Frequently Asked Questions

Questions

1. What are the hours of operation for the Technesis Customer Support Team?
2. Is Technesis Customer Support available weekends or after hours?
3. What is the best way to contact Technesis Customer Support with a new problem?
4. What information should I collect before I contact Technesis Customer Support?
5. What happens when I report a problem?
6. How do I determine the severity of a situation?
7. What can I expect for a response time?
8. What happens when I submit a product error/bug?
9. How will I be kept informed about the status of my incident?
10. How do I escalate an incident?
11. How do I submit an enhancement request?

Answers

1. What are the hours of operation for the Technesis Customer Support Team?

Technesis Customer Support is available from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm PST, Monday through Friday. If you encounter a problem outside of normal office hours, feel free to send an email to Feel free to support@technesis.com. The Technesis Customer Support Team will respond to your request as soon as possible.

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2. Is Technesis Customer Support available weekends or after hours?

Technesis Customer Support offers weekend and after hours support by request. Please contact our Customer Support Manager at least 2 days prior to coordinate these times.

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3. What is the best way to contact Technesis Customer Support with a new problem?

For fastest resolution of new problems, Technesis suggests submitting your questions through our on-line case system. To submit your online question, click here.

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4. What information should I collect before I contact Technesis Customer Support?

To make the most of your call to Technesis Customer Support, you should have access to the appropriate products manuals for reference and be prepared to answer questions such as:

• Your Name
• Company Name
• Case Number (for existing cases)
• Product, component, and release relative to your issue
• Type of operating system, database, and network in use
• Impact problem is having on your system or workflow
• Examples of program output, code listings, dumps, error messages, and any other information that helps to document the issue
• A record of those steps that reproduce the problem

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5. What happens when I report a problem?

During your initial call, email, or after we receive your on-line submission, a Technesis support representative will attempt to resolve your problem. If this is not possible, the representative may require some time to research a solution for you. In this event, you will be informed when you will receive a response from Technesis Customer Support. This response could offer a resolution, a progress update or a request for additional information.

For those problems reported that are not easily resolvable, we may request an on-line meeting with you over WebEx to physically see the issues on your workstations/servers.

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6. How do I determine the severity of a situation?

Technesis Customer Support will assist you in determining the severity of your issue based on the complexity of the “technical” issue and the impact it has on your business.

When reporting an incident, you will be asked to indicate the severity of the situation using the following guidelines:

• Fatal: Production system down — a product-related problem that is severe enough to inhibit the successful use of your applications.
• Urgent: You are experiencing a product-related problem that significantly affects the use of your application and a suitable workaround has not been identified.
• Important: You are experiencing a problem which is causing some loss of functionality and which will require you to expend significant effort to overcome.
• Minor: This category is reserved for questions, enhancement requests, requesst for product information, or a difficulty in using the product that can be overcome with a simple solution.

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7. What can I expect for a response time?

Technesis Customer Support strives to respond to all client requests as soon as possible. However, immediate response is not always practical. We have established a series of time guidelines that correspond to the severity of customer problems to ensure we address client issues based on their severity.

Issue Severity*:	Typical Response Time:
Fatal	Within 4 hours
Urgent	Within 8 hours
Important	Within 2 days
Minor	Within 2 weeks

*All submissions receive a email or telephone confirmation within 2 hours of logging your incident.

During your case, you may receive a progress update by phone or email. You will continue to receive regular “Status Acknowledgements” until your issue is resolved. For issues where your support representative is unable to reach a satisfactory resolution to your issue, you will receive a “Timed Escalation” that will involve Technesis management in the development of a solution.

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8. What happens when I submit a product error/bug?

If an issue is reproduced and identified as a software problem, the support representative will, where appropriate, work with you to provide a solution. At the same time, the problem will be escalated to the relevant product management team who will review it and determine the appropriate course of action. Once your reported issue is under review, you will be contacted and advised of the plan.

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9. How will I be kept informed about the status of my incident?

You will be kept informed of each issue individually as agreed upon with the support representative handling your case. You can request the status of any issues reported by your company at any time simply by calling or emailing the Technesis Support Center and quoting the case reference number.

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10. How do I escalate an incident?

The support procedures we have in place are designed to deal with every customer inquiry efficiently, effectively and in a timely manner. These procedures include:

• Regular status reviews by each Technesis support representative
• Automatic timed escalation of issues (as described above)

While the combination of the regular status reviews undertaken by each Technesis support representative and the automatic timed escalation of issues described above should ensure that issues are dealt with effectively, there may be situations where an issue needs to be escalated.

In such situations, please begin by contacting the support representative assigned to your incident. If you then feel your incident is still not being handled in the most effective manner, please contact the Customer Support Manager. They can assist you in reviewing the action taken so far to resolve your incident, and advise you of other Pilot Software services that might help resolve the situation both now and in the future.

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11. How do I submit an enhancement request?

As a valued customer of Technesis, we welcome any suggestions you may have regarding enhancements to the products. All suggestions are recorded in our case tracking system following the reporting procedures outlined above and are then passed to the appropriate Product Marketing Manager. The Product Development Team will then review it during the process of planning the content of future product releases to determine whether the suggestion will be incorporated. We look forward to working with you and assisting you at all times to gain the maximum benefit to your organization from using Technesis software solutions.

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