Guidelines For Requesting Help
“Over the years of providing help for our clients and partners around the globe, I’ve found the #1 way to provide help is to follow these guidelines when submitting a request for help. If this is the first time you’ve asked for help, then please review carefully and make sure that the following holds true each and every time you ask me, or my team of ‘X-ers’ standing by to give help, and support you.”
Thanks, Dimi
Give us some context, and make it clear.
- Explain what you are trying to achieve.
- Be specific and provide at least one example.
- Outline your architecture setup and if relevant, things like database/OS vendors helps us understand your environment.
Tell us about the impact of this issue, and the environment(s) affected.
- Outage, development delay, data corruption.
- Production, Staging, Test, Development.
Do not make the assumption that the person reviewing your request knows your setup or company business.
Provided all relevant files.
Tell us how to reproduce your issue, or detail the steps to replicate.
- If at all possible, provide a sample repository cut down to just the issue at hand.
- Be specific about the steps to reproduce – make it easy to follow.
Detail examples of what you see, versus what you expect to see.
- If you just say something “isn’t working”, we will not know what you actually mean.
- Provide screenshots or sample data.
Yes, you can email us directly for help if you prefer
- Only use the email address: help@tomorrowx.dev
- There is no need to cc anyone else within TomorrowX. It will make no difference.
- In the message body text, be sure to include Impact & Urgency levels so we can handle and prioritise your request appropriately.
| Impact level | Impact description | Urgency level text | Urgency level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Impact: Severity 1 | Extensive/Widespread | Urgency: Urgent | 1 |
| Impact: Severity 2 | Significant / Large | Urgency: High | 2 |
| Impact: Severity 3 | Moderate / Limited | Urgency: Medium | 3 |
| Impact: Severity 4 | Urgency: Low | Urgency: Low | 4 |
For example:
==============
Dear TomorrowX Help,
Please help…
Impact: Severity 1
Urgency: Medium
This is my issue…
==============
==============
Dear TomorrowX Help,
Please help…
Impact: Severity 4
Urgency: Low
This is my issue…
==============
==============
Dear TomorrowX Help,
Please help…
Impact: Severity 2
Urgency: High
This is my issue…
==============
After you’ve submitted a support request
- Respond to requests for additional information in a timely manner.
- Let us know if you resolve the problem by yourself before we start working on it
High impact and urgent issues.
- Make yourself available for follow up questions on the phone at short notice 24/7.
- If we are unable to reach you by phone, we will downgrade the request priority.
and finally…
- As long as you have provided sufficient context, we have internal processes to escalate.
- There’s no need to call us 5 minutes after you’ve submitted your request to check we’ve got it. Don’t worry, we have, and we’re on it!
