PTC, Inc. Managing your Technical Support Cases

PTC, Inc. Managing your Technical Support Cases

Contents Managing your PTC Technical Support Cases... 2 Opening a Technical Support Case... 2 Viewing your Technical Support Case... 6 Uploading Files to your Case... 6 Case Management Options... 7 Tracking an Existing Case... 8 Using the Case Tracker... 9 1 P a g e

Managing your PTC Technical Support Cases If you weren t able to find answers in our Support Knowledgebase, you can engage with PTC Technical Support Engineers to either to ask a product or service-related question by opening a case with Technical Support using our Case Logger. To track previously-opened cases by you or by a colleague at your company, you use our Case Tracker to look up and report on Technical Support case histories. Find links to the Case Logger and Case Tracker on your Home tab inside the esupport Portal: The following sections describe how to open and track your technical support cases at PTC. Opening a Technical Support Case For technical questions on any PTC product of any type or severity, the most efficient way to interact with PTC Technical Support to get the information you need is by opening a case with our Case Logger. In this way, you are sending Technical Support the critical information they need to begin working on your problem or question. To open a case, click the Open a Support Case in the esupport Tools Portlet inside the Home tab: 2 P a g e

The Case Logger displays. You can now begin entering details about your questions or problem. Brief Description of your Issue: In 225 characters or less, describe the problem that you are having. Include error messages or your question. For instance how to create a surface sweep in Creo or NullPointerException when deleting a Principal in Windchill Entitlement Details and Severity: To receive technical support, you must currently have an active support maintenance contract with PTC and an active Software Contract Number (SCN), which you 3 P a g e

need to enter. Select the product that you need assistance with, and also, indicate how critical this particular issue is for you according to the following severity levels: o o o o Severity 3 General Question Low Impact Business is being slightly impacted or the customer has a general question about a PTC product or service. Usually a workaround is available or the customer is able to work beyond the issue. Severity 2 Business Moderately Impacted Business is being impacted and a solution to the problem must be found quickly. Business schedules are at increased risk. Technical Support works with customer to reach a resolution or alternate technique. Severity 1 Business Critically Impacted Business is being severely impacted. Key functions are not working, business schedules are being severely impacted, or a limited number of users cannot use the software at all. There is no feasible workaround available. Severity 0 Enterprise System Down A production enterprise system is down. This is the most serious severity for a Case and generally requires 24x7 availability of a customer contact. PTC Technical Support and R&D will work the issue 24x7 until the issue is resolved or the severity is lowered. Product Details: Select the release and date code of the product related to the case you are opening. Then, select the particular technical area related to your software question or product helps route your case to the most skilled Technical Support Engineer (TSE) in the best geography. Additional Information: ITAR option: If you are a customer in the United States and your case requires that it be resolved within the United States by a TSE with US citizenship, select the ITAR checkbox to ensure proper handling of your case. Non-disclosure Agreement option: If your company already has a non-disclosure (NDA) agreement on file with PTC and this particular case must be handled in accordance with that agreement, please check this box. Important: An NDA should already be on file between your company and PTC. Checking this box does not automatically open a NDA between PTC and your company. If you are not aware of a NDA agreement on file, please leave this box unchecked, as checking it may cause a delay in the proper routing of your case. Contact Details button: Change your contact phone number, language and country if it s different from what is listed in your My Account profile so that the Technical Support Engineers can communicate with you more appropriately. 4 P a g e

Once you enter the details of your problem or question, click Next. If the Case Logger finds an article that it thinks might resolve your problem or question, the Suggested Articles for your Issue window displays. Click the article buttons to display a preview of the article that the Case Logger selected for you. If a particular article answers your question or solves your problem, choose the button This Solution Resolves My Issue, to close the Case Logger. No case will be opened. If none of the articles displayed solve your issue, choose Solution Did Not Help. I Need to Open a Case. Your case is created and the Case Viewer displays with the details of your case. If perhaps the list of articles that the Case Logger displayed for you seems close to what you might be looking for, you can choose the I Want to Change the Description of My Issue to return to the Case Logger where you can rephrase your text in the Short Description field, which is what the Case Logger uses to query the knowledge base to find the displayed articles. If the Case Logger doesn t find relevant articles in the knowledge base that may resolve your problem, this step is skipped, and you are taken directly to the Case Viewer, where the details of your technical support case display. 5 P a g e

Viewing your Technical Support Case If the articles that the Case Logger found for you didn t resolve your issue, your case is immediately opened, indicated when the Case Viewer displays. Once your case is opened, the Case Viewer displays your case number at the top of the page and all of your case details are organized into (non-movable) portlets. Uploading Files to your Case If you need to attach files or other data to your case file to help the TSE resolve your issue, select the Upload Attachment button to open the Upload Data window, then choose the Browse button to find and select the files to add to your case file. Important! Files larger than 10MB and smaller than 500MB need to be uploaded to your case via FTP. Refer to our Customer Service Guide for detailed instructions and other options for sending your case attachments to PTC 6 P a g e

Technical Support. Case Management Options In addition to uploading files, you have several other options by which you can manage your case: Add Comments button Choose this button to add comments or additional information about your case that can potentially help the TSE to resolve your issue. All comments, yours and the TSEs, appear at the bottom of the page under Case History. Close Case button If your issue has been resolved to your satisfaction, you can choose the Close Case button to close your case. A TSE can also close the case upon your approval as well. Change Severity button Choose this button to change the severity level of your issue if it has increased or decreased. Escalate Case button Choose the Escalate Case button to notify Technical Support management if you feel that your case is not being handled appropriately or efficiently enough. More: Log A Case button Choose this button to open a new Technical Support case. More: View Another Case Choose this button to view another case in the Case Viewer. You must first 7 P a g e

know the case number to view. More: Refresh Case Details Choose this button to refresh the Case Viewer details in the event that updates have been made to your case but aren t yet reflected in your Case Viewer page. More: Subscribe to this Case Choose this button to receive email notifications when updates to this case have been made by a TSE or by you. Additionally, each box (portlet) that displays an edit icon ( icon to enter new or edit existing information. ) in the right-side corner can be edited. Click the edit Clicking the help icon ( ) in the right-side corner of the portlet pops open online help that describes the features or provides you with additional details about the particular portlet. Tracking an Existing Case If you or someone at your company opened a case recently, or over six (6) months ago, you can find that particular case using the esupport Portal s Case Tracker. To track an existing case, opened by you or by someone at your company, click the Track an Existing Case in the esupport Tools portlet inside the Home tab: The Case Tracker displays. The following sections describe how to track and report on previously opened cases. 8 P a g e

Using the Case Tracker The Case Tracker lets you search for existing cases that you or someone at your company have opened either by number or by other criteria such as the customer-defined Customer Tracking Number, the subject of the case, by product or by status (open, closed, both). To find cases that you opened within the past six (6) months, make active the Cases opened by <Your Name> tab and select from the available filtering options to help narrow your search. Results display below the Filter Results area, and you have the option to click the case number to open the case in the Case Viewer, click More Information to display a snapshot of the details associated with the case, or click the Download CSV file to export all of the cases in the list to a CSV file. To find cases that you opened within any time period, make active the Advanced tab and select from the available filtering options to help narrow your search. Feedback If you would like to share feedback about your experiences using our esupport Portal, please feel free to email us at esupportfeedback@ptc.com or you may submit your feedback through our esupport Portal survey. I would add an extra paragraph to notify customers that they can subscribe to cases in the subscription tool *** 9 P a g e