Se Support Process For Customers
| Document Version | v.3 |
|---|---|
| Document Last Updated | 9/19/2019 |
Table of Contents
Software Feature Request Process
Viewing Tickets in the Support Portal
Overview
We will provide an overview of the SE support process, walk through how to manage support claims with SE support, how to utilize our support portal, Professional Services, Software Feature Requests, and how to use Loom.
Support Process
In order to receive effective support you must follow the support process defined here. The outlined process is intended for quick ‘How to’ questions or issues like software bugs, where a function is not working as intended. Keep in mind if you are submitting professional service requests or product enhancements your ticket will not follow the process below. Please see the ‘Software Feature Requests’ or the ‘Professional Services Process’ for these types of tickets.
If you require support there are many ways in which you can start a support ticket. The recommended method is to submit a ticket via your support portal. Other methods are described in the ‘How to Submit a Ticket’ section of this KB.
When submitting a support ticket it is critical that you clearly explain the issue that you are experiencing. The best way to do that is to record a video with a software like Loom. Refer to the ‘How to use Loom’ section of this KB for more details. It is also important that you set the priority of the ticket. We have 4 statuses for priority, Low, Medium, High, and Super Critical. Please refer to the below descriptions to help you assign the correct status:
Support Ticket Priority
A LOW status is something that is annoying but not preventing you from performing a function.
A MEDIUM status should be assigned to tickets where there is a software issue but there is a workaround.
A HIGH status should be given to tickets where the issue is important to you and you would like it to be considered first in future sprint planning, however, it does not qualify for a low or medium status.
A SUPER CRITICAL status is reserved only for an issue that is so urgent that it needs to be resolved immediately. Please keep in mind that this status should only be used if the issue is preventing your business from operating, please do not abuse this function.
Once that ticket is created, the support process has begun. The way we process support requests is simple and fair. At the core of the process, we process a ticket in the order that it was received. We give special attention to critical issues that are causing an inability to operate. We may also cherry pick easy questions and answer those as well. All other requests that require investigation will be dealt with in the order in which they were submitted.
Please keep in mind that if you send a text, call a cell phone, send an email that is not tagged to a ticket, or any other method of attempting to get immediate support, this is only hurting all the other customers who have followed the proper process and have waited their turn to get support. Oftentimes this approach will not yield the outcome you were hoping for because a ticket will not be immediately created which will not start the process outlined in this document. Savance is a very customer focused organization however we ask that if you feel the need is urgent enough to warrant this behavior that you limit it to only drop dead critical issues that are preventing you from operating and you understand that this is not the process to get support so you may not get an immediate response.
Ticket Statuses
Once you have successfully submitted a ticket, it can now be found in the “View Tickets” tab under “Account.” Your ticket status will initially read ‘Open,’ and appear green as shown below.
Our goal is to respond to each new ticket before the end of the day it was submitted. Based on the current support workload, a ticket may be opened in one business day but not worked on until the next. For this we leverage the ‘In Progress’ and the ‘Scheduled’ ticket status. When a support specialist is assigned a ticket and begins working on it, the status will change to ‘In Progress,’ and turn orange.
This means someone has started to work on your ticket. We try to address each ticket within 24 hours of receiving it, however, if a support specialist needs more time and your issue requires further investigation we may change the status of your ticket to ‘Scheduled’ or ‘Needs Team Review’ if support needs to consult with development before making changes.
This status indicates that a support agent has scheduled and reserved a later time to review and/or meet with the customer about the ticket. Our agents will notify you if this action is required and when the scheduled date is. If the issue is urgent and the scheduled date is unacceptable please let one of our support specialists know right away so they can attempt to address it sooner. You can always view the date of your scheduled ticket under the ‘Ticket Info’ tab in the details of your ticket.
Some tickets are easily solved and closed out quickly. Other tickets, however, will require our support specialists to gather more information before resolving the issue. After we reply to your ticket, it will turn brown and the status will change to ‘Awaiting Customer.’ This status lets you know that a support agent has responded to your ticket and is awaiting your response.
The support team will attempt to contact the customer a few times via the ticket and potentially by phone if the customer is not actively responding. If the support agent is unable to get a response from the customer, they will close the ticket assuming the issue has been resolved.
Once the customer does respond, the ticket color will again change and the status will switch to ‘Awaiting Savance,’ indicating that it is our turn to respond. We do our best to regularly check our ‘Awaiting Savance’ queues to ensure we are responding to your tickets in a timely fashion.
Sometimes you may encounter a ticket with a status that reads ‘Needs Team Review.’ This status means the support team members need to meet to discuss your issue further. Once they have met and addressed the ticket, its status will change back to ‘In Progress.’
If your ticket requires no further action, our agents will change the status of your ticket to ‘Closed.’ You have the option to view or hide your previously closed tickets by clicking the ‘View Resolved Tickets’ button in the right hand corner. They will appear grey as shown below. 
You can always respond to a closed ticket in order to re-open it at any time. Once you respond your ticket status will change from ‘Closed’ to ‘Awaiting Savance.’
If a support agent determines that your issue is beyond their scope and they cannot immediately solve it, then it will turn red and the status will change to ‘In Development.’ This status indicates that there is a problem with the software, and a bug or data issue has been identified, which will require a developer to resolve the issue.
Development Process for Maintenance Items
When a support ticket has reached the ‘In Development,’ phase, the ticket now enters an internal development cycle that is not viewable to the customer. Our support specialists will coordinate and communicate the ongoing issues to our development team. Additionally, a development ticket is created and linked to your support ticket. The development ticket is then entered into our maintenance sprint backlog for our development manager to review and consider for future maintenance releases. This process is outlined below to help you better understand how we determine when issues are resolved.
Please note the support team has their own guidelines for setting the priority of a development ticket which means that the development ticket status may not match the support ticket status set by the customer. The development priority status is reviewed in the backlog and helps regulate which tickets will enter the current or next sprint. Depending on the current number of development tickets and priority of each issue, the support ticket will remain ‘In Development,’ until its linked development ticket is scheduled to be fixed, at which point your support ticket status will change to ‘In Sprint,’ as shown below.
This status indicates that our development team is currently working to deploy a fix by the Sprint release date. This date can be found under the ‘Sprint Info’ section in the details of your ticket.
The priority statuses a support agent can assign to a development ticket are defined below: 
Development Ticket Priority
A LOW priority marked ticket indicates that the issue is not critical at all. This could be something as simple as a misspelling. We typically try to include a few ‘Low’ priority tickets in each sprint, however, it could take up to a year to be addressed depending on the current ticket volume.
A MEDIUM priority ticket indicates that the issue is causing an inconvenience to the customer, but there is a workaround process. These tickets usually take 1-4 months to be resolved.
Lastly, a HIGH priority status is assigned when the issue is very important. This priority is set when a support agent wants the ticket to be considered first during future sprint planning, however, keep in mind that it could still take 1-2 months before it is addressed.
There are two additional priority statuses we save for special circumstances. If a support agent feels the issue needs to be addressed within the current sprint, rather than waiting for a future sprint, they will set the development tickets priority to ‘CS Request,’ or ‘Current Sprint Request.’ We run our sprints on a monthly basis, and once a future sprint is planned we try to save room for requests like these, however, this priority does not guarantee that the ticket will be included in the current sprint. Despite this, it will receive the highest priority in the following sprint.
The last priority a support agent may give your development ticket is ‘Super Critical,’ which is reserved for issues that absolutely require patching immediately. These issues often prevent your business from operating. Once a development ticket is determined to be a critical issue, everyone will be alerted so it can receive instant attention.
Maintenance Sprint Process
As soon as a ticket is scheduled to be fixed, it will move from ‘In Development’ and change to ‘In Sprint.’ This status indicates that our development team is actively working to resolve your ticket by a set release date.
If our development team is able to fix the issue, it will be deployed on the sprint release date. This information can be found under ‘Sprint Info,’ in the details of the ticket.
As soon as your ticket issue has been fixed during the sprint process, the status will again change and now read ‘Awaiting Deployment.’ This status confirms that your issue successfully passed testing and will be resolved and deployed by the sprint release date.
Keep in mind that testing occurs towards the end of the sprint period, so your ticket may not enter the ‘Awaiting Deployment’ phase until shortly before the release date. Our goal is to solve every issue by the release date, however, if your ticket fails testing, the deployment may be delayed until the next sprint period.
Additionally, unexpected supercritical tickets that require immediate patching could also delay the deployment of your ticket. We try our best to leave room for cases like this when planning future sprints. Once the release date has occurred, and your issue is fixed and deployed, our support specialists will go through all tickets addressed in the sprint, update you, and finally close the support ticket. This will typically happen the Monday morning following the weekend sprint release.
Professional Services Process
Professional services are billable services, and include tasks like template changes, custom reports, data mining and cleansing, training, imports, etc. These types of services are also submitted through the support portal, or sent to your Customer Success Representative. These requests are managed outside of the support queue and your ticket will be closed. Your CSR will work with engineering and provide a quote for the amount of hours your task will need. If the quote is approved our Technical writer will begin putting together a specification as needed. Once completed you will have an opportunity to review this and provide any feedback. At that time you will receive your final quote of hours, these can occasionally vary from your original quote by +/- 20%, you will then need to approve the specification. Our team must receive your approval for this quote in order to begin working on your request. If the quote was approved but you decide not to proceed with the professional services, you will be responsible for the hours completed by the technical writer.
With specification and hours approved, you will receive a PS Contract for signature and the hours will be deducted from your accrual or block of time.
Professional Service requests are billed based on time and materials. Please remember that this quote is not a guarantee, and the number of hours actually needed could fall short or exceed our initial prediction. You have the option to allow us to go over the initial quoted hours in order to complete the task (if needed), or you can request that your Customer Success Representative seek your approval before going over the quoted hours. Please remember that the quoted hours may be used with multiple employees at the same time to complete the task. Also if the professional service is needing to be completed after hours (after 5pm EST) then the hour price will increase to time and a half. Saturday work is also billed at time and a half while Sunday is billed as double time.
Once your quote is approved, your CSR and/or Technical writer may also confirm the following details:
-
What exactly is the customer requesting (Template change, custom reports, etc...)
-
Description of request
-
Detailed specification of request
-
Requested completion date.
At this point your task is assigned to a specific professional services engineer and your CSR will follow up with you.
Professional Service Hours
Professional service hours never expire, however, if you choose to terminate your software services contract with Savance, all existing hours will be lost. Professional services are billed in ½ hour increments, which are regularly logged during normal business hours Monday-Friday. We do offer after hours (past 5pm EST) and Saturday hours for time-and-a-half. Sunday hours for double-time. Hours can be obtained in two different ways, through an accrual basis, or bought in a bundle. We do not offer a ‘pay as you go’ option.
Accrual Basis
Customers who opt into the accrual based option accrue hours on a monthly basis. The specific amount of hours are outlined in their ‘Professional Services Agreement’ section of their contract. Accrual basis customers can choose how many hours they wish to accrue per month and have a bi-annual opt out option. If an accrual basis customer’s banked hours go into the negative at the end of a month, they will be invoiced for the amount of hours to get them back into good standing.
Buying in Blocks
The second way a customer can obtain hours is by purchasing professional service hours in blocks of 100 hours. For details on hourly rates, terms, or onsite consulting please contact your Customer Success Representative.
Tracking Pro-Service Hours
Your Customer Success Representative will ensure that your professional service hours are being logged when they are accrued, as well as logged when they are used. Please contact your Customer Success Representative if you need to know your balance or wish to have a report provided for hours used. This can be requested on a bi-annual basis but will be provided on a yearly basis from Savance.
Software Feature Request Process
Savance appreciates any feedback you have to offer regarding our products. These customer suggestions have helped guide Savance Enterprise into the feature-rich product that it is today. Our goal is to release new features every 3 months. After picking which features to include in the release, our team actively works on developing, testing, and implementing them.
How We Select Suggested Feature Requests
At Savance, we closely monitor any requested feature changes or suggested product enhancements. We pick from a group of the most commonly requested feature changes from our users. We then create a poll in our user’s group and whichever feature receives the most votes is included on the next release. We allow the users group to help design the feature by holding a brainstorming session where all users are invited to join and participate.
Depending on the complexity of the request, and the time it would take the engineers to implement the change, we may include more than one feature change on each release. This is typically the case.
However, if a customer is willing to pay for a change, it moves up on our priority list, and we will try to include it in the next release. When we do a custom modification, we add the change to the production version of Savance Enterprise. In essence, everyone will receive the same changes, but you will get the changes much sooner, which helps to eliminate any confusion about when it’s time to upgrade. After contacting us about your request, our team will schedule a meeting with you to discuss the details of the design plan, release time, and total cost. If you are satisfied with everything, our team will begin working on your design.
How to Submit a Feature Request
If you have any new feature suggestions or you would like to obtain a formal quote for custom programming, please let us know. We truly value your feedback and look forward to hearing from our customers. You can always submit a feature request through the support department, or by contacting your Customer Success Representative. They will add your request to our external ‘Product Enhancement’ project management tool, which manages requests and also tracks who requested them. Please note that if you submit a feature request through the support portal, it will be transferred to our external backlog and the ticket will be closed out. Our support team and your Customer Success Representative will update you if your feature request is selected to be included in the next release.
Ticket Process Summary Flow Chart
How to Submit a Ticket 
Submitting a Ticket Via Customer Portal
-
If you have a support account setup through our website at http://support.savance.com/?Enterprise you can enter a ticket through the support portal.
-
Log in with your email and password
-
Click “Submit a Ticket” on the home page
-
The Department will read ‘Enterprise Support’ click next.
-
Next assign the priority of your ticket to either: Low, Medium, High, or Super Critical
-
Add the subject of your issue and below add any detailed and relevant content explaining your problem.
-
It is important to thoroughly explain your ongoing issue using either Loom screen recordings and/or screenshots of your problem.
-
Additionally, you may upload any relevant files using the ‘Add File’ button located under the message details.
-
-
Click the gray ‘Submit’ button at the bottom of the page.
-
Again, you will receive an email confirmation that a ticket was created in our system. You can reply to the ticket in the support portal you were just in or directly to the email as is described above.
Submitting a Ticket Via Email
-
Any of your employees can log a support ticket at any time by emailing support@savanceenterprise.com
-
Add a relevant subject in the subject line and content including screenshots and/or a screen recording from Loom in the body of the email
-
This will create a ticket in our system. You will then receive an automated response with the ticket number in the subject line.
-
You can reply directly to the automated email if you want to add additional details to the ticket later or if you need to correspond with the Savance support engineer assigned to your ticket.
- Please note that if you submit a ticket via email, you will not be able to assign the priority.
Submitting a Ticket via Phone
-
Call our support line (248) 478-2555 and press ‘2’ for support.
-
The 24 hour answering service will answer your call and collect all relevant information.
-
They will then create a ticket in our support portal with the information you gave them.
-
Your ticket will then follow the same process described above.
Support Ticket Best Practices
It is important that you reply directly to the automated confirmation email you received, otherwise you will create a duplicate ticket.
It is also VERY IMPORTANT that you submit one issue per ticket and that you do not reply to one ticket with a new issue. Mixing issues in one ticket can cause the support personnel to miss additional issues. Please make sure you submit one issue per ticket.
Please do not create a new ticket to check the status of an existing ticket. Replying directly to your existing tickets email or logging into your ticket portal to check on the status will get you the quickest response and will cause the least amount of confusion for the support personnel.
Please Note: If you attempt to call a support agent directly they will record your information and create a support ticket on your behalf, HOWEVER, your ticket will still be attended to in the order in which it was received.
How to use Loom
Loom is a free screen recording program that allows you to narrate, record your screen, and share that video while submitting your support ticket.
Sometimes it is hard to reproduce the exact circumstance that led to your issue. With Loom it’s really easy - you just record exactly what you’re seeing on your screen, narrate what you are doing, and share that with Savance.
Overall, Loom makes responding to your requests and resolving your issues a much more efficient and seamless process.
Below are the steps to take to install and use Loom, and how to share your video in your support request.
-
Go to Loom.com and get Loom for free
-
Sign up or login
-
Download Loom
-
Install for Chrome
-
Download for Mac
-
Download for PC
-
-
Open up Savance Enterprise
-
Start recording
- Walk through the steps you took to reproduce your issue and explain your issue or request
-
Once you finish recording: Copy and paste that link into your support request, using either of the two ticket methods described in the above section titled “How to Submit a Ticket”
-
If you are unable to record a video, make sure to take screenshots and list out the steps to reproduce your issue.
-
Provide necessary details and any relevant data, such as what screen you’re on, order numbers or part numbers, and log files if applicable.
-
Remember to provide as much context as possible. This helps speed up the process and allows our engineers to address your needs as quickly and efficiently as possible!
-
Viewing Tickets in the Support Portal
- You can view all tickets that you have submitted in the support portal. To do so, login and click ‘View Tickets’ under the Account tab in the left corner.
-
All of your tickets will be listed. You can sort by clicking on any one of the column headers listed above your tickets.
-
In order to determine what stage of the support process the ticket is in, look at the column header labeled ‘Status’ and refer to the summarized status definitions below.
Status Definitions:
OPEN: We haven’t started working on the ticket.
IN PROGRESS: We started working on the ticket.
AWAITING CUSTOMER: We were the last to reply and are waiting for a response from you.
AWAITING SAVANCE: You were the last to reply and are awaiting a response from us.
SCHEDULED: We have scheduled time to review or meet with the customer about the ticket.
NEEDS TEAM REVIEW: The support team needs to meet to discuss your ticket further.
IN DEVELOPMENT: We have confirmed a problem with the software or your data, which requires a fix from our development team.
IN SPRINT: The ticket has been added to a current or upcoming sprint. This typically means a fix and release is imminent.
AWAITING DEPLOYMENT: We have fixed the issue associated with the development ticket and will be deployed on the next release.
CLOSED: The ticket is considered resolved. If the problem required development and is now closed that means the fix is live on your system. The user can always respond to a closed ticket to re-open at any time.