Are You a Technician or an Engineer?

I have been in the technical support business for almost 12 years now troubleshooting anything from operating systems, to routers, to – well, faxing. During that time, I have worked with a lot of people with various skill sets and I have determined there are basically two types of support professionals: Support Technicians and Support Engineers.

Support Technicians: Typically have a good grasp of the fundamentals, techniques and usage of a project. They are great at finding resources and providing documented solutions to issues that end users, and even administrators, may not have been able to find on their own.

Support Engineers: They are the ones who find solutions to issues that are possibly not documented at all. They must be able to take a product and reverse engineer it to determine what is really happening beneath the hood. Because of this process of dissection and analysis, they are able to develop instincts of how the product works and therefore are able to come up with creative solutions that a technician may never even consider.

Fax Flow Troubleshooting

How well do you know the Open Text Fax Server (RightFax)? The real question is – How well do you want to know it?  If you want to look under the hood and see how the parts work together, but do not have the time to become a programmer – we have the perfect course for you: Fax Flow Troubleshooting.

In the Fax Flow Troubleshooting course, we break down the processing of a faxes into stages so we can follow the faxes all the way through the fax server. We then systematically stop and start services to follow the faxes to see how they are processed and why they were processed the way that they were.

Here is a sample from the Fax Flow Troubleshooting course:

If you want to learn more about the Open Text Fax Server (RightFax) through the process of reverse engineering, but just do not have the time dig in on your own, this course is for you!

Note: The course does have a prerequisite! It is for people who are already at have at least a technician level knowledge of the fax server but want to get a better feel for how it works. For this reason, you must be certified in the Fax Server Fundamentals before you will be permitted to attend this course.

Here are the course schedules: http://www.opentext.com/2/global/services-home/ls-learning-services-home/ls-offering-captaris.htm

Mastery of the fundamental ideas of a field involves not only the grasping of general principles, but also the development of an attitude toward learning and inquiry, toward guessing and hunches, toward the possibility of solving problems on one’s own. ~ Jerome Bruner