Hi,

This looked like a great place to raise some of my issues too. Here goes:

1) The forums are great when someone works it till the end.  It's so weird how sometimes a serious question is never addressed and sometimes just left in the middle. I bet everyone loses their mind trying to search the forums when the same thread comes up a dozens times in a search if there are matches in several posts.

2) Phone support is also funny.  Most support people don't answer questions on first call.  They need to "research it" or need to "create a sample." That process can take days to weeks.  Look at my support case record.  Mike D. is the only one who will figure it out right there.  If he can't, he's IM ing the guys who can. The last time I had such a good guy, he was promoted to team lead and I lost him.

3) There are too many places to find information.  Documentation, videos, blogs, forums, articles, knowledgebase, samples. 

4) There needs to be an emergency support system even if it's charged for.  Maybe per incident, maybe per hour.  If we get stuck at a dead end and we need to finish a project, there is no way around the system. There needs to be somehow someway to get a problem solved when it has to be solved immediately.   Sort of like a bat phone to Alex or David. We're running line of business systems which can run into a problem anytime.  I'm sure everyone agrees that our deadlines are meaningless now because we can never be confident about our time needs.

I have some more issues but these are some of the biggest ones.

Ed

I entirely agree with nlehman. I have tried using support a couple of times and I am immediately asked to create a sample.  As hesays it can take days of time to extract the failing code in order to create a sample, and then it takes days to get a response.  This means that the quickest way is to forget support and to create some work-around or even a re-design.  My support history shows similar things.

I agree withhis other points too including the emergency support idea.

Sorry about some typos but the cursor in the Quick Reply box vanishes if you move the box.....

Forum Search Results should return one item per Thread, not one item per Response.

Database stored procedures should be paid more than lip service.  There are numerous entries where support resources said, "stored procs are just like any other data source," but I've found that to be untrue.  

If I start with a control bound to a SQL data source with a Select statement, then switch the binding to a SQL Data Source with identical schema from a stored procedure as the SelectCommand, the behavior of the bound control seems to change.  

As somebody stated above, it seems ridiculous for me to spend so much time on trial and error.  I'm a long time user of Infragistics Winforms controls, but a newer user of the ASP.net controls (not new to ASP.net).  So I know what to expect from Infragistics controls.  It shouldn't be so hard to implement in my ASP.net app.   

People love to bash 3rd party controls, and those who recommend them (me), so I expect more samples, docs, and support from the vendor.

jimkennelly,

Interestingly, tech support does have the capability of calling into the clients machine now.  They started it a few months ago.  Why you wouldn't have heard about it is another problem here.  I have requested it several times and of course it made life easier.

Ed

Also would recomment that you somehow integrate your support chat with the ability to connect to the user.  If this could be frictionless after the first install,  would speed up the problem solving a lot.  Recently implemented a windows fat client with a VNC support for end users and its the best thing ever for support.  Understand web based is more difficult but I use GotoAssist for my clients that I have to support and it workswell.   Most of the time when the user has a problem, the code / components are right there on the screen to be seen.  Lots and lots of time is wasted talking back and forth to describe the problem.

I would agree with a post above that the AUTOGENERATED documentation is worthless.  I can find out the types and methods with intellesence.

Also amazed how the most common things people would do with these components are missing from the documentation.  I think users would love to SUPPLEMENT the documentation with some code snippets and comments - like a wiki.  Would be nice if completed forum questions with ACCURATE answers be copied into the documentation.

Dead ends and hanging posts that are over 2 years old should be deleted.

Also being new to the product,  seeing old references in the documentation to old product (i.e. ultragrid vs webdatagrid) are very confusing /

Also starting to really like the document.pdf control/library but can't believe the nocopy/noprint options are properties but not implements (i.e. future?)

Although I am still glad I purchased the Infragistics package, and eventually I get everytthing to work with the help of google or support.    I find it very frustrating.

Really love the videos you made but there needs to be lots more!!!!.   Think your people should all make 1 video per day on something.   If they refuse, have them start writing documentation.  Would be glad to assist with more feedback if it would help.