How do we train support teams to handle top tickets expected after enabling Vertex AI?

To train support teams for GitHub Copilot, provide hands-on training focusing on its features and common issues, develop internal champions and resources like workshops and a dedicated discussion space, and use pilot programs to gather expected issues and refine best practices before broad rollout. Training should cover how to use the tool, troubleshoot installation and activation problems, understand common error messages, and how to guide users in generating useful prompts and reviewing code suggestions effectively.

Productivity KPIs

• Task Completion Time
• Compare how long it takes to finish the same workflows before vs after Gemini.
• Example: document summaries, email drafts, code reviews, or spreadsheet formulas.
• Automation Adoption Rate
• Percentage of employees using Gemini features regularly (measured via Workspace or Gemini usage reports).
• High adoption = real-world usefulness, not just hype.
• Output per Employee
• More docs written, bugs fixed, or reports generated with the same headcount → proof of scale.
• Manual Rework Reduction
• Fewer revisions or human edits needed after AI-generated content → higher first-time accuracy.
• Meeting/Email Load Reduction
• Gemini summaries, auto-drafts, or quick insights reduce manual coordination effort.
• Track average time spent in email, chat, or meetings pre- vs post-update.

Risk & Compliance KPIs

• Error/Bias/Leak Incidents
• Number of AI-generated content errors, data leaks, or policy violations detected.
• Should stay flat or go down.
• Security Policy Violations
• Track instances where Gemini accessed restricted data sources.
• Low or unchanged levels = safe rollout.
• Data Retention Accuracy
• Ensure Gemini outputs are stored or shared in compliance with internal data policies.
• Audit Findings / Compliance Breaches
• If post-update audits show zero new risk categories, that’s your proof the AI didn’t add exposure.

Rolling out Microsoft Copilot (or GitHub Copilot, depending on your stack) can feel like a game changer but proving it actually improved productivity without adding compliance or security risk is the real test. You’ll want KPIs that track both efficiency gains and risk stability side by side.

Productivity KPIs

• Task Completion Time
• Measure average time to complete routine tasks (code commits, document drafts, email responses) before vs after Copilot.
• Faster completion = tangible productivity gain.
• Output Volume per User
• For dev teams: LOC or PRs per engineer (normalized by complexity).
• For business users: number of documents, emails, or reports completed.
• Assisted Action Rate
• % of actions completed using Copilot suggestions.
• Tracks adoption and engagement, not just availability.
• Manual Rework Reduction
• Fewer rounds of edits, review comments, or corrections = higher first-time accuracy thanks to Copilot.
• Time Saved per Task
• Aggregate self-reported time savings (from Copilot analytics or surveys).
• Even modest daily savings across hundreds of users add up fast.

Risk / Quality KPIs

• Error or Bug Rate
• Post-update code quality (test pass rates, post-deployment defects) should stay stable or improve.
• If bugs spike, Copilot’s productivity gains are illusionary.
• Security Violations / Policy Breaches
• Track incidents of sensitive data exposure or license violations due to AI-generated content.
• Should stay at or below pre-rollout levels.
• Compliance Audit Findings
• Any new issues flagged during internal audits post-rollout indicate hidden risk.
• User Override Rate
• Percentage of Copilot suggestions rejected or heavily modified → proxy for trust and quality.

To restrict Azure OpenAI features to a pilot group, you can use Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) for conditional access policies and Azure Private Link for network isolation. While direct feature flags like those in Azure App Configuration aren't a primary control for the service itself, you can create a pilot group within Entra ID and use custom RBAC roles or Conditional Access policies to manage access to OpenAI resources, then use Private Link and network rules to limit connectivity to that specific group's applications or networks.

Enabling EKS (Amazon’s managed Kubernetes) usually creates a new class of support tickets, especially from dev teams, product managers, or even customers indirectly hit by infra issues. If you want your support folks ready, don’t dump Kubernetes docs on them — instead, train them around patterns of issues they’ll see, and give them playbooks/macros to respond quickly.

Top Ticket Types You’ll See After EKS Launch

• App not reachable / 503s → often caused by service misconfigs, bad Ingress rules, or pod crashes.
• Deployment failures → YAML errors, resource quota exceeded, or nodes not scaling.
• Scaling issues → cluster-autoscaler not kicking in, pods stuck in Pending.
• Networking problems → DNS resolution inside cluster, security group/ENI misconfigs.
• Cost complaints → Why did infra spend spike? when pods scale unexpectedly.
• RBAC / permissions → devs can’t kubectl what they expect because of tight IAM+K8s RBAC mapping.

What Support Teams Actually Need (vs. SREs)
Your support agents don’t need to debug Kubernetes internals. They need to:

• Recognize the symptom
• Check dashboards
• Use macros to reply: We see your service is impacted due to EKS pod scheduling delays. Engineering has been alerted, ETA update in 15 mins.
• Escalate properly: tag the right SRE/DevOps team with logs attached

Training Format That Works

• Cheat Sheets: one-pagers for Service Down, Pod Pending, High Cost, Permission Denied. Each with → how to identify quickly, what to tell the customer, who to escalate to.
• Mock Tickets: run drills where you drop a fake EKS is down ticket in queue and agents practice triage + macro usage.
• Dashboards 101: short session on how to read EKS cluster health dashboards, not how to run kubectl describe pod.

Escalation Flow

• L1 Support: Acknowledge, apply macro, check known incidents page.
• L2 Infra Support: Pull logs from CloudWatch/Kibana, confirm if it’s cluster-wide or isolated.
• SRE/DevOps: Deep-dive into cluster scaling, networking, or deployment YAMLs.

Customer-Facing Messaging
Have these macros prepped:

• Service outage: Some services are temporarily unavailable due to cluster scaling issues. Our infra team is working on it.
• • Deployment failure: Your deployment hit resource limits. We’ve escalated to engineering to increase quotas
• Cost spike: We’re reviewing autoscaling activity that led to higher usage. Our ops team will revert with a breakdown.