How to use the Sitecore Support Portal

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  • Summary

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    This article provides detailed information about how to use the Sitecore Support Portal.

    For information about the overall Sitecore Support Process, please review the Sitecore support service description article.

  • Access to Support

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    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:

    1. Access to Support Cases
    2. Read-Only Access
    3. 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 had to pass Sitecore Certified Developer exam.
    • A user must be able to provide a valid Sitecore License associated with an active Sitecore Maintenance Program.

    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.

    My Colleagues 

  • Viewing Support Cases

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    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 ownership of or access to support cases, please contact your regional Sitecore office.

  • Overview Of Existing Support Cases

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    After you log in to the Sitecore Support Portal, click on the Support Cases to see a list of the existing support cases of your company.
    This list includes cases that have been reported by your colleagues.

    Support cases 

    The search box in the upper right of the page can be used to search through the cases.

    The list typically contains the following columns:

    Number: The Sitecore ID of the case. The lower the number, the older the case.

    Short description: The subject of the case.

    Account: The name of the company for which the case is registered.

    Priority: Priority defined by Sitecore Support based on severity level of the issue. For additional information please review the Sitecore Support - Service Level Agreements article.

    Updated: The date and time of the last action that was taken on this case. If a solution or question has been added to the case, this action changes the date and time displayed in the case.

    Stage: The status of the case. A case can be in one of the following states:

    • Waiting for Sitecore: Sitecore Support is working with the case and you can expect to receive a response or decision. An email notification is sent to the originator of the case every time the case is updated. Note: to subscribe any other email to the case updates, please ask the support engineer about that in the case explicitly.
    • Waiting for Customer: Sitecore Support has updated the case with additional information or some follow-up questions. Please see the case description field for details. For example, this state is used when Sitecore Support requests more detailed reproduction scenario or additional data required for investigation
      • Cases in this state will be automatically moved to the Closed state after 3 weeks of inactivity.
      • Sitecore will send periodic email notifications reminding customers about support cases that are waiting for customer action.
      • If you edit a case in this state, the case is moved automatically to the Waiting for Sitecore state within a couple of minutes.
    • Resolved: The present state is assigned by Sitecore Support. It shows that a solution to the issue has been found.
      • Cases in this state will be automatically moved to the Closed state after 1 week of inactivity.
      • If you edit a case in this state, the case is automatically moved to the Waiting for Sitecore state within a couple of minutes.
      • If you click the Accept solution button in the Actions dialog a case will be moved to the Closed state immediately. When clicking on the Reject solution the case is transferred to the Waiting for Sitecore state. 
         Actions
    • Closed:
      • Cases in the Closed state cannot be edited.
      • If a case has been closed and you want to reopen it, you must create a new case. Mention the number of the old case in the description of the new one. A Sitecore engineer will continue working on your problem using the newly-created case.

  • How To Create A Support Case

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    To create a new support issue for Sitecore Support:

    1. Choose the Support cases and click Create new case.
      Create New Case
    2. Fill out the fields with the relevant data, and then click Submit
      Form - Create Case

    There are the following fields:

    • Account: The name of the company for which the case is registered. Implementation Partners should select a customer company when creating cases on their behalf. Review the How to use Sitecore licenses on the Support Portal article for the details of how to associate partner company with the customer account.
    • Contract: Select one of the available Sitecore licenses from the drop-down list or add a new one. Review the How to use Sitecore licenses on the Support Portal article for more details.
    • Contact: The name of the customer with whom to contact (by default a person who created the Support case).
    • Preferred Communication Language: Select the language you prefer to speak in the drop-down list. You can request for assistance in English or Japanese.
    • Preferred Support Team Location: This gives us an indication for where the person reporting the issue is located and allows us to assign the case to the corresponding support team to allow for faster communication.
    • Short description:  A short description explaining the nature of the issue. The issue short description must be informative and correspond to the issue description.
    • Description: A detailed description below on how to reproduce the problem, what symptoms are observed, and so on. If the scenario is complex to document using this plain text formatted field, it is recommended to add a rich text note after the support case has been created to provide additional details (see How To Edit A Support Case section).
    • Web Server OS: The OS of the Web Server machine.
    • Browser: The Internet browser used on the client machine.
    • Affected Environment: Select one of the suggested options, which is best suited to your affected environment.
    • Affected Environment URL: Define the publicly accessible URL of your affected environment (if it's available).
    • Impact: The selected Impact refers to the business urgency of the problem. Please provide additional information in the case description (e.g. release deadlines, affected user groups or business functions). More details about the prioritization of the cases can be found at Sitecore Support - Service Level Agreements.
    • Product:  Select the name of the impacted Sitecore product.
    • Product Version:  Select the version of the product.
    • Module: Select the module which is affected by the problem.
    • Module Version: Choose the version of the module.

    Note: some of the fields like Product, Product Version, Module and Module Version support the wildcard (*) search. For example, to find Commerce-related modules in the Module field dropdown, type *commerce in the search box of the field: 

      Wildcard - demo

    Important: Always follow Support Portal Best Practices documented at Support Portal best practices.

  • How To Edit A Support Case

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    To edit a support case click the Support Cases, select the required case in the list and click on it. 

    The editing interface consists of the Dialog area (on the left) and Case details (on the right).

    Case View

    Communication with Sitecore Support happens through the messages in the Dialog area. 

    You can either send Sitecore Support a plain text message or use HTML editor.

    To send a plain text message use a text box above the Dialog area and press Send.

    To use the HTML editor, click on the </> (Add Rich Text Note), write your message and press the Post button.

    Html Notes

    The message will be posted at the top of the Dialog area. 

  • How To Add Attachments

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    There are different ways to provide files to Sitecore Support depending on the file size. To get acquainted with each approach in detail, please review the How to provide files to Sitecore Support article.

  • Troubleshooting problems

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    #1.

    Problem: My username and password is not accepted by the Sitecore Support Portal.

    Solution: Consider the following situations:

    • If you are a certified Sitecore Developer representing a Sitecore Partner or a Sitecore Customer:

      Check your login at https://profile.sitecore.net. 
      If it does not work, use the Forgot Password functionality.
      If you are still not able to log in to the Sitecore Support Portal, please contact your regional office with the following info: Your email address, your Sitecore Certification, the name of your current employer.

    • If you represent a Sitecore Partner or a Sitecore Customer, but not yet a Sitecore Certified Developer:

      Contact your regional office to pass a certification as a Website .NET Developer for Sitecore.

    • If you are a project leader without Sitecore certification, but want to administer cases opened by your company:

      We are able to offer you a read-only access. Contact your regional Sitecore office and request a project leader read-only access.      

    #2.

    Problem: My web browser does not work very well with your support portal.

    Solution: Here is a list of the currently supported browsers:

    • Internet Explorer / Edge 11+
    • Chrome
    • Firefox
    • Safari

    #3.

    Problem: My web browser is in the list of the supported browsers, but it still does not work.

    Solution: Clear the browser cache, cookies, and temporary internet files. After that, restart the browser. If the problem persists, contact your regional Sitecore office.

  • Additional Information

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Applies to:

Sitecore Support Portal 1+

February 02, 2015
March 23, 2020

Keywords: 

  • Support Portal