Communication Improvement Plan

Proper communication is one of the most important parts of a support process. Within our standard support tickets, communication and follow up happen on a regular basis between you, the customer and our support team. The result of this communication, should resolve a ticket with a solution, a viable workaround or an answer to your question.

But what happens with your issue when our support team is initially unable to solve a ticket and help from our R&D department is needed? We are taking steps in providing you more information regarding the support tickets that require additional attention and exploration, e.g. a new feature, a probable bug, an essential improvement.

It is very difficult to initially provide you with an actual release date for a particular fix or solution, however we want to keep you informed about every import step of the process through necessary communication. Each communication is a next step to a future release. These gives you the opportunity to communicate this further internally or to your own customers. 

As a reminder, we value your feedback on feature request, bug reports, possible improvements. Our support team is not exclusively provided to solve issues - many of CHILI’s great features were created because of your feedback.

When our support team identifies an issue as a possible bug or as a continuous issue, an internal ticket is created for our R&D department. The related support ticket will receive the status “waiting for R&D” (or “under consideration” when it is a feature request). While processing this internal ticket, the support ticket will remain in this holding status, but now you will receive communication regarding important steps of its internal process.

Step 1: Bug/issue confirmed:

This issue has been confirmed by our R&D department as a bug. It has been listed in order to fix. 

If a solution/fix is found, this will be made available in a future release

We will keep you informed about the next steps in the process in this ticket.

Our R&D department has investigated and determined the issue as a probable bug. An internal ticket is created and sent to R&D. It is now in their queue and they are responsible for a solution. If a solution or a fix is found, it will be made available in a future release. If the issue is not solvable, we will provide you with a viable workaround, though workarounds are not our primary courses of action.

Ideally, we would confirm the presence of a bug, evaluate and find a solution, which would be tested (and retested). This would then be made available to clients in a future release.

Step 2 Ready for QA

A fix for this issue has been found by R&D and is now ready to be tested by our Q&A department.

If the test is successful the solution will be made available in a future release. 

If the test is not successful, we need to further investigate the issue.

We will keep you informed about the next steps in the process in this ticket.

R&D believes that the issue is fixed and is moving the solution to be tested by QA. If a fix is confirmed by QA, we communicate that the fix is confirmed and will be part of a future release.

When a ticket is in the QA stage, its important to remember it is still too soon to confirm its availability. Testing is still required to confirm there is no conflict with other fixes or solutions. It is also possible that a fix has been made available in a particular branch, which isn’t ready for release immediately but will be made available later in the year. It can also mean that the test or the solution failed and we have to go and look again for a possible solution.

It is always difficult to confirm exact release dates, as a fix will usually be part of a version (branch), which contains other fixes that may not have passed QA yet. As well, fixes may conflict with another issue or feature, resulting in additional development. With this, we remind you that solutions take time to implement, and cannot be promised in the next available release.

Step 3: Fix confirmed 

The tests were successful. We are now looking to see if there is no impact to other fixes.

If there is no impact, the fix will be made available in a future release.

We will keep you informed in this ticket when the fix has been released.

 More information regarding the upcoming release can be found on our documentation portal:

 http://docs.chili-publish.com/display/CPD4/Version+4

By now we know that the fix is successful and we are looking to see if there is no other impact. After testing is confirmed, the fix will be made available in a future release. Again we remind you that this fix might not be part of the next available release.

Regarding a feature request, we advise you to please read our documentation on the portal so you’ll know what to expect when you log a feature request.

http://docs.chili-publish.com/display/CPD4/Feature+Requests

Once the feature request is accepted, the process is identical to a bug fix - the same communication will be provided in the related support tickets.

I hope we have provided important information and clarity regarding our support process. If you have additional questions, please contact me via email or by phone. I will personally available for additional questions and information during our Spicy Talks on February 12.

Looking forward to meet you there!