Codejock Developer Community : NOTICE : Codejock Support Policy http://forum.codejock.com/ Copyright (c) 2006-2013 Web Wiz Forums - All Rights Reserved. Sun, 19 Apr 2026 15:51:41 +0000 Sun, 03 May 2009 17:57:25 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Web Wiz Forums 12.04 360 forum.codejock.com/RSS_post_feed.asp?TID=14125 <![CDATA[Codejock Developer Community]]> http://forum.codejock.com/forum_images/codejock-logo.gif http://forum.codejock.com/ <![CDATA[NOTICE : Codejock Support Policy : The whole issue of resources used...]]> http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48580&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48580 Author: adrien
Subject: 14125
Posted: 03 May 2009 at 5:57pm

The whole issue of resources used for support, documentation etc etc is a very difficult one to get a correct balance.

For my part, we've been operating help desk and support forums for many years now. It took us a while, but eventually we came to a realisation:

Customer's won't buy your product if they can't get it working.

For this reason we offer whatever support is required to all-comers.

As for forums vs private tickets. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Private tickets are just that - private. Others can't benefit from them. If you have a widespread problem, it can be better to solve it in the forums, so others can learn of it. However, not all customers frequent the forums, many prefer a more personal approach via help-desk. You can also better track how many people are experiencing a problem if they all submit a support ticket, and re-using responses can make responding quite efficient.

As for documentation, perhaps an MSDN-online approach should be considered. The problem with shipping docs, is that they go out of date. Online solutions like MSDN allow for some great advantages, such as community contribution, and you can address issues that come up by tweaking your documentation and then you only need to do it once. A wiki is another option, although it really needs some form of overall document structure and navigation. There are wikis that provide this.

In the end, from a developer's standpoint, you want to consume the minimum developer resources in support you can. Anything you can do to reduce the amount of time your expensive devs need to spend on support is time they can then spend improving the product to overtake your competitors and benefit your customers.

But again you don't want to go too far the other way either, since if devs are completely isolated from support they don't see and fix problems the same. We found when we had our devs isolated we didn't know what problems were happening in a timely manner (support always tried to deal with them for a long time first) nor how big the problem was (how many people it was affecting and in what way), so our priorities couldn't be aligned to that. So we have a policy for the amount of time a ticket can be running before escalated to dev.

We also find that devs patrolling the forums is a great way to get new ideas for development, and this can come from any source.

It's always tempting to say only support for paid customers, but my experience is that it costs you money in the end. The best approach we've found so far (and we aren't anywhere near perfect) is to minimise the amount of support required. Keep in mind with CJ that the target market are devs. We've all been there so most (certainly on these forums) I've seen are very reasonable, accomodating, knowledgeable and helpful people.

just my 2c, thanks for all your hard work guys, we already renewed since for us it's a complete no-brainer.]]> Sun, 03 May 2009 17:57:25 +0000 http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48580&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48580 <![CDATA[NOTICE : Codejock Support Policy : ABuenger wrote:I understand...]]> http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48572&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48572 Author: mitcheljh
Subject: 14125
Posted: 03 May 2009 at 12:50pm

Originally posted by ABuenger ABuenger wrote:

I understand your request, but even Microsoft isn't able to provide good and up to date documentation. Everyone complains about MSDN as well. I think that samples are the best solution, they show how to use the features and are always up to date. If you want good documentation you need a developer to write it, but then again the developer could also work on new features and samples. I prefer features. And you?

I'd like to agree with you, and I really gave this a lot of thought over the last week. But, after I spent half a day trying to figure out why my png toolbar images were not working correctly, only discover that they needed to be in a resource "PNG" folder (by walking through SetIcons()), I have to admit that I still feel much better documentation is needed.   True, the examples give you a lot of info, but only if you follow them to the letter. How is anyone to know that just because the sample projects have the png files contained in a resource "PNG" folder, that this is a CJ requirement? This is just one example. I can remember dozens of similar experiences that I've had when I tried following examples to the letter, and still had problems, only to discover it was something very basic like this. Why can't these things be included in the documentation? We shouldn't be left one our own to 'discover' peculiarities of the library like this.

Again, I'm ranting here, and want to say I think the toolkit is great, but I don't agree at all that the examples are a good substitute for detailed documentation.]]> Sun, 03 May 2009 12:50:21 +0000 http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48572&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48572 <![CDATA[NOTICE : Codejock Support Policy : terrym wrote: ABuenger wr...]]> http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48556&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48556 Author: Aaron
Subject: 14125
Posted: 02 May 2009 at 3:16am

Originally posted by terrym terrym wrote:

Originally posted by ABuenger ABuenger wrote:

http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14129
 
Cheers :)  Not sure we've got use for that, but you never know in the future ;)
 
 
Hi,
 
If you are developing "Alice in Wonderland" application / game this would be nice option to have. If CJ can't think of anything else and left with no ideas (I gues this would be in V49.0 ) they have my blessing, but for now let us focus on more important features.
 
Thank you
 
 
 
 
]]> Sat, 02 May 2009 03:16:50 +0000 http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48556&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48556 <![CDATA[NOTICE : Codejock Support Policy : ABuenger wrote:http://forum...]]> http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48537&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48537 Author: terrym
Subject: 14125
Posted: 01 May 2009 at 8:42am

Originally posted by ABuenger ABuenger wrote:

http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14129
 
Cheers :)  Not sure we've got use for that, but you never know in the future ;)
 
]]> Fri, 01 May 2009 08:42:17 +0000 http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48537&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48537 <![CDATA[NOTICE : Codejock Support Policy : http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14129 ...]]> http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48519&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48519 Author: ABuenger
Subject: 14125
Posted: 30 April 2009 at 6:58pm

http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14129
]]> Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:58:08 +0000 http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48519&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48519 <![CDATA[NOTICE : Codejock Support Policy : ABuenger wrote: znakeeye...]]> http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48517&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48517 Author: terrym
Subject: 14125
Posted: 30 April 2009 at 5:34pm

Originally posted by ABuenger ABuenger wrote:

Originally posted by znakeeye znakeeye wrote:

My sixth sense tells me we are about to see a Fish Eye button in the next release.


As long as they don't call it Fish Eye button ....

 
Any screenshots to show us what this Fish Eye Button is, as never heard of it lol.
 
]]> Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:34:52 +0000 http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48517&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48517 <![CDATA[NOTICE : Codejock Support Policy : znakeeye wrote:My sixth sense...]]> http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48514&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48514 Author: ABuenger
Subject: 14125
Posted: 30 April 2009 at 5:30pm

Originally posted by znakeeye znakeeye wrote:

My sixth sense tells me we are about to see a Fish Eye button in the next release.


As long as they don't call it Fish Eye button ....

]]> Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:30:57 +0000 http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48514&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48514 <![CDATA[NOTICE : Codejock Support Policy : My sixth sense tells me we are...]]> http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48505&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48505 Author: znakeeye
Subject: 14125
Posted: 30 April 2009 at 11:23am

My sixth sense tells me we are about to see a Fish Eye button in the next release.]]> Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:23:18 +0000 http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48505&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48505 <![CDATA[NOTICE : Codejock Support Policy : SuperMario wrote:I assure you...]]> http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48450&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48450 Author: terrym
Subject: 14125
Posted: 28 April 2009 at 11:00am

Originally posted by SuperMario SuperMario wrote:

I assure you that we have no plans to stop MFC and ActiveX development
 
Excellent as I have asked a few times, and was getting worried you guys were giving up on MFC.  Now that I know MFC is still in development we will have no problem continuing to renew our subscription.  Eg. we are about to renew within the next few days.
 
]]> Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:00:20 +0000 http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48450&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48450 <![CDATA[NOTICE : Codejock Support Policy : I assure you that we have no plans...]]> http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48449&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48449 Author: SuperMario
Subject: 14125
Posted: 28 April 2009 at 10:00am

I assure you that we have no plans to stop MFC and ActiveX development]]> Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:00:13 +0000 http://forum.codejock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14125&PID=48449&title=notice-codejock-support-policy#48449