L3 Support Process

Solutions provides Level-3 (L3) support to our customers via the Zendesk system.

L3 issues require us to provide either a develop release for trial, a hotfix for master, or some other form of relief for our customers. We outline here the basic process here.

General

  • Try to get as much information as possible about the problem.

    • Ask our services and/or support guys first if they have notes or details.
    • Ask the customer in the ticket and submit as Pending
    • Often we’ll need full logs. Refer to ./triage_checklist

  • Try to find a developer with recent context to the ZenPack. git log is your friend.

Hotfixes

  • Requirements:

    • Issue is pervasive: The problem is in both master and develop branches, or may be affecting many customers adversely.

      The problem may be in master and a fix was already provided in develop, in which case a cherry-pick may be in order.

    • Issue is serious: The problem is affecting production both internally and externally. Examples: blocks QA, customers escalate.

  • Provide a dev version to vet through the fix in the customer environment before proceeding with the release of hotfix. If customer allows you to triage on their system, good. Otherwise provide a development egg.

  • High Priority and/or Severity issues that are blocking a customer and can go out without a QA cycle. Make sure you test internally, and get feedback from the customer after deployment.

  • Run through committee of experts/ownership group familiar with the ZenPack. This is always good practice: Someone may know the best solution to the problem that causes least disruption.

Wiki

  • Make sure you update the docs outlining the key fix information.

  • Every hotfix has to be released and published to the Wiki.

  • Wiki Updates: Keep minor releases and remove older hotfix releases. Remember: the numbering scheme for ZenPacks is:

    Major.Minor.Revision

Backlog

  • Only keep ZenDesk tickets that are active.
  • Send back to originator if inactive.