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 with an active Sitecore Maintenance Program 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.net.

To log in, users should use the same e-mail and password as used for https://profile.sitecore.net.

Full access: Prerequisites

To be granted access to create requests on the Support Portal, the following prerequisites must be met:

A user must be representing an active Sitecore Partner or Sitecore Customer.
A user must have an account registered at https://profile.sitecore.net web site.
A user must have passed either a Sitecore Experience Solution Developer or Sitecore Website .NET Developer certification exam. A few legacy certification types that are no longer provided to new users are also valid for getting support access.
A user must be able to provide a valid Sitecore License ID associated with an active Sitecore Maintenance Program.

Full access: Exceptions

For Sitecore Customers who do not have any users with appropriate Sitecore Developer certifications, it is highly recommended to contact Sitecore Support with the assistance of the Sitecore Implementation Partner.

If this is not possible, full access to support can be granted to non-certified users in the following cases:

Sitecore Customer has a valid Sitecore Cloud contract. Such access is subject to a limit of a single user per Customer and can only be used for raising service requests associated with the corresponding Sitecore Cloud Service.
Sitecore Customer has a valid Sitecore Commerce Standalone contract.
Sitecore Customer has a valid Standard or 24x7 Premium Support contract. Temporary full access can be granted to a single user who scheduled a Sitecore certification exam on a future date and has not completed it yet.
Sitecore Customer has a valid 24x7 Premium Support contract. Non-certified users can escalate critical production issues by directly calling a dedicated 24-hour Sitecore Support Hotline number.

Read-only access: Prerequisites

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

How to get access

If access to the Sitecore Support Portal has not been granted as part of the initial Sitecore on-boarding or training process, ensure above prerequisites are met and contact your Sitecore Sales Representative or your regional Sitecore office.

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.

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 or App Center.
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 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 non-supported 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 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.

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 in case 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 tickets.

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 tickets 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: https://kb.sitecore.net/articles/583182.

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.net.

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.net/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:

Description

Access to Support

Scope of Support

Supported Products and Support Lifecycle

Support Programs and Service Level Agreements

Useful References

additional sources of help