Faster Responses, More Content and Better Infragistics Help

Before I get into the details of what’s changed let me review the details about how the system used to work. In the past we offered two main ways of getting help with an issue: you could open a support request or post a question to the forums. Support requests are private threads with our support staff that follow the typical lifecycle of a support case and service level. Forum posts, on the other hand, are public threads featuring interaction with peer developers as well as Infragistics staff without assignment.

The below image depicts how the two systems operated separately:

 

Making More Content Available

In an effort to make use of the rich information being continually compiled between our support staff and customers, we’ve associated customer service levels with your forum posts. When a developer posts a question in the forums one of the first checks in the workflow is to see if that person is an existing paid or evaluation customer. If the system recognizes a customer then the service level is tied to the customer’s post and the issue is assigned to a developer support engineer.

The new system is depicted in the diagram below:

The advantages of this set up include:

• Public Answers: A good percentage of questions are asked regularly. Now when developers have a question that has been asked before , the answer is readily available in the forums. Customers can search for the answer first, find it immediately and be able to solve the problem quickly. This knowledge base, which empowers customers to find answers on their own, will also cut down on the number of developers in the support queue and will ultimately allow us to get to unique issues sooner. (Note: you can still file private support requests should your case require a private discussion) 
• Multiple Response Channels: Blending a peer-supported forum and a professional staffed support system gives issues the chance of being answered before a support engineer reaches the thread. With a public thread you are reaching a lot more resources. Infragistics employees outside the support department, Infragistics MVPs and other developers on the forums may respond to the thread well before your support question moves throught the developer support queue. 
• Private Support Cases: If you have a question or need to give private or proprietary information, you will still have the option to open a private support case where the dialog is only viewable between you and the Developer Support Engineer.

Where to Start

If you have a question and think you might need support the best place to start is to search our site to see if an answer exists. Our new search tool will by default search our corporate website, the Community Site (forums, video and blogs) and our Help & Documentation repositories. Begin by going to the search tool at www.infragistics.com/help:

Next, select which product line you are searching under.

Then entry your search query.

The search results are broken down by section and you can further filter your results by using the filtering options.

If your search does not return the appropriate answer then you can easily continue to posting a forum question or opening a support request (links are found in the upper right of the page).

 

Finding the Search Tool

Getting to the search tool is easy - just look for the Help link in the top nav of the site.

Forums First

In the end, going to the forums first to ask your questions, will give you added resources to answer your question. Our internal systems will recognize your support level if you are an active customer and have a Developer Support Engineer assigned, as well as have the benefit of the community reviewing your question and benefiting from the answer. Should you still need to discuss a support issue in private , please use the Support Request route, but as more people use the forums, the more answers will be available meaning  you can get back to your code!