Kbase 18010: Why does Technical Support always ask for my serial number?
| Autor |
Progress Software Corporation - Progress |
| Acesso |
Público |
| Publicação |
09/06/1998 |
|
Why does Technical Support always ask for my serial number?
Because it tells us a great deal of information that most customers do
not readily have.
The serial number (provided it is the correct one) tells us:
* The version of Progress being used
* The Progress products purchased or installed (current and
in the past)
* The media Progress was supplied on
* The system hardware Progress was ported to
* The version(s) of operating system the Progress port can be
run on.
This is essential information, as most problems experienced by
customers are dependant on, or unique to, one or more of the
above. In other words, our responses are highly specific to
version, product and platform.
Furthermore, all of the above helps Technical Support refine
searches of the Progress Knowledge base and other sources of
information.
Other reasons that a proper serial number is important include the
following.
BUG BEHAVIOR MAY DEPEND ON A PARTICULAR VERSION OR PLATFORM
The testing of bugs reported by a customer must be carried out
on the same PROGRESS version and platform as where the customer
is experiencing them. Each new release of PROGRESS includes
fixes to several bugs, making it possible that a customer
problem has been resolved in a later release. Or, occasionally
a new bug may arise in a new release. In either case, when a
customer serial number does not accurately reflect the Progress
version and platform, it may lead to Support's inability to
reproduce the problem due to these differences between versions.
This introduces unnecessary delays in what may be an urgent
issue for the customer.
PATCHES MUST BE PROVIDED ON THE PROPER VERSION,
PLATFORM, AND MEDIA
Even if a bug can be reproduced on several versions of the
Progress product or across many platforms, if a patch for
the bug is to be provided to the customer then accurate
Progress version and platform information is essential.
Patches that are provided on the wrong version or platform
will not work. Since patch requests typically arise on
issues of extreme urgency, an erroneous patch due to
incorrect serial number information can have a severe
impact on a customer's business.
SERIAL NUMBERS MAY BE LINKED TO ENTITLEMENT INFORMATION
Progress Technical Support uses serial numbers to determine
whether a customer has purchased a support contract from
Progress directly or has obtained a contract from a reseller,
application partner, or distributor. In some cases, a serial
number may be linked to special information about the customer
and/or their project, as indicated by management, Sales, or
special agreement.
EASY WAYS TO FIND YOUR SERIAL NUMBER
Your product serial number can be determined by:
* Bringing up the Procedure Editor and running the following
statement:
DISPLAY _SERIAL.
* Running "showcfg"
- on Unix, type showcfg (or $DLC/bin/showcfg) at the Unix
command line.
On Unix, the showcfg command can also accept the name of
a particular configuration file as a startup parameter:
$DLC/bin/showcfg $DLC/progress.cfg
- on the PC, run %DLC%/bin/showcfg.exe
- on Windows, run %DLC%/bin/showcfg.exe or double-click the
"Config" icon in the Progress group.
- if necessary, the progress.cfg file can also be viewed in
a text editor to see the serial number information. Be sure
to view the file READ-ONLY. Since the progress.cfg file is
not written in ASCII text, the contents of the file will
appear garbled when viewed in an editor, however it will still
be possible to see the 9-digit serial number(s) for the
product.