Sitecore support service description

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 of 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 e-mail 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 process, 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.
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 levels

On Support Portal, the following levels of access can be provided:

Access to Support Cases
Read-Only Access
Access to Cloud Services

Access to Support Cases

Gives a possibility to create and edit cases on the Support Portal. Also, gives permissions to see the Cloud Requests.

Following prerequisites must be met:

A user has to pass Sitecore Certified Developer exam. Alternatively, a user can be provided a Content Hub support contact role.
A user must be able to provide a valid Sitecore License associated with an active Sitecore Software Subscription.

Read-Only Access

For users without the valid Sitecore certification but who want to track the status of their colleagues' support cases, read-only access can be granted upon request. Users with that type of access can see Cloud Requests as well.

Access to Cloud Services

Please refer to the following article for details regarding the access to Cloud Services: /articles/235927

Access to Support Cases - Exceptions

For Sitecore Customers with an active Support contract valid who do not have any users with appropriate Sitecore Developer certification, it is highly recommended to establish relationship with the Sitecore Implementation Partner and/or to obtain in-house Sitecore Certified Developer capabilities.

If such a setup is temporary not available, access to support cases can be granted to a single non-certified customer representative. Such an exception is only possible for users who have full administrative access to the Customer's Sitecore environment and is a subject to the user carefully following Sitecore Support Best practices documented at https://kb.sitecore.net/articles/004553.

For Certified Developers who are implementing Sitecore projects in a freelancer or independent contractor capacity, it is possible to provide access to support if a Certified Developer is able to confirm their relationship with a specific Sitecore partner or customer in one of the following ways:

If a Certified Developer is able to provide personal email address with the corresponding company's email domain name.
If a Certified Developer is able to provide confirmation from the company's representative of the ongoing relationship with this company.

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.

How to see other contacts from the same company having access to Support Portal

On the Support Portal homepage menu, click My Colleagues, as shown in figure below.

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

Regarding 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 problems with the ownership of or access to support cases, please contact your regional Sitecore office.

Sitecore defines support as the investigation and resolution of difficulties with 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, errors resulting from unsupported or undocumented installation or upgrade scenarios, best practices, 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 Solution 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 the Microsoft Visual C#.

For questions of this nature, we provide a number of resources to support our partners and customers. Please 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 the 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, please contact your Sitecore Sales Representative or your regional Sitecore office.

Sitecore JavaScript Services (JSS) support

Please note that only Server-side JSS components are supported by Sitecore via normal support channels. Client-side JavaScript JSS components are open source, and therefore not supported by Sitecore Support. More information regarding the Client-side JSS components support can be found here:
https://jss.sitecore.com/help

Also, taking into account the JSS framework flexibility and customizability, it is important to draw the border between Sitecore-produced parts and the custom parts of the solutions, that were built using JSS. Because of that, we support only scenarios, that can be reproduced using the basic JSS project (produced by JSS CLI) and a clean Sitecore XP instance with the installed JSS package.

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 this Knowledge Base article: https://kb.sitecore.net/articles/641167.

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 (Sitecore Experience Platform) and KB541741 (Sitecore Content Hub).

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 build 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, please 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, please refer to our Privacy Policy. For further information relating to use of Sitecore Support Portal, please 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