SupportLink Policies, Procedures and Guidelines
Who can use SupportLink?
Technical support (phone and online) is available from SupportLink for any customer with a current, valid SupportLink contract. Please note that your SupportLink contract limits you to receive technical support for only the products that you have licensed.
You can obtain more information about renewing or purchasing a SupportLink Contract through our website.
If you need technical assistance with a DataDirect product that you are evaluating, you will need to speak with a member of our Sales organization to have a support case set up for you. Please contact us.
What products are currently supported by SupportLink?
Technical support is available for any actively supported version of a commercial product sold by DataDirect Technologies that fails to work as documented. DataDirect Technologies considers the most recently released version and the one immediately preceding it to be actively supported versions of any product that has not been deprecated. For example, this means that if 6.0 is the most recently released version of Connect for ODBC and 5.3 the version immediately prior to 6.0, versions 5.3 and 6.0 are considered the actively supported versions of Connect for ODBC.
How do I contact SupportLink?
Contact us by phone, email or online.
What do I need in order to get technical support for a Connect, SequeLink or XML product?
To ensure that your support needs are addressed promptly, please have the following information available when reporting an issue:
- The serial number that corresponds to the product for which you are seeking support, or a case number if you have been provided one for your issue. If you do not have a SupportLink contract, the SupportLink representative assisting you will connect you with our Sales team.
- Your name, phone number, email address, and organization. For a first-time call, you may be asked for full customer information, including location.
- The DataDirect product and version that you are using.
- The type and version of the operating system where you have installed your DataDirect product.
- Any database, database version, third-party software, or other environment information required to understand the problem.
- A brief description of the problem, including but not limited to: any error messages that you have received, what steps you followed prior to the initial occurrence of the problem, any trace logs capturing the issue, etc. Depending on the complexity of the problem, you may be asked to submit an example or reproducible application so that the issue can be recreated.
- A description of what you have attempted to resolve the issue. If you have researched your issue on web search engines, our Knowledgebase, or have tested additional configurations, applications, or other vendor products, you will want to carefully note everything you have already attempted.
- A simple assessment of how the severity of the issue is impacting your organization.
What do I need in order to get technical support for a Shadow product?
To ensure that your support needs are addressed promptly, please have the following information available when reporting an issue:
Customer Contact Information
Contact name
Company name
Contact phone
Environment Information
Operating system mainframe + release level
Operating system client + release level
Releases of related software (databases, TP-monitors, etc.)
Description of hardware involved with the incident
Recent maintenance applied to related software
Shadow Diagnostic Information
Shadow Client release level
Shadow Server SVFX level (found on primary ISPF panel or NEON.CNTL(SVFXLIST))
Description of expected correct behavior
Error message(s)
A concise test case or example demonstrating the problem
System log messages
Shadow Server trace browse extract (including detail information)
High module information
Shadow Client trace
Program code (if user program involved)
System dump
What happens to my issue when I contact SupportLink?
When you contact SupportLink to request technical support with a DataDirect Technologies product, we ask that you do so through one of the appropriate contact channels described above. In order to ensure that your issue will receive the most prompt attention, please do not contact an individual employee of DataDirect Technologies directly.
Each technical support question, request for assistance, or description of a possible product defect will be logged and assigned to a unique case number on first contact. Our "one issue per case" policy ensures that each customer issue can be individually tracked and maintained by SupportLink. As a result, it is critical that you remember or record each case number that you receive for each issue that you report, as you may need to refer to a particular case number in any further communications with DataDirect Technologies.
When can I expect to receive acknowledgement that my email or web case has been assigned to a SupportLink representative?
When an issue is reported to SupportLink via email or through our Automatic Case Reporting tool, you should expect to receive acknowledgement from the representative who has been assigned your issue within one (1) business day. If, after submission of the issue via one of these channels, you wish to get immediate acknowledgement and/or assistance with your issue, please contact SupportLink via phone and reference any case number that you receive if the case has been opened via the Automatic Case Reporting tool.
How does SupportLink determine the severity level of my issue?
Severity levels are applied to technical support issues based on the following criteria:
- Product crash or unrecoverable ABEND, user loss of data or data corruption, a major failure with no workaround
- Major failure or loss of key functionality with a workaround, severe performance degradation
- Minor failure with or without a workaround, cosmetic flaw, or a minor irritation
How soon will my issue be resolved?
The goal of SupportLink is to resolve every issue as soon as possible. While some support cases are opened for a question or issue that can be answered or resolved rather quickly, many cases require more time and effort. In these situations, SupportLink will work to resolve the issue to your satisfaction as quickly as possible. There are a number of ways that you can assist our staff to speed up the resolution process:
- Provide complete details, including steps to reproduce the issue, when reporting a new case
- Be as accessible as possible while a representative works your issue
- Include your urgency and any relevant deadlines with the case information
Should we determine that your issue seems to be caused by a problem with your DataDirect Technologies product, we will provide you an estimate for when you can expect to receive a resolution.
If I am asked for a "reproducible", what am I expected to provide?
A "reproducible" is any set of steps, source code for a program, or test application that can be used by SupportLink to reproduce an issue. Having a reproducible can significantly reduce the time required to address or resolve an issue, so if you have a reproducible at the time you open a case, you will want to provide it immediately to the representative handling your issue.
Note that not all reproducibles are easy to use or set up. Unwieldy programs, difficult database setups, or unclear instructions for reproducing the issue can actually increase the time required to address or resolve an issue.
Some examples of a good reproducible include:
- A text file containing a simple Java program
- A small sample of data and SQL statements to run against the data
- A complete set of steps for reproducing the issue using ODBCTest, example, Test for JDBC, or any other test program
- A copy of the program you are using (where possible) along with complete instructions for its use
If assistance is needed in using the reproducible that you have provided, you will be contacted by your SupportLink representative who will work with you to make sure that the steps to reproduce are understood.
Please note that any customer-provided reproducible applications and source code are never published and never used for anything other than internal documentation of a product issue.
What is a "defect"?
When a SupportLink representative determines that the cause of an issue seems to be a problem with a DataDirect Technologies product, he or she will create a defect. Defects are essentially descriptions of how to reproduce or observe an issue that seems to demonstrate a product flaw and are filed to the appropriate development team for a given product. The original case that was opened to address your issue will have a defect created and attached to it. The representative assisting you with your issue will notify you of the defect status and provide you an estimate for the length of time it will take to provide you a resolution for the issue.
What is an "enhancement"?
An enhancement is any request that will result in changes that alter the intended behavior of or add additional functionality to a product or to documentation. Typical enhancement requests are requests to add support for unsupported features or requests for special white paper documentation. If you are experiencing an issue that a SupportLink representative determines is expected behavior based on the specification that the product is written to, or on the published product documentation, your case may be filed as an enhancement.
When an enhancement is created, the original case that was opened to address your issue will have an enhancement created and attached to it. Please note that enhancement requests are typically reviewed by program management for a given product only when planning begins for a new release.
When can I escalate a case?
Any time that your expectations for resolution of a technical support issue are not being met, you can request an escalation. The best way to escalate your issue is to contact one of the managers of SupportLink.
Please be prepared to provide any details about why you are requesting the escalation. The manager you contact will respond to you within one (1) business day.
When will my case be closed?
SupportLink is committed to keep your case open as long as you deem necessary to achieve resolution of your issue. Your case will be closed only with your approval unless your representative has made repeated attempts to reach you and has not received a response.
