IT Documentation
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So, I've always kept up with my documentation for the network and servers or so I thought.
My documentation just includes the "what's" and "Where's" for example I have all the VLAN - there IDs, Subnet, What they do/ACLs in place, Switch Port Maps that show which are in the VLANS, documentation of whats on each server, IT's IP what it does, and where it can be accessed from. etc.
My boss (the Systems Administrator) whats me to put How-to's for everything in the documentation as he doesn't know how to do most of it so as the Junior employee I have to give him proper How-To instructions for even the most basic tasks. He wants me to have them include step by step instructions with screen shots. For things like adding a port to a vlan, locking it to a mac address, disabling ports, changing router firewall acls, updating software on servers, how to manage WSUS, How to manage the content filter.
Is this unusual?
My concern is, He's been the System Administrator here for 8 years, with no real previous experience. Not a single upgrade was done to the to the servers from the time he started until I got here. When I started here a 1.5 years ago or so. Windows server 2000 was still in place (with nothing newer) which was actually setup my Microsoft themselves (some kind of grant thing they used to do for governments), AD was barely being used everyone had an AD login but they wanted to make everyone Admins on the desktop and my boss didn't know you could add them locally to the admin group. So everyone logged in with a loacl admin account and just used a batch file to map their network drives (net use). The Cisco 2800 router which were way under powered for our Fiber were still in place from when they had T1 which, had the original config still (fiber installers did change the WAN IP for them though and the VPN IPs). Windows updates were disabled on all computers and no AV as those just annoy users. No VLANs, Guest Wifi just dumped you straight on the staff network.
So I'm wondering if he's just trying to make it seem like really knows what he's doing to upper managmnet. As he already makes me write these "synopsis" papers which he then gives to his boss, expect he puts his name on it instead. at the county board meetings they read excerpt from the synopsis and says this is things that my boss has done/is working on.
IS this a huge red flag or is it just normal?
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That is unusual. Good documentation, in my opinion, includes everything that is special or unique to your environment. Maybe, at a stretch, it would include links to external resources for general tasks. But the general consensus is that normal or "general case" tasks, those that are just standard IT knowledge, should never be documented in house because then you are documenting things that you do not control and that have no value. In fact you have negative value because you have to spend a lot of time keeping up to date information that you may not be aware is changing. For example, install a new switch and you have to write every document again with new screen shots and instructions that just duplicate what is available from your switch vendor anyway and that they are paying to maintain no matter what.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
IS this a huge red flag or is it just normal?
Red flag.
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As a manager: RED FLAG!! The how to's should already be known for anyone who would be reading the documentation. The why's and gotchya's are what you should document.
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@Minion-Queen Or be easy to look up.
One of the reasons that How Tos that are public are important is that they get well tested by people using them over and over again. Any gotchas are normally found by other people. Internal documentation of standard processes is just asking for errors or missing pieces.
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That's kinda what I figured. I think it's pointless to redo someone else work.
Aside from the fact that he's a systems administrator so he kinda should be able to figure it out.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
That's kinda what I figured. I think it's pointless to redo someone else work.
Aside from the fact that he's a systems administrator so he kinda should be able to figure it out.
Or even know it already.
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So the boss is a plagiarist? Yeah, that wouldn't sit well with me either. That's also a huge red flag and I agree with the above sentiments already stated.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Or even know it already.
Exactly I think being a systems administrator you should be able to figure out how to do this stuff pretty easily without this. But he needs it, mainly because he doesn't know anything technical.
Here's an example of how simple he needs the how-to's. Well, he might have not needed the [Web browser made a link to this page] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser) But before I made the login how to and just told him to use the IP in a browser he couldn't figure it out, so I figured I would cover all bases. I still haven't made one for the core switch witch are CLI based catalyst switches so I'm not sure how to do that, and be simple. these are our SG200 switch which are the access switches.
And this is another one.
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Yes, none of it sounds good. Let's highlight:
- He doesn't know how to do his job.
- He doesn't know how documentation should work.
- He takes credit for other people to cover up not being able to do his job.
- He has been in this one job more than long enough to know this stuff - all stuff that he should have known when he was first hired, so after nine years he is not yet up to the level he should have been to be hired!!!
In reality, it is HIS managers that are probably causing the problem.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
think being a systems administrator you should be able to figure out how to do this stuff pretty easily without this. But he needs it, mainly because he doesn't know anything technical.
Yeah I would refuse to create this type of documentation. Why? It's already been done. I would hand the boss the PDF guides, point out the exact pages he needs and say finished.
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Always good to check with upper management.
"Hey boss' boss, just wanted to run this by you. My boss needs me to document trivial IT tasks that the intern (that we don't have) should be able to look up without a problem and spend time and company money maintaining them so that he, not I, can repeatedly do entry level tasks without needing to get assistance from elsewhere. I'm happy to do this but this puts us at risk of the documentation being wrong since I am just making copies of the industry or vendor documentation, and because it is impossible to keep every internal doc continuously in sync with the latest vendor changes, guidelines and best practices. Just wanted to make sure that you agree that making this kind of documentation, all for one person, is a good use of government financial resources?"
