Now, working in both a development and support function, I can appreciate that everyone is busy and that trying to debug faults in my application isn't the job of support. However, I do get a little tired of the support process going like this:
But it's the next request that often follows - "Please supply example project" that is sometimes irksome. It's going to take me several hours to try and and build a sample standalone project and at the end of that, it's not guaranteed I'll be able to reproduce the fault. It could be that it only happens in a very specific situation that a sample project can never reproduce. I once had to resort to sending you a complete VM so you could see the fault as when stripped down to basics, it didn't happen. It turned out in that case to be a localisation bug.
In situations like this, it would be preferable to discuss the problem conceptually with the developer. Wearing my development hat, the support people here often go "Can you think of any reason why XYZ should happen?". As I know the code and they don't, it's often very easy for me to glance down the code and go "Ahh, yes - that could happen if XYZ".
So the plea is to not always bounce the support call straight back at me. I'm not in the habit of making up issues just for the hell of it :-)
Cheers, Rob,
PS. The DELETE key doesn't work in this editor. Backspace is fine.
Stephani "]I am available to speak to you about your thoughts on Support.
Hi Stephani,
I'm sure you're aware that I've e-mailed you before about problems with Infragistics support. While you have escalated particular issues that I have mentioned and ensured that these are resolved, the tedious support process never changes.
Perhaps you will be able to make some changes based on the comments made in this thread.
Thanks,Jon
Alex Fidanov"]I am sorry for the inconveniences you had and the way you feel towards the Support Group. This thread keeps growing with negativism. I wonder where the happy users are :)
I appreciate you jumping in on this thread and completely understand the points you raise about some support requests. However, this seems to be affecting some engineers' handling of requests where all the necessary information is provided - as if their immediate reaction is to assume that the initial request is not detailed enough without really reading it or investigating.
Alex Fidanov"]Regarding cases in development. They are not being closed.
Well one of mine was closed: CAS-08635-9LY8EA. This was not so much a bug report but a request for Firefox support for the online documentation (the obvious problem being that there is no vertical scrollbar in the left hand pane so it's almost impossible to navigate). I mean, really, non-IE support is a massive oversight for documentation targeted at technical people who are most likely to be using less common browsers. Certainly none of the developers I work with use IE.
This request went around in circles with one inappropriate standard response after another:
Support: I was wondering if you need further assistance on this case. We have not heard back from your side for the last three days. (We'd just had two public holidays in the UK.)
Me: There's nothing else, thanks, but since the issue is not yet resolved I will keep this case open. I'll close it when your developers fix the problem.
Support: Due to the nature of competition in the technology industry, we cannot provide information on our development plans for this product. Any official information on the future of our products, if available, will be posted on our website. Please note that we highly value customer feedback and have a proven track record for delivering feature requests with every major release of our NetAdvantage toolset. (No idea why this standard reply was made.)
Support: I was wondering if you need further assistance on this case. We have not heard back from your side for the last three days.
Me: No, I think this request is going around in circles. As I keep saying, I'm just waiting for you to fix it.
... until ...
Support: I am closing this case.
Looking back at this, the associated development issue was also closed at the same time as the request. And the documentation still doesn't work properly with Firefox. Looks like it was all a waste of time.
informed_direct said:I do not know the background or technical skills required for your 1st line support team but it appears to be outsourced
I get the impression that some of it is outsourced - and this is nearly always the support I have issues with. There are certainly some very good support engineers, but these tend to be the people who answer escalated issues and seem not to be from the outsourced team.
Hello Jonathan / All,
I am available to speak to you about your thoughts on Support. We are always open to suggestions and comments. It is the goal of support to assist in the most efficient way possible. Having a sample allows us to have an isolated example, most developers can do this easily - therefore this allows us to get a resolution to you faster. If this is not the case, we have other methods (one mentioned above). We also are researching a tool that will come with our controls to help in this very senario.
We take all of the feedback we are given seriously. I have given my email in the first response that I responded to. I am always here for you. You can speak to me directly on your cases anytime.
In case you missed it, please email DSManager@infragistics.com.
Thank you,
Stephani Dowd
>but I as one sometimes experience great difficulties in reproducing the customer's issue. Most of the time the difference in the environments has a great effect on that.
I don't think that any of us would disagree with that statement. In fact, we will also possibly have great difficulty in reproducing the problem in a small standalone program due to the factors you mention.
Hence the reason being asked to do so as the standard response is the thing that annoys.
I do not know the background or technical skills required for your 1st line support team but it appears to be outsourced - will somebody please clarify or deny this? If it's outsourced to a team that are not closely involved in the NetAdvantage product suite, then we start to get to the root of the problem.
I have no problem with the concept of 1st line but I'm afraid that due to the type of product that Infragistics have decided to build their business on, the scripted/FAQ approach won't work for a large proportion of support requests.
I'm aware of the problems of suggesting this but calls need escalating to 2nd/3rd line and the conversation needs to be between the customer and the 2nd line developer/support. Not via 1st line all the time. This is putting chinese whispers in the way IMHO.
For example, my specific issue with IE8 at the moment would be far better solved by a quick email/web discussion with somebody who knows a) the inside working of WebTab and WebGrid (i.e. the developer), JavaScript and how it's changed in IE8. This, I'm sorry, is not the person I'm talking to. To be fair, I think now he's discussing it with somebody else. You do need to ring fence developers from 1st line but not completely.
>come across some that literally give no specific information on the issue. The problem has to be isolated and contained within minimum steps to reproduce and additional settings.
Agreed but in order to do that, one needs guidance from somebody who knows the inner workings of your product. Just had an example now - support has asked me about a problem with our system. Because I know the source code inside out, I could very easily (mins) suggest where to look. If this carried on, I would engage with the customer directly. This may come as a shock to the development team, i.e. to have to talk to customers :-)
>Regarding cases in development. They are not being closed. The case is linked to a development issue number and then they are marked as "In Development". When the issue is resolved from the Development Teams, a message is sent to the customer that the Service Release is out and the case is back "In Progress" for confirmation from the customer.
Once an issue gets into this state, I'm okay with it. Yes, I'd prefer a solution immediately but appreciatre that this is not logistically possible. However, I did read that IE8 compatability was of utmost priority to Infragistics.
>I wonder where the happy users are :)
Well known fact, you'll not get happy users on here/on a support forum. The only people here are those with problems.
As an aside, it would be very useful if the developers could engage a little in the forums esp. as support don't get involved.
Cheers, Rob.
Hello,
I have been following this thread for quite some time and restraining myself from posting an answer. Whatever I say probably will not change your attitude towards our support (support engineers). I cannot speak for all of them, but I as one sometimes experience great difficulties in reproducing the customer's issue. Most of the time the difference in the environments has a great effect on that. A quick example - a user opens a request that states that he/she cannot set the Background of the grid. This is pretty straightforward,right? Simply setting the Background property should work and no update like "cannot reproduce the problem" from our side should be sent. However, I was not using XP, ServicePack 4, Theme - Tiger and VS 2008 Express as apparently the customer did and were not mentioned in the description. Sometimes the cases are hard to reproduce even with a provided sample. For example:
Steps to reproduce:1) Click on the first field 14 times, 2) Scroll horizontally 1/3 of the length 3) Click again on the first field 4) Scroll back to beginning 5) Select 4th record 6) Scroll 5 times rapidly.
Regarding issue reporting. You are developers and know that simply "Record Filtering is not working with me" is not an appropriate issue to be logged and fixed. I believe I have not taken your cases, but I have come across some that literally give no specific information on the issue. The problem has to be isolated and contained within minimum steps to reproduce and additional settings.
Regarding cases in development. They are not being closed. The case is linked to a development issue number and then they are marked as "In Development". When the issue is resolved from the Development Teams, a message is sent to the customer that the Service Release is out and the case is back "In Progress" for confirmation from the customer.
I am sorry for the inconveniences you had and the way you feel towards the Support Group. This thread keeps growing with negativism. I wonder where the happy users are :)