Magento Technical Support Guide April 2012 Thank you for using Magento products and services. Technical support is a vital part of the total Magento customer experience. We want you to get the most from our products after the initial sale, and installation. We are dedicated to ensuring that every support issue is resolved to your satisfaction. To enable you to maximize the return on your investment, we offer several support offerings designed to meet your business needs. This document provides an overview of the Magento Support offerings and how to utilize them.
Introduction Building an Effective Support Relationship The effectiveness of any support interaction depends upon the technical knowledge, problem solving skills, and communication skills of both the customer and our Technical Support team. In addition, a good understanding by both parties of their roles and responsibilities is crucial to effective communication. In order to ensure your experience with Magento Technical Support is as effective and efficient as possible, we would like to define these roles and share some best practices that can accelerate the problem solving process and enhance your customer service experience. Note: If you are a customer using products of companies recently acquired by ebay, the processes and guidelines outlined in this document may not apply to you. You may be directed to continue using existing technical support procedures of those companies. Roles and Responsibilities Customer Roles and Responsibilities Magento Technical Support can work more effectively with your organization by collaborating with a regular set of contacts for technical issues. We realize that our Enterprise customer may have multiple individuals in these roles, and for this we recommend utilizing a distribution list as our Support ticketing system supports one (1) technical contact per customer account. Magento Technical Support Roles and Responsibilities Customer Success Group Contact these individuals when requesting help with troubleshooting a Magento account, product licensing, or support contract issue. Their responsibilities include, but are not limited to: Modifying account contacts Answering questions on license upgrades Resolving product licensing issues Technical Support Analysts These individuals are part of the process when you are submitting a Support request by email, phone, or chat. Their responsibilities include, but are not limited to: Accurately and thoroughly logging your Support requests into our ticketing system Setting appropriate expectations regarding response times, follow up, and needed information based on your support agreement and the severity of the issue being reported Researching, identifying, and resolving the reported incident, and any subsequent issues Working with other Magento departments to resolve your issues
Best Practices Based on our experience in supporting customers with Magento installations, we would like to share with you some recommendations and best practices for a highly effective support relationship. Educate Your Technical Staff We have found that customers who invest in Magento education course for their staff are much more effective in defining the symptoms of their technical problems and working with us to resolve underlying issues. The return on investment is almost immediate when you consider the cost of education versus the cost of downtime. The Magento Education program offers the knowledge, skills, and credentials to successfully deploy and maintain Magento. Learn more about our educational offerings at: http://www.magentocommerce.com/training Plan Ahead Before deploying Magento, it is beneficial to review the release notes and other related technical documentation for your environment. We also recommend that you carefully define your project plans and include adequate test time and a crisis plan to ensure your technical team knows how to contact all vendors involved. For complex installations, or customizations, Magento offers a variety of consulting packages to you asses existing systems and applications, and to install and manage your Magento installation. Assign Appropriate Resources Individuals assigned to deploy and customize Magento should be experienced in the installation, operation, and maintenance of the hardware, desktop, server, network operating systems, storage, and applications in your environment before installing Magento. If you require assistance, Magento consultants or solution partners are available to identify the best solution for your environment, develop the solution, and implement it for you. Utilize Self Help Resources Our customers can also take advantage of Magento self help tools available within the customer portal. We also have links to technical documentation and knowledge base solutions, white papers, technical notes, and guides posted on our website. Provide Complete and Accurate Information Accurate and timely issue resolution depends on accurate and timely information provide to our Technical Support team. Please note any recent environment changes, include any screen shots, or error messages and log files when reporting an issue if possible.
Support Request Life Cycle Whether you contact Magento Technical Support by phone, web portal, email, or chat, your Support Request is promptly logged and your issue quickly assigned to the appropriate individual. Support Request stages include: Creating your profile and registering via our customer portal Collecting information to help troubleshoot the problem Submitting a Support Request Working the problem by the appropriate Technical Support Analyst Closing the Support Request Collecting Information These guidelines describe the information Magento needs to begin diagnosing the reported issue, and quickly resolving it. Please attempt to gather as much pertinent information as you can prior to contact Magento Technical Support. Configurations System, storage and/or network configuration diagrams and files are very helpful when troubleshooting some issues. Having these diagrams and/or information on file for easy upload to Magento Technical Support will help to speed up the problem solving process. Log File If you are reporting an issue you encountered while installing Magento, it is helpful to have any log files and error messages received. If there is any physical hardware that is failing, etc., providing log files from the hardware can also be helpful to troubleshoot and resolve the reported issue. Record Any Recent Changes Check to see if any changes have recently occurred in your Magento environment. Also of particular note changes to versions of guest operating system, host operating system, networking, storage and applications of particular interest.
Understanding Technical Support Severities The severity level is a measure of the relative impact of the technical issue on your business. Accurately defining the severity level ensures a timely response and helps Magento Technical Support to understand the nature of your issue. Severity 1 means your production server or other mission critical feature/function is down and no workaround is immediately available. You have a substantial loss of service Severity 2 occurs when a major functionality is severely impaired. Operations can continue in a restricted fashion, although long term productivity might be adversely affected A major milestone is at risk. Ongoing installation/configuration is at risk. Severity 3 involves partial, non critical loss of functionality of the software. Impaired operations of some components, but allows the user to continue using the software, Initial installation/configuration milestones are at risk Severity 4 refers to general usage questions Cosmetic issues, enhancement requests, including errors in the documentation. Submitting a Support Request All currently licensed Magento Enterprise customers can reach Magento Technical Support via our online support portal, or telephone, based on the level of support plan purchased by the customer: Gold Standard support. 4 hour response time on P1 / P2 issues reported within normal business hours (8a EST 6p PST) Monday Friday. Platinum 2 hour response time on P1 / P2 issues, 24 x 7. Issues reported outside normal business hours will be handled our on call staff. Premium 1 hour response time on P1 / P2 issues, featuring live 24x7 support.
Filing a Support Request Online Filing a Support Request online via our customer portal is the fastest method to file a support and is available to all Enterprise Edition customers covered by a current product subscription and support plan. Within our customer portal you can: Open a new Support Request Request closure of a Support Request Look up legacy support tickets Review Knowledge Base information Review online documentation and white papers Filing a Support Request by Phone: What to Expect When you call the Magento Technical Support phone line, the system will prompt you to select the appropriate product, and select an action. On an instance where all of our Support Analysts are bust serving other customers on the phone, you may be prompted to leave a message for call back. We ask that you leave a detailed message, including: Your full name Your company name Phone number where you can be reached, or pager number (please include area code) Support Ticket number (if the call is in regard to an existing issue) A brief description of the problem Messages are typically responded to within 1 hour of less during normal working hours. Initial response times for technical support issues by a Technical Support Analyst will follow the guidelines for your specific support plan. Response from a Technical Support Analyst can be phone or email, depending on the severity of the issue, and the support plan. Working the Problem A specific Technical Support Analyst (TSA) is assigned to your Support Request and owns your problem until it is mutually agreed that the Support Ticket can be closed. Occasionally, Magento may reassign a Support Ticket from one TSA to another, due to time zone differences, and if different product expertise is required. The assigned TSA will contact by email and or phone as appropriate during the resolution process. Your responsibility is the have the appropriate people and resources available to work with the TSA during the service hours defined in your support plan. The TSA will work with you to try to resolve the issue, taking whatever steps may be necessary to first fully diagnose the problem then to find a solution.
This may involve: Asking you for more information Asking you to install specific software and/or patches Asking for specific debug data from your system (and, if necessary, conducting tests to generate this data) Trying to reproduce the issue within your development/test environment Asking for your code, data, or software to help reproduce the problem Verifying bugs with our development/engineering team Asking you to implement and test workaround suggestions that may avoid the problem Asking you to involve networking, database, or other technology specific personnel/vendors to help troubleshoot Reporting an Error or Requesting a Feature Error (Bug) Report If you feel you have found an error in a Magento product and you have an active software subscription with us, you should report that to Magento Technical Support via the normal Support Request process. If you do not have an active software subscription and want to alert us to an error, please post the issue to the appropriate product community forum, or email us at support@magento.com Feature Requests If you have a suggestion for how to improve or enhance Magento, your input is always welcome. Please submit your suggestions through the Feature Request form within the customer portal, or via the normal Support Request process. Unless additional information is needed, you will not receive a personal response. Please note that we do not provide technical support via this form.
Technical Support Policies Technical Support is intended to assist, troubleshoot and resolve specific issues resulting from use of Magento products on a supported platform and with all pre requisites met. Issues arising from a need for training, implementation services, and customization may be referred to our Professional Services organization to contract for the services appropriate to the need. The provision of technical support does not imply that Magento will fix all software defects or make changes or enhancements to the software upon request. The following items are NOT generally supported: Operating systems and third party applications. Alterations or revisions to the Magento core software made by the customer. Continued support for issues where Magento has provided corrections not implemented by the customer or where data requested from the customer necessary to resolving the issue is not provided. Issues that cannot be replicated by Magento after following customer s instructions. Support Request Escalation Policy You can escalate a Support Request at any time by speaking directly with the TSA assigned to your ticket, or by requesting to speak with a Customer Support Manager. The escalation process is especially appropriate in the following situations: Your production system goes down during an upgrade, implementation, or result of suggested action from our Technical Support You need to communicate a critical business impact to Magento Technical Support management You are dissatisfied with the responsiveness to, or resolution of your Support Request. We highly recommend that you contact Magento Technical Support by phone for escalations. This will ensure your request is directed to the appropriate resources as soon as possible to achieve a successful and timely resolution. NOTE: You can request that the TSA assigned to your support ticket increase the severity level without an escalation if the business impact of a Support Request has changes or was not correct recorded initially. Support Request Closure A Support Request is typically closed when you confirm that a resolution has been reached or if Magento Technical Support does not hear back from you after three (3) attempts to contact you regarding closing the request. Technical Support Requests may also be closed if they cannot be resolved, or if Magento chooses not to resolve certain issues, with acknowledgement and agreement form you.
Customer Satisfaction Surveys Your feedback is one of the key ways we measure how well Magento Technical Support is meeting your expectations. Customer satisfaction surveys give you the opportunity to provide Magento with valuable information to help improve our interactions with you and design the support offerings that match your needs. After a Support Request is closed, you will be invited to fill out a short survey about your experience.