The Technical Support organization
The Technical Support organization is structured according to geographic regions, each with its own center. The regions are:
Americas
The Americas Support Center is located in Bedford, Massachusetts. It provides telephone support in English, Spanish, and Portuguese for American and Latin American customers. Hours of operation provide coverage that takes into account the business hours of local sales offices as well as the time zone differences between the countries in this region.
Customers can access the Americas Support Center by telephone, by e-mail, or by using the PSC Support Web site (
http://www.progress.com/support
).Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA)
The EMEA Technical Service Centre supports our Distributors, ISVs, and Direct End Users in the EMEA region. Support is offered in ten different languages to supply telephone coverage in your native language. The Technical Support Engineers (TSEs) all belong to a language team to ensure telephone coverage. They also belong to one or more skill groups, which are defined around different areas of the OpenEdge product set.
Customers can access the EMEA Support Centre by telephone, by e-mail, or by using the PSC Support Web site (
http://www.progress.com/support
).Asia Pacific
The Asia Pacific Support Centre supports our Subsidiaries, Distributors, ISVs, and Direct End Users in the Asia Pacific region. Support is provided in English only.
Customers can access the Asia Pacific Support Centre by telephone, by e-mail, or by using the PSC Support Web site (
http://www.progress.com/support
).Coverage offerings
This section explains the workings of Progress Technical Support. We are committed to providing the best possible technical support. For more detailed information and a complete reference to important names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, visit our Web site at
http://www.progress.com/support
.Progress Software Technical Support is available to you when the commercial products fail to work as documented. If it is determined during the course of a call that you would be better served by making use of training and consulting services, we might refer you to your local office.
Technical Support provides assistance with products according our Product Life Cycle document. There are three levels of coverage available:
Standard Support Service is provided for Active and Functionally Stable versions of the product. Enterprise 24 x 7 Support Service extends the hours of coverage to 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year. With Advantage Support Service, you gain a Technical Relationship Manager (TRM) focusing on your company, including direct access to senior and principal engineers.
Support Options and Packages are available, for additional charges, to cover special support requirements:
Preparing to contact Technical Support
There are a number of components that are required information when logging a support issue with Progress Technical Support. Here is a list of the information you need to provide and the primary questions you should be prepared to answer before you place your support call:
The following questions will help us assist you more quickly:
- In which environment is the product running? Include:
- Which error messages did you receive and where or when did you see them? Include:
- What was happening when the problem occurred?
- Is the problem new, has it occurred before, or has it always been there? How often does the problem occur? For instance, how many times has it occurred in the last twenty sessions? Can you re-create the problem at will or upon demand?
- Can you duplicate the problem against the Sports database?
- If you have more than one database, does the problem occur on all of the databases?
- Does it happen with multi-user OpenEdge, single-user OpenEdge, or both?
- Was there anything unusual about the environment when the problem occurred?
- Do you have any idea what the problem might be? For example, are you aware of any recent changes in the system environment or in the application?
- Was a core file or Dr. Watson log file produced? If so, save this file in case the stack trace information is needed.
- What have you done so far to debug or isolate the problem?
Contacting Technical Support
You can contact your regional support center either by telephone, fax, e-mail, or the Web. Please ensure you have all the relevant information available prior to making contact:
Please note that it is possible that the engineer taking your details might not be a specialist in the related product area. However, he or she will take a full description and will ensure the call is passed to the appropriate person.
Logging your calls on the Web
TechSupport Direct is available from the Support Web page at
http://www.progress.com/support
. Click the TechSupport Direct link. This is the direct Web interface into your regional Technical Support call logging and tracking system. Through this service, you can log, monitor, update, report on, and close your issues over the Web. A login ID and password are required.Quick Log is a tool specifically designed for users to quickly log an issue without requiring a login ID or password. If you would like the ability to update your existing call or check the status of a call, you must use TechSupport Direct.
From your customer site
If you are calling from a customer site, please make this known to the engineer. Ask the engineer to set the priority of your call to HIGH to ensure you get a prompt call back if your issue cannot be resolved during the first call.
Your work request number
Each time you contact Progress Technical Support you will be given a Work Request (formerly call or issue) tracking number. There are several components to the Work Request number in the format:
Wymmddxxxx
All Work Requests begin with W, followed by a single digit (y) for the year, 4 for 2004. The next two digits (mm) indicate the month, two digits (dd) represent the day of the month, followed by a four-digit (xxxx) unique sequential call identifier.
Please quote this Work Request number whenever you need to follow up on your issue. Note that different numbering schemes are used for each center. The Americas center uses numbers starting with 4xxx, EMEA uses 0xxx, and Asia/Pacific uses 9xxx.
The following table describes the defined call priorities, response times, and the schedule for providing status updates:
Supporting Progress customers
A customer is any organization that has a valid maintenance contract with Progress Software Corporation. Our goal is to provide the best support possible. To this end it is important that we service and support those customers who have contracts with Progress Software.
In the case of Independent Software Vendors (APs), the first call on any issue related to an end-user customer should come from the AP. It is important that the AP initiate all support calls to Progress because it is in the AP's best interest to know what problems their customers are encountering and to isolate those problems. Furthermore, the customer of the AP is not the best resource in problem isolation between the AP's application or software from Progress. The AP must be involved with any problem that its customers might encounter with Progress Software. This involvement will increase their knowledge and maintain the appropriate relationship with the customer. The AP will also be in a position to determine if this problem affects a single site or the AP's entire customer base.
If a customer of an AP contacts Progress Software directly with an issue, they will be asked to discuss that issue with their AP. If a customer of an AP would like support directly from Progress Software, we will ask them to contact their AP and arrange for the purchase of a direct maintenance contract for them through the AP. Obviously, this does not replace the application support provided by the AP. If you do not have a valid maintenance contract for the specific license you have a problem with, you will be allowed one free call, and the Technical Support Engineer dealing with your issue will notify your local office. Failure to renew your maintenance agreements for the licenses in question is likely to result in denial of support for any further calls.
If you have questions about evaluation licenses, future products, or any sales-related questions, please contact your presales support team at your local Progress Software office.
Service packs
Service Packs are a collection of bug fixes to OpenEdge products; they go through a high level of testing, including running a complete suite of regression tests. Service Packs are released for all supported platforms at the same time, have the same version number, and contain the same fixes. Service Packs for Core Products are released every three months, as needed, from the product's release delivery date. They are available online through the Product Updates and Documentation link at
http://www.progress.com/support
. Service Packs include an installation procedure to take you through the steps to apply the Service Pack.
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