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:

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:

Contact level
Information
Americas

Main Telephone: + 1 781–280–4999
Fax: + 1 781–280-4543

Venezuela: 800–1–3541

Asia Pacific
Main Telephone: + 61 3 9805 8530
Fax: + 61 3 9805 8531
Japan: +800 77647377 (+PROGRESS)
Malaysia: +800 77647377 (+PROGRESS)
Singapore: +800 77647377 (+PROGRESS)
Europe, Middle East, and Africa
Main Number:+31 10 286 5222
Austria: 0800–295799
Belgium: (Dutch)08001–5897
Belgium: (French)08007–2271
Czech Republic 800-142-000
Denmark: 8001–8467
Finland: 08001–13144
France: 0800–917928
Germany: 0800–182–3022
Ireland: 1800–553115
Luxembourg: 0800–22036
Netherlands: 0800–022–7122
Norway: 8001–1362
Poland: 0–0800–3111264
South Africa: 0800–995045
Spain: 900–983–112
Sweden: 020–79–5286
Switzerland (French): 0800–550859
Switzerland (German): 0800–555218
United Kingdom: 0800–966179
Fax: +31 10 286 5225

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:

Call priority
Criteria
Response time
Status updates
CRITICAL
Critical, impacts entire business.
60 minutes.
Response + 4 business hours.
DOWN
Unit or system down.
60 minutes.
Response + 8 business hours.
HIGH
High priority.
4 hours.
Daily.
ESCALATED
N/A
N/A
Daily.
MEDIUM
Normal, default priority.
8 hours.
As needed.
LOW
Customer not in a hurry.
Next business day.
As needed.

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.


Copyright © 2004 Progress Software Corporation
www.progress.com
Voice: (781) 280-4000
Fax: (781) 280-4095