SADIE PITZENBERGER: Hi, everyone.
My name is Sadie Pitzenberger, and I'm
a Chrome Enterprise customer success
manager based in New York City.
I'm so excited to share support and troubleshooting
tools and tips and best practices
for Chrome OS with you today.
Thank you so much for being here.
ANGELA GOSZ: Thanks, Sadie.
Hi, everyone.
I'm Angela Gosz, also a Chrome Enterprise Customer success
manager based out of Google, Chicago.
Today, we're going to be talking about support
and troubleshooting Chrome OS and Chrome Enterprise.
And quick note-- if you missed any of the previous sessions
that we hosted this month from our other teammates regarding
adoption and deployment, best practices, SSO, or Google Admin
Console best practices you can check them out on-demand
after this session.
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Today, we are
going to give you a review of 24/7 Enterprise support
flow, how to delegate Super Admins, and best practices
to follow when submitting tickets.
Additionally, we will review common issues
and troubleshooting tips to help support your deployment
at scale.
ANGELA GOSZ: That sounds like a great agenda, Sadie.
Let's start by talking about where
Google support is located.
Can you fill us in?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes, let's dig in.
So for Chrome Enterprise customers,
Google offers a 24/7, on-the-moon model,
for email and phone support worldwide.
From the Google Admin console and Google Cloud Support
Center, customers can easily submit and escalate tickets
at the click of a button.
Customers may also want to leverage partners
for their deployment services ranging
from White Glove enrollment to ongoing day-to-day support.
We will share a list of Chrome Enterprise partners, partner
resources, and the Resources page
at the end of this webinar.
ANGELA GOSZ: Wonderful.
Now that we know where support is located,
can you tell us a little bit about how tickets are triaged?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: This is an important question, Angela.
Thank you for asking.
Here we have highlighted the flow for our Google Cloud
Enterprise Support model.
We equip our agents and technical support engineers
to handle Chrome Enterprise cases in following
best practices globally.
Note, the first line of defense for our customers
is their Help Desk who will perform the initial triage
highlighted in the slides.
We have several tiers of validation
throughout the support stages where our agents will
gather necessary logs and conduct extensive research
into our total knowledge base to identify and communicate
any known issues.
If an issue is widespread, a banner
will be posted to the Google Cloud Support Center
in the form of an announcement at the top of the page.
Please check the Google Cloud Support Center to set up
support managers and personnel, check known issues,
and view upcoming deprecations as well as access cases
that may need escalation.
In the final tier, here on the right,
if a regression has occurred, our product and engineering
teams are looped in to execute a rollback if the changes are
impacting our customers.
In addition, we take steps to ensure that new test cases are
added and perform postmortems in the event
to ensure steps are taken to catch similar incidents
in the future.
ANGELA GOSZ: Cool.
So now that we know how a ticket is triaged,
how would a customer actually go about creating this ticket?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes, step one--
here's how the initial process begins.
Phone or email support can be accessed
one of two ways, within the Google Admin Console homepage
or directly from the Google Cloud Support Center.
From the Google Admin Console homepage,
simply click the Question Mark icon located in the Blue banner
to launch the Help Assistant in a new window.
In the pop-out type in what you were having issues
with to prompt the Assistant to suggest helpful articles
that may help in your troubleshooting steps.
To proceed with filing a ticket, click the Phone option
to populate the Support number and Enterprise PIN,
or click the Chrome Browser and Devices bubble
to launch the Support portal.
Please note that the Support PIN does expire within 24 hours.
And in the Google Cloud Support Center, once you're there,
you can click the New Case button on the Home screen
to log a new issue.
ANGELA GOSZ: Makes sense.
So when we create a new ticket, what
should we include in the initial information?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes, this is a critical question.
Before contacting Google for help,
it is critical to gather the information necessary to assign
it a priority that matches the impact that you're
seeing at your organization.
So a pro tip would be having your help desk gather
as much information from users as possible before submitting
the ticket.
To expedite the case handling and improve our support
experience, perform basic troubleshooting steps described
in the Chrome Help Center articles, and include as much
detail as possible in the initial submission.
This includes logs from the device or browser
when possible.
To provide a snapshot of Chrome Enterprise User and Device
policies, go to chrome:policy//policypage
to export a JSON of the information and attach it
to the case.
From the Admin Console, you can access metadata
about a device having issues in the Chrome Management Device's
section, and just simply click into the device
to view that information.
Another best practice, and a pro tip from our deployment
services, is to CC a contact at the organization that
may be able to help respond to cases in the event
that cases run stale or that the submitter goes on vacation.
ANGELA GOSZ: Got it.
Include the data points.
So how would a customer go about generating the logs
to put into said case?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: This is another common question
and definitely an important one.
Chrome logs can be collected a few ways depending
on the type of issue and setup.
If you've experienced TCP or IP problems
with the Chrome browser or managed Chrome device,
you can collect network logs or view network data
using net export and net-internals.
The net logs are useful if you need to debug network problems,
analyze performance, or connect to support about a problem.
You can grab network logs on the device by visiting
chrome://net-internals.
And in the browser, you can also type in file:///var/log/chrome
to access real time logs on the device that are stored locally.
These logs can then be found in My Files Downloads folder.
Lastly, you can capture system logs by going to Chrome://net
internals/hashtagchromeos.
ANGELA GOSZ: Wow, those logs sure sound useful.
What if I want to analyze them before submitting
to the ticket?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes, this is a great question
and a common question from customers as well.
We do provide a Self-help Log Analyzer tool for admins,
and that can be found by searching for G Suite
Toolbox in your Chrome browser.
Once you grab those logs on the previous slide,
you can simply Copy and Paste them over into the Log Analyzer
to get the output and analysis that you're looking for.
ANGELA GOSZ: Great.
So now that we've covered how to enter a ticket
and what to include within it.
What if I'm a customer, and I need
to give access to someone else on my team
to create their own ticket?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Thank you for asking, Angela.
We get this question quite a bit during the on onboarding phase.
So in the next two slides, I'll show you
how to accomplish this.
The first step will be for you to add the user in the Google
Admin Console by following the G Suite
instructions for how to do so.
Once that user is created, you'll
need to assign them Super Admin privilege, which
will essentially give them full access
to the Console and the Google Cloud Support Center.
If you don't want to give them full access to the Google Admin
Console, you can create them a Super Admin role
and then remove all the privileges associated
and just leave the support privilege
so that they can access the Google Cloud Support Center
and create cases.
Once they are in the Google Admin Console,
you can jump over to the Google Cloud Support Center
and add them in the User Management pane shown here
on the screen.
You'll do this by clicking the New User
button on the left pane and navigating to the Support
Manager and Support Personnel Role Assignment,
where you'll insert the email address
to assign them that privilege.
So delegating additional users to file cases
ensures continuity in the rollout
and takes the burden off the main Super Admin
to be responsible for responding to all tickets
in a timely manner.
This helps scale your deployment.
ANGELA GOSZ: Woo!
We are learning so much.
Why don't we move on to common tips and tools, starting with--
when in doubt, reboot.
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Ha!
Indeed.
A fun fact about reboot, Angela, is
that it solves the majority of issues
and can be executed from turn down to startup
in seven seconds.
ANGELA GOSZ: Sweet.
Did you say seven seconds?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes.
Yes, I did it's true.
One of my favorite features of Chrome OS is its reboot speed.
And another favorite feature for our IT admins
is the fact that Chrome OS updates are
installed in the background.
So that means that users can quickly install the latest
version while working and get that latest
version with the reboot when the upgrade is available,
so that they can be up and running
in seconds rather than hours.
This is a huge win for organizations
switching to Chrome OS.
ANGELA GOSZ: Wow, that's incredible.
And when would users need to reboot?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes, reboots are
necessary when users are seeing poor performance, which
can happen when running too many tabs or applications.
ANGELA GOSZ: Oh, you mean like when you told me last week when
we were preparing for this session,
and I had 100 windows open?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Exactly.
Did it solve your issues?
ANGELA GOSZ: You know what?
It definitely did.
SADIE PITZENBERGER: That's great.
Had it not solved your issues or your performance issues
and you noticed a lag in the reboot flow, on rare occasion,
this may indicate the need to perform a hard reset.
We'll get into this later when we
talk about the troubleshooting OS issues.
ANGELA GOSZ: That sounds scary.
What's a hard reset?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Don't worry, Angela.
Before you do this, it's a best practice
to save all your local data before you
perform a hard reset.
And what this does, essentially, it resets the hardware
to factory settings.
ANGELA GOSZ: OK, phew.
So how can users reboot their devices?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Simply holding down
the Power button for three seconds will reboot the device.
ANGELA GOSZ: OK.
So reboot-- check.
Reset-- check.
What's next on our list of troubleshooting tips and tools?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes, so given Chrome devices
update every six weeks, issues can
occur when Chrome extensions need to be updated.
A useful tool for users and admins alike is to navigate
to Chrome://extensions to check and execute an update from
the browser itself.
As an admin, you can also enable Developer options
to show additional data about the extension
and/or load and unload unpacked extensions
for advanced troubleshooting.
To view the status of an extension or an app,
admins can check in the Google Admin Console Chrome Management
Apps and Extensions page to initiate an update from there,
block or force installs, or simply remove the extension
if it's causing issues.
ANGELA GOSZ: Got it.
Chrome: backslash, backslash, extensions.
What other troubleshooting tips and tools
are available in the Google Admin Console?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes, depending on the deployment
mode, admins have access to data about a device and user
settings that can be provided to support in that initial case.
Common examples include grabbing the IP address and MAC
address, which are key to diagnose Wi-Fi connection
issues.
You can also check the auto-update expiration date
if devices stop receiving security updates.
Admins may also be able to disable, reboot, clear user
profiles, and move devices to a new OU
as needed to isolate issues and continue troubleshooting.
ANGELA GOSZ: OK.
So please tell me that there is good news.
If I'm an IT administrator and I'm
looking for some self-service options for my end users,
is there hope for me?
Do I have any resources to send to them?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes, there is hope, Angela.
Yes, there is hope.
Users can access Chrome OS built-in tools
in a couple of ways on the device.
So if they have access to the browser,
they can simply type in Chrome://help to launch
the Chrome OS settings and click into the Get Help with Chrome
OS option.
Alternatively, they can just go straight to the Device Settings
and click into About Chrome OS, Get Help with Chrome OS.
Both of these options will launch the Get Help app,
which is a tool that provides local network troubleshooting
steps and tests that the end user can perform on their own
before contacting Support.
Users can also click the Fix a Problem section
to troubleshoot and run a diagnostics report if they're
having connectivity issues.
Lastly, when users are first learning how to use Chrome OS,
you can get use the Get Started section
to access how-to articles and access the latest release
notes detailing new features that are available.
ANGELA GOSZ: Amazing.
That was a super exhaustive list.
And thanks for running over those tips and tools with us.
But what if we exhausted that list,
and my end user is still experiencing troubles?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: No worries.
When users are unable to recover the device with the tools we
just highlighted above, a few additional steps
can be taken as a last resort.
A factory OS version may need to be installed on the device
to recover it.
I'll show you how to do this in the following slides.
And don't worry.
It should take less than 25 minutes
to get back to a working state.
ANGELA GOSZ: OK.
So troubleshooting, advanced troubleshooting tip, number
one.
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes.
Occasionally, some users may report
being unable to charge or turn on their device
or having issues with the display, the touchscreen,
keyboard, or touchpad.
In most cases, a simple reboot of the device
will kick off a fresh start and will get you
back up and running.
If a reboot doesn't work, then it's
best to next try a hard reset by turning the device off
and using the Refresh plus Power button
and then hit the Refresh button again on the startup screen.
This will reset the hardware like your keyboard and touchpad
and may delete some files in the downloads folder.
So be sure to upload any data to the Cloud
before performing this step.
As a next step in tackling OS issues,
you may want to check Guest Mode to isolate any issues that
are tied to user settings.
In addition, you can use the Task Manager
to check the memory on the device
by using the Shift plus Escape keys to terminate programs
that are slowing performance.
And if all else fails, go for the Powerwash option,
which restores the device to factory settings.
If the OS is still unable or damaged after the Powerwash,
we have a free Chromebook Utility Tool
to quickly recover and move forward, which we'll
show you here in the slides.
ANGELA GOSZ: And what's the difference between a factory
reset and a Powerwash?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes.
This is a common point of confusion for our customers.
A hardware reset is done by using the Refresh and Power
keys and impacts the hardware on the Chromebook.
User data is not changed.
And you can make your Chromebook run like new
again by doing a factory set.
And if you will no longer be using your device,
you may want to do a factory reset.
A Powerwash, on the other hand, or a factory reset,
impacts the user profiles where all Chrome OS user
data and profiles are erased.
When you Powerwash your Chromebook,
you reset your Chromebook to factory settings.
Here's what the Chromebook Utility Tool
looks like on the screen, which is
a free tool that you can access from the Chrome Web Store.
And when it's time to wipe and reset the device,
restore it to the factory image using your USB Recovery tool.
So have USB Recovery tools handy as you
enroll devices, which will help complete the reset seamlessly.
ANGELA GOSZ: OK, cool.
Where can I find the Recovery tool?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes, that is from the Chrome Web Store.
You can download it from there.
ANGELA GOSZ: Cool.
What other advanced tools and tips do we have here?
Oh my gosh.
As in, if my end user experiences
an error message missing or damaged operating system.
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Have no fear, Angela.
Just use the Chromebook Recovery tool
we've just discussed to recover the device.
ANGELA GOSZ: Amazing.
So let's summarize everything we just discussed.
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Perfect.
So we've taught you how to troubleshoot common Chrome OS
issues.
We've shown you how to recover the OS in the event
that you see OS issues.
We've talked about how to delegate admins
to scale your deployment, and we've also
reviewed what our support model looks like.
Now I'd like to share some of the common resources
to bookmark to further your learning.
All of these links will be available in the Resources
page located at the short link on the screen.
To grab the files necessary for the Recovery tool,
you can visit the omahaproxy link here
to find specific models and versions for the devices you
have in your fleet.
You can also check our new and improved Policy List page,
which is an easily searchable index of 200+ management
policies that Chrome OS supports today.
And don't forget to subscribe to our handy Chrome OS and Browser
Release Notes, updated every six weeks per release.
To find our Help Center, type in Chrome Enterprise
Support in your browser to locate our latest deployment
assets, including Change Management and Adoption
toolkits, and remote worker resources.
We also keep the Known Issues list updated per release,
so I encourage you to check it out when you have time
and refer to this page before filing
a case with Google Support.
ANGELA GOSZ: OK.
So one more time, all of these great links and tips and tools
are going to be available on the Resources section of the Chrome
On Air site.
Is that right?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes, exactly.
ANGELA GOSZ: We made it to the end.
Amazing.
Thanks, Sadie, for walking us through all
of these amazing tips and tools for support
and troubleshooting Chrome OS today.
And thanks everyone for joining us today.
We really appreciate your time.
Now that you're all experts--
Sadie, what can our friends expect to see next on Chrome
On Air?
SADIE PITZENBERGER: Yes, if you enjoyed the session today,
don't forget to join us in the next session on August 19.
Thank you so much for joining.
We're so excited to have you be a part of the Chrome OS family.