Support Policy

Last updated: April 28, 2022

The goals of the policy are:

  1. Be responsive to customer feedback and concerns.
  2. Continually improve the customer experience.
  3. Learn more about customer experiences through open dialog on challenges and solutions.

The process uses two stages to ensure responsiveness while prioritizing work. The stages are:

  • Stage 1 diagnoses and triages the issue.
  • Stage 2 resolves the issue.

When an issue is both easy and urgent, the two stages may be combined.

Note: We may reject the support request or an issue resolution if the application, software, or framework behavior is by-design.

Stage 1: Diagnosis and Triage

For each new issue we try and answer the following questions:

  • Is the issue a documentation or a product/service issue?
  • Is it not an issue, but a question better suited for a forum or support site?
  • What is the priority and severity of the issue?
  • What area manages this issue?

If these questions can't be answered in the initial examination, we ask clarifying questions in the comments.

There are types of issues that are closed during the diagnosis and triage stage:

  • by-design: The behavior is by design, and the customer needs to adapt.
  • CoC violations: These issues are closed and reported if the CoC violation merits reporting and blocking.
  • duplicates: Duplicates are closed with a comment referencing the existing issue.
  • doc-ok: The customer is incorrect, and the doc is correct.
  • forum: Issues that are support or forum requests are directed to Stack Overflow or other support sites, and closed.

Evaluating the correct course of action is subjective. The team members use their judgment on the correct action.

The priority and severity levels are based on the following guidelines but are subjective.

  • high: High impact to customer with no available workaround.
  • medium: Medium impact to customer but with available workaround.
  • low: Low impact to customer or cosmetic changes.
  • tbd: Customer impact is unknown and severity to be decided.

Stage 2: Resolution

Customer issues and paid support request are weighted as part of scheduled task planning.

Issue resolution follows from the priority level set during diagnosis. The incoming customer issues are prioritized with other scheduled work of similar priority.

Issues may be reprioritized based on new feedback and data about article visibility.