Year-Round Benefits - Support Help Desk
Help Desk tickets may be submitted 24 hours a day at
https://support.aspdotnetstorefront.com. Hours of operation for our Year-Round Support Help Desk are Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm Pacific time (excluding
U.S. observed holidays).
Support incidents must be submitted through our
support website. Support issues emailed directly to our staff members or
through our sales department cannot be addressed. This ensures that all support
requests are handled as quickly as possible. We want to assure you that submitting all requests properly
will mean that no questions 'slip through the cracks', and that we can achieve
optimal response times.
If you have modified your software and are encountering errors, please be sure
that the issue also occurs in an UNMODIFIED copy of AspDotNetStorefront before submitting
a ticket. That helps us to be sure that we are supporting the entire
user base at the same time, and not spending vital time on a custom issue that has
sprung up without us! Read more about customization below.
Support Scope
Since September 1st, 2013 The Help Desk (formerly Free Help Desk) is provided to all AspDotNetStorefront users with current Year-Round Benefits on all versions of AspDotNetStorefront version 8.0 and above.
Response Times
Customers taking advantage of our Help Desk can always expect a response no later than 2 business days.
Support for Outdated Versions
We have sunsetted versions earlier than ML version 8.0.0.0. Customers on earlier versions are strongly encouraged
to upgrade to a recent
release, and may seek assistance in our online forums in the meantime.
Customization
It is impossible to account for the complex needs of every individual business in
any software product. We recognize this, and offer source code so that a qualified
developer can make the modifications desired for your environment.
If you are a store owner or developer seeking help with a custom project, we have the most remarkable development partners available
to team with you on customization. These are accredited developers who are known
to deliver premium work on a highly professional basis. Determining how to make
these modifications is the sole responsibility of the developer.
Upgrades
AspDotNetStorefront highly recommends that all customers stay up to date with the
latest release of the software. While we strive to make the upgrade process as straightforward
as possible, some store owners may still need assistance with performing upgrades
periodically. While we cannot do the work for you, our technicians are happy to
provide assistance with any questions that may arise on storefronts that have not
been modified. Customers having problems upgrading customized sites can take advantage
of our Priority
Help Desk access, though depending on the extent of the modifications, the
assistance of one of our DevNet Partners may be needed.
Data
We strive constantly to make the software as flexible and robust as possible; however
as with any application there are restrictions on what kind of data the software
can handle. Should you end up with a corrupt database, or with invalid or poorly
formatted data that the software cannot handle, our Support Technicians will not
be able to assist with manually cleaning the database. Our
Development Partners stand ready to assist with that type of work.
Hosting
All AspDotNetStorefront hosting customers are eligible to discounts off Year-Round Support Help Desk as part of their hosting plan. Year-Round Support Help Desk tickets may be submitted 24 hours a day
at https://support.aspdotnetstorefront.com.
Our Network Services department is available to respond to Year-Round Support Help Desk tickets
for hosting related issues from Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm PST (excluding
U.S. observed holidays). Emergency support is also provided 24x7 using the Year-Round Support Help Desk.
We are able to resolve most hosting support issues within 30 minutes during business
hours. Requests for emergency support outside regular business hours will be handled
by our staff of on-call technicians. Year-Round Support Help Desk requests for typical
issues like changing FTP passwords, backing up a database, configuring permissions,
etc. are included with your hosting plan. Issues that involve custom support, advanced
configuration, troubleshooting site errors, or other custom projects may be billed
at our hourly rate. We may also elect to schedule certain support during a maintenance
window to minimize downtime on the servers.
Response Times
Priority Help Desk tickets submitted before 2pm Pacific will receive a response on the
same day guaranteed. Tickets submitted after 2pm Pacific will receive a response on the next business
day at the latest.
Customization
Although assistance with customizations is limited, our Support Technicians may suggest code modifications
or work arounds to attempt to resolve the issue. In some cases, we may advise that
an entire block of code be removed and rewritten, and we may need you to provide your modified files or database backup
so that we can install and troubleshoot locally. If this is requested by our support
team, please supply a download link to a zip file that contains the files/data requested.
Please do not attempt to attach large files to our ticketing system, as large files
will be rejected. We will provide guidance on the
best way forward, but we cannot rewrite the code for you. If you require further
development assistance than the support provided via our Priority Help Desk,
we can provide a recommendation to one of our accredited
Development Partners.
Product Installation
If software installation is purchased, our support staff will work with your host
to get the software installed for you. If, throughout the installation process,
it’s discovered that your host does not meet the minimum requirements to support
your new software, we can provide you with recommendations of hosts that are known
supporters of the software. We offer hosting services for our software. To learn more, click here.
Our installation services cover doing a clean install of the software only. We will
upload the files necessary, create the database, and get the software running. Regrettably,
we cannot configure your site for you, set up your products, or skin your new store.
If you need a partner to assist with these things, please seek help from one of
our accredited Development Partners.
While the software is often run in cloud environments, web farms, or on virtual
servers, our paid installations can only install on these types of hosting platforms:
Shared Hosting: This is the ‘basic’ type of hosting
offered by the majority of hosts. The site runs on a server shared by many other
websites, and the store owner has limited access to the server. This is generally
sufficient for small to medium sized stores.
DedicatedServers: With this type of hosting plan, the
store owner has much greater control over the server (usually through Remote Desktop
access), and only your site(s) run on the server. These plans are more expensive
and require a greater degree of technical ability to manage, but are great for larger,
busier sites.
If you choose to host with AspDotNetStorefront, our installation services are available
for our Cloud hosting packages.
For customers purchasing an install on a shared hosting environment, we will need
the following information, which can be obtained from your host:
- FTP server address
- FTP username
- FTP password
- SQL server address
- SQL database name
- SQL username
- SQL password
- Host control panel URL and login information (if available)
Please do not provide this information electronically!
This information, when provided via email, is not secure. Instead, we will contact
you prior to your installation to obtain the access required via a secure connection.
Customers purchasing an install on a dedicated server will need to provide Remote
Desktop and FTP credentials. Installs cannot be done through GoToMeetings, Remote
Assistance Requests, or other session-sharing methods.
The following work will need to be done before we begin our install in a dedicated
environment.
- Install the required .NET version
- Install SQL Server 2005 or 2008 and SQL Server Management
Studio
- Install IIS (6x or higher) if not pre-loaded on the server
In most cases your hosting provider should have all of this set up for you, but
you can contact them to check prior to our installation. Our support staff cannot
perform these tasks for you, or make any other changes to the server that may affect
other applications/sites running on it.
Training
Training is scheduled with our Support Technicians via an online GoTo Meeting. Training
is available in one hour sessions. Training time will need to be consumed at the
time of the scheduled GoTo Meeting, unused time cannot be carried over to subsequent
sessions.
Prior to the scheduled training session,you will be asked to provide an overview
of training material that you would like covered in your session. We ask for this
so that you can make the most of your session, and that we are prepared to answer
any and all of your questions.
This is an educational resource only, our Support Technicians cannot assist with
troubleshooting over the phone - this service is available for training purposes
only. We can assist with “how-to” type questions, help you plan the organization
of your site, provide basic information on SEO and site management, etc. Please
use our Help Desk for assistance with troubleshooting software issues.