Sitecore Support Program overview

Purpose

This article describes the eligibility, scope, service levels, and other details of Sitecore's support offering.

Overview

Sitecore's core support offerings consist of two levels of support service: Standard Support and 24x7 Premium Support. These support services provide increasing levels of responsiveness, from three business days for low priority problems, down to as little as one hour for critical issues, and varying hours of coverage.

Access to Sitecore support is typically provided to a Sitecore Solution Partner on the customer's behalf. This ensures that experienced and knowledgeable support personnel are available to provide direct support for the solution.

Customers with Sitecore Certified Developers or trained Content Hub personnel and with an active Sitecore Software Subscription are also provided access to Sitecore support.

In addition to these support services, Sitecore provides a number of resources for self-help as well as access to professional expert services, such as training, technical consulting, and business optimization services. Further details of these resources can be found in the Additional Sources of Help section of this document.

Access to Sitecore Support is offered through the Sitecore Support Portal available at https://support.sitecore.com. To log in, users should use the same email and password as used for https://profile.sitecore.net. If access to the Sitecore Support Portal has not been granted as part of the initial Sitecore on-boarding or training, ensure the prerequisites below are met and contact your Sitecore Sales Representative or your regional Sitecore office.

General Prerequisites

To have access to the Support Portal the following prerequisites need to be met:

A user must represent an active Sitecore Customer, Sitecore Partner, or a Sitecore Affiliate company.
A user must have an account registered at https://profile.sitecore.net web site.
A user account must be registered for a specific named individual. Generic or shared user accounts are not allowed.
User account must be registered using the business email address. Personal email addresses such as @gmail.com or @yahoo.com are generally not allowed.

Access to Support Cases

Sitecore Support portal users with appropriate permissions are able to create support cases for supported Sitecore products.

For Sitecore Experience Platform, Sitecore Experience Commerce, Sitecore Managed Cloud, and Sitecore Content Hub software, in addition to general access pre-requisites, a user has to pass an appropriate Certified Developer or Certified Administrator training and also successfully pass an associated exam. A user must additionally be named as one of the support contacts. Up to 8 support contacts can be assigned per Customer.

For Sitecore E-Learning Portal and Sitecore Developer Collection software, only general access prerequisites must be met.

Access to Support Cases - Exceptions

For Sitecore Customers with an active support contract who do not have any users with appropriate software certification, we highly recommended establishing relationship with the Sitecore Implementation Partner or to obtaining appropriate in-house capabilities.

If such a setup is not available, access to support cases can be granted to a single named customer representative for the purpose of reporting production incidents. Such an exception is only possible for users who have full administrative access to the Customer's environment and is subject to the user carefully following Sitecore Support best practices documented at KB004553.

Access for Freelancers and Independent Contractors

For users with appropriate certification who are implementing Sitecore projects in a freelancer or independent contractor capacity, it is possible to provide access to support when the user is able to confirm a relationship with a Sitecore partner or customer either by providing personal an email address with the corresponding company's email domain name or by providing confirmation from the company's representative of the ongoing relationship with this company.

Access to Sitecore Managed Cloud Services

Refer to the following article for details regarding the access to Sitecore Managed Cloud Services: KB654910.

Read-Only Access

For users without the valid Sitecore certification but those who want to track the status of their colleagues' support cases or cloud requests, read-only access can be granted upon request.

Account Sharing

Every Sitecore user account is assigned to an individual and must not be shared with other people. Accessing the Sitecore Support Portal with another person's account is a violation of Sitecore's security policy.

On the Sitecore Support Portal, every support case is linked to a company that the user is associated with when they open a case.

For access to support cases, this means:

All users from a company can see and modify all cases associated with the company.
All users from the company also have access to support cases that were registered by an Implementation Partner for that company.
When a user is associated with a new company, they lose access to old support cases. Related cases remain accessible only to the original company's users.

If you have issues with the ownership of or access to support cases, please contact your Sitecore Account Representative.

Sitecore defines support as the investigation and resolution of difficulties with using Sitecore products, documentation, and services. Support does not include consulting services or training of any kind.

In Scope

The following types of issues are defined as in scope for support:

Errors or unexpected behavior in Sitecore's supported products during installation, development, and production.
Errors or omissions in product documentation.
Unavailability or unexpected behavior of Sitecore software services such as the Sitecore Managed Cloud, App Center, or Content Hub.
Service requests related to Sitecore software services.

Out of Scope

The following are examples of questions that are not included in the definition of Sitecore support:

Inquiries regarding implementation advice (such as sizing information, installation assistance, upgrade planning), questions about best practices or internal software architecture, errors resulting from unsupported or undocumented installation or upgrade scenarios, and integration with other software.
Questions relating to the design, configuration, or customization of custom applications built using Sitecore products.
Questions relating to any configuration not described in Sitecore product documentation.
Any questions or issues due to incomplete development by a Sitecore Implementation Partner or Customer.
Any inquiry relating to administration or optimization, such as performance tuning, optimizing databases, deployment scenarios, archiving, backup and recovery, and any other third-party applications.
Any training questions including product use, best practices, and how-to questions.
Any inquiries relating to business processes or application logic of applications built using Sitecore's products.
Any questions relating to future and non-released products, preview versions of Sitecore products, and shared source modules.
Any queries that require analysis or modifications of the .NET code written in programming languages different from Microsoft Visual C#.

For questions of this nature, we provide a number of resources to support our partners and customers. See the Additional Sources of Help section later in this document.

In addition, questions of the following nature are not included in the definition of Sitecore support:

Any inquiries relating to ETA's for Sitecore products, Feature and Maintenance Updates, Service Packs, or timelines for introducing support for not yet supported technology platforms.
Any inquiries relating to access to Sitecore resources, source code, or updating Sitecore account information.
Any questions relating to Sitecore license details, marketing, or sales-oriented questions.

For questions of this nature, contact your Sitecore Sales Representative or your regional Sitecore office.

Sitecore JavaScript Services (JSS) Support

The following JSS products are fully supported:

Server-side JSS components
Versions of Client-side JSS NPM packages that were officially released on NPM starting from 11.0.0.

Note that the Sitecore general Scope of support applies to the JSS products as well.

The JSS application samples are supported in a limited manner. They were designed as examples of a JSS application, and not as ready-for-production code. Developers are expected to extend and customize those examples according to their requirements. Bug reports and feature requests for the samples can be submitted. Immediate fixes, Implementation assistance, or advice for the Examples are not provided.

Note that there are community-based channels where the assistance with the JSS products can be obtained. Also pull requests and issues on GitHub can be submitted.

More information can be obtained here: https://jss.sitecore.com/help

To help customers manage this end-of-life transition and understand the role that Sitecore can play in helping customers use the latest Sitecore platforms and technologies, Sitecore utilizes three support phases as part of the Sitecore Support Lifecycle applicable to all commercial Sitecore products.

Mainstream Support Phase

These are the latest products or product versions eligible for the full scope of support services provided by Sitecore.

Extended Support Phase

These are older products or product versions that are no longer eligible to be Mainstream Support products. Ideally, customers will migrate to a newer product version before a product goes into Extended Support. However, as this is not always possible, Sitecore provides Extended Support as a solution to making sure your Sitecore products remain secure and supported on the condition of production issues.

Sustaining Support Phase

These are products or product versions that are no longer eligible to be Extended Support products. In rare situations when customers are not able to migrate to the latest product versions before the products are no longer eligible to be Extended Support products, Sitecore provides Sustaining Support as a stop-gap solution for getting limited assistance with production issues and access to online documentation.

Up-to-date details of which versions of a particular product are in support can be found at any time in KB641167.

Standard Support Standard Support is designed to help Sitecore Certified Developers to stay on track with projects and production environment support commitments. Standard Support provides online portal assistance only, where developers can create, update, and track support cases.

The hours of operation for Standard Support are normal business hours as defined in the location where the Sitecore license was purchased.

The expected maximum response time for Standard Support cases varies from one to three business days depending on the issue severity.

Sitecore provides support in the English language globally, and in Japanese for customers located in Japan.

24x7 Premium Support

24x7 Premium Support is intended for customers that need enhanced response time for regular support issues, as well as round-the-clock support for business-critical situations.

24x7 Premium Support is available as an optional extra service to all Sitecore customers on the Sitecore Maintenance Program.

The hours of operation for 24x7 Premium Support for Critical and High severity issues are 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

SLA

For every support issue and depending on the Support Program associated with the end customer, Sitecore determines the appropriate severity level and accompanies it with expected response times and resolution standards.

Full details about Sitecore severity definitions, response times, resolutions, and business hours can be found at the following location: KB583182.

The following references contain additional practical and detailed how-to information about working with the Sitecore Support team:

In addition to the Support Portal, Sitecore provides a range of online resources, training, and services. This section outlines some of those resources and provides guidance for locating further information.

Sitecore Documentation Library

Sitecore's online documentation includes technical documentation, tool downloads, code snippets, reference documents, FAQs, and articles. Documents cover a range of website construction levels and topics, API details, troubleshooting techniques, relevant conceptual articles, tutorials, external integration examples, training materials, and more. Access the Sitecore Documentation Library at https://dev.sitecore.net and https://doc.sitecore.com and https://docs.stylelabs.com.

Sitecore Knowledge Base

The Sitecore Knowledge Base site provides access to multiple documented known issues, how-to articles, and security bulletins published by Sitecore. Metadata associated with articles and smart search capabilities allow visitors to find the latest relevant information easily. Access the Sitecore Knowledge Base at https://kb.sitecore.net.

Sitecore Training

Sitecore training addresses the learning needs of all types of Sitecore users, from developers and administrators, to business users and marketers.

We have training centers around the world where we run regular public courses. We also provide private, on-site training for customers and partners.

Course availability and delivery options vary from region-to-region. Please contact your local Sitecore office for details of available courses, or check training dates on the Sitecore website – www.sitecore.com/training –where you can also register to attend courses.

Professional Consulting Services

Sitecore's Professional Consulting Services are designed to provide Sitecore Solution Partners with deep technical skills and experience to support project success.

Designed to work with project teams, these services are focused on providing implementation guidance and technical assistance via a series of reviews, checkpoints, and practical services.

Professional Consulting Services are available for all Sitecore Solution Partners but can be especially relevant for organizations new to working with Sitecore. Many of these services built on the knowledge gained from Sitecore Developer Training by communicating best practices and real-world knowledge of implementing Sitecore early in the partner relationship, enabling success from your very first project.

For further details, speak to your local Sitecore representative.

Business Optimization Consulting Services

Sitecore's Business Optimization Consulting Services focus on enabling partners to maximize the return on investment for their customers by enabling them to generate significant, quantifiable business value using the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform.

Rather than focusing on the technical aspects of implementing and using the Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform, Sitecore Business Optimization Services focus on establishing the digital maturity of the customer organization, identifying where the customer would like to be and then developing practical plans for achieving that vision.

For further details, please speak to your local Sitecore representative.

Sitecore Community Forum, Sitecore Blogs, and More

The Sitecore Community Forum is an active online community of Sitecore users. This forum offers a wealth of shared experiences among the many Sitecore certified developers worldwide, with fresh and historical insight available 24x7. Access the Sitecore Community Forum through https://community.sitecore.net/.

There are multiple Sitecore-related blogs and other information resources available on the web and driven by the Sitecore community. Some of the popular locations include technical Sitecore blogs at www.sitecore.net, as well as the community-driven information at stackoverflow.com:

For information relating to Sitecore's use of data, refer to our Privacy Policy. For further information relating to the use of Sitecore Support Portal, refer to our Terms of Use.

Description

Access to Support

Viewing Support Cases

Scope of Support

Supported Products and Support Lifecycle

Support Programs and Service Level Agreements

Useful References

additional sources of help

Privacy