Act like a Sage #SalesLogix Support Analyst and you may not need one

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What does a Customer Support Analyst do when a new case is opened? Follow their steps before you open your next case and you may find your solution without us.

When you first call in, after entitlement is validated, the analyst asks you to describe the issue. The analyst may ask additional questions, collecting enough information to start the research process. Then what? The analyst selects a research path based on the nature of the issue. But regardless of path, a few steps are followed in almost every case. You can do these yourself to find the answer without us or the help shorten the time it takes to resolve your issue if you do contact us.

• If you have "How Do I" questions, check the application Help Text first. Even if your system is customized, learning how the out of the box feature works may lead you to an answer.

• Find out if the issue been reported before. If so, is there a published resolution? Start with the Knowledgebase by describing your symptoms in the search field. If you have an error message, use the first few words as your search criteria - but surround them with quotes so the search engine treats them as one phrase. Review the articles listed in the results area. If you don't find an appropriate article, revise your search terms and try again. Don't find anything? Search the Sage SalesLogix Community and even internet search engines.

• Could it be a defect? If someone else reported your issue and it was verified as a product defect, there may be a knowledge article for it. If there is no article, write down the steps you followed to the point where they symptom started. If you have access to a test environment, follow those steps using the out of the box evaluation database. Do you get the same result as in production? If you do, you may have found a new issue and should report that to us or your Authorized Business Partner.  If not, it may be related to your configuration or customizations, and research needs to continue. 

If an Analyst reaches this point, he or she may ask you to help narrow down the cause. But you can do this before contacting us. Try reconfiguring your test system to match your production system: make one set of changes and test again. Do this until you've added all changes or until your symptom appears. Search the knowledgebase using any new information you discover. If you still don't have an answer or can't reproduce the issue, report it to us or your Authorized Business Partner.

Even if you can't complete all of these steps before contacting us, make sure the Analyst knows in detail what you've already done. The research you do conduct will help shorten the time it takes to resolve your issue once you report it.