will) disappear after about 2 weeks - So far, I *still* couldn't see all my open tickets except this "missing ticket" inquiry t has to be sorted out or the ticket system is unreliable for me to use at all.
a bug. a really annoyingly not-obvious and dumb one. started middle of july. it is now fixed. sorry people, really.
Speaking of trouble, I hope IB is working on the problem with futures volume reporting that started this week during and before rollover. It's totally screwing up volume based charts and the normal volume reporting in bar charts. Tickets have been opened.
If you're looking at daily volume, the volume includes spread trades. However, spread trades are not reported as last sales (due to ambiguity of price assignment?), and therefore do not appear in times and sales and do not show up on the IB charts. See http://www.interactivebrokers.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.pl?tpc=153&post=61197#POST61197