I'll throw my feedback in as well in the optimistic hopes of it being taken constructively.
There seems to be a systemic, consistently recurring theme by BMC Support techs to avoid personal contact at all costs. I experience this over and over. Requests for Webex sessions are nearly always deferred with the "just send us your logs and let us get back to you" persistent response. It takes about 5 requests and persistence to get a support tech to actually take a look and see what we're seeing, which is a shame as often a skilled tech can quickly assess the problem or get much further towards an understanding that will lead to a quicker solution by simply doing a 5 minute Webex. Same with a request for a call back. Despite the "best contact method" being populated with phone in the ticket and specific instructions to call, BMC Support often simply replies via email and does not read the contact preference. This is made even more frustrating since the semi-recent change where you can only get a glorified operator on the line if you call in. You can never actually speak to a tech any longer unless the operator gate keeper chooses to allow you the privilege of speaking with someone technical, or after they queue up a work note to the tech to call you.... In which case they nearly always simply reply via email at a later time anyway. >From a customer perspective, it feels like the real intent of BMC Support is >to reduce Webex usage costs, and simply defer the customer long enough for >them to resolve their own issue. This seems to have gotten worse with the >release of 7.6.04. It appears from the outside looking in that Support is >entirely overwhelmed and cannot handle the support volume. I'm more than happy to review our concerns with anyone who would listen, and we have been raising them with our support rep and account rep and are engaged in discussions. Thanks for taking the opportunity to solicit honest customer feedback. Nathan Nathan Aker ITSM Solution Architect McAfee, Inc. From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Richard Copits Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 12:01 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Overlay follies: Selection fields ** Thank you for the explanation....but here's another 2 cents worth from the other side of the aisle.... At least to me it seems that Remedy is consistently released far sooner than it should be. It seems that there is a very pronounced lack of QA testing before release. Witness all of the comments/bugs/fixes, etc. on this list. I could point to many instances of this aside from my personal experience. I've had a lot of experience with BMC support and it's incredibly frustrating and discouraging to always be told to "send the log files" and then find out that after "n" days there's still no progress from the support folks - who again ask for "more logs" and my "ar.sys" file...... then it's like pulling teeth to even get a callback...... The issue of the utility that was released is an example. Either the BMC folks who spec out what should be released with a product to enhance user experience and usability really missed the mark or someone totally missed the boat. The product was released with a "feature" that was incredibly cumbersome to use. It's sort of like saying that a new compiler was released with a "new" feature. The release folks say "we know that this new feature is very complex and powerful, but yes, we did release it with an editor to make the task of using it easier". The customers say "yes, but the editor was a hex editor". The company says we'll release it with a good text editor in the next release....but it DOES have an editor..... Anyway....just some things to chat with the product release and QA folks about........ From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Mueller, Doug Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 2:34 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Overlay follies: Selection fields ** I just thought I would share a few personal thoughts on this note. First, I am the last person to say that we are perfect. There are always going to be cases where something is missed or where an error is made. We attempt to minimize those situations, but we will never be able to eliminate all possible errors. Yes, there are times when it is a bit embarrassing to have to admit that an error that was pretty obvious was made. When these errors show up, we work to correct them as aggressively as possible. Second, in any product, or even feature of a product, there are always more things that you could have done. More capability. More bells and whistles. Better performance. More scale. .... If that was not true, no product would ever need a 2.0 release because everything would be perfect the first time. In this case, there is no product defect. The product works. You can overlay things. They overlay correctly. The steps to perform the overlay are correctly documented, and you can get the result you were looking for and that was designed for. The problem is that use cases mean that there is a lot of work to do and a lot of steps to do that work. And, it would be nice if there were fewer steps involved. So, accelerators to make it faster would be useful. There was a utility developed that could offer that acceleration. The product supports the addition of these kinds of additions between release cycles - a FEATURE of the product to allow extension without re-releasing the product. A developer took advantage of the feature to allow extension and produced a utility that offered the acceleration that was desired. This was done at the time the customers were having difficulty with the number of steps rather than waiting for a future release. At the same time, there is work under investigation to see whether the condition that required the operation to do many overlays could be completely avoided and become unnecessary to make the operation even easier and even less impactful in the future. There is a good idea of how to accomplish that enhancement and it is likely to make a future release to further simplify operation of the system. So, a short term assist immediately and work on a long term enhancement to further improve interaction. In summary, the product was not "unfinished" in this case. It was a fully finished set of capabilities and they did in fact work as documented and provided the capability desired. "Customer issues" were comments that it was harder than they would like and are there ways to make it easier. A reaction was to provide a utility that could be included within the product using features of the product designed to allow for those additions and for API interaction with the system so that improvement could be made for customers immediately. So, I would humbly disagree with your assessment about bragging. Personally, I tend not to brag about the capabilities (I may be proud of them and excited that they help customers but I tend not to brag about them - although I do tend to brag about the team and the overall job they do). But if I was to want to brag.... What happened in this case is worthy of bragging. A significant and very powerful feature was provided that will fundamentally alter how customization is done and how customers can preserve customization while ALSO getting updates to the same areas from BMC - something competing products have not been able to accomplish. The feature worked correctly even for cases where a change caused and required ripple effects. Because there were more steps involved than is desired, a quick response to automate the majority of the work needed was provided and using the designed capability of the infrastructure to allow for programmatic access and to allow for plugins to the development environment, that capability could be safely supplied to the customer within days. The customer issue also triggered an internal discussion about potential long term enhancements to minimize the complexity due to this operation and allow it to be much simpler and less impactful going forward. I call this worth bragging about. Every time, every day of the week. At the same time, I will note that there was NO bragging from the person who posted the utility. They simply offered the capability to help customers who would like to use it. It was offered to address issues that customers had described to help with situations where we could offer assistance. The only bragging from BMC is indirectly in this note from me that is my personal opinion and response to the note posted. And really, it is just stating that what was done is what we hope we do and intend to do with any issue that customers bring up - treat them seriously and help if we can. We don't always achieve that goal, but it is the goal. Yes, there are other cases where a feature doesn't work or where we have missed things where the response would not be something worth bragging about - and while you should (OK, yes should we sometimes don't respond as well as desired every time) see us responding and not claiming that it is a good thing - you will not see us touting this as a good thing. But that is not this case. To everyone on the list. Please keep posting issues, requests, concerns - in this forum or the Developer Community or through support calls or through any other mechanism you desire. We are always happy to hear feedback and we always strive to incorporate that feedback in future releases. We cannot always include it in the immediate upcoming release. We can sometimes offer interim solutions. Sometimes, we cannot do anything but take the request for later. But, we are always willing to hear the comments/feedback. Please keep make sure we are held to the highest standards and challenge us to reach and maintain them when we fall below the bar. Yes, that has happened more recently than we are comfortable with and you should see improvement. I would argue that this case is actually an example of some of the improvement and a restoration of more aggressive response to issues that occur. Just my two cents, Doug Mueller From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of AR Admin Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 12:01 PM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG<mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG> Subject: Re: Overlay follies: Selection fields ** What!? BMC is encouraging a trend of releasing unfinished product and patch it with "unsupported" utilities to address "customer issues"? One - I'd call this more of a software problem than a customer issue. And two - I woldn't brag too much about that fact. > Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:29:01 -0600 > From: david_eas...@bmc.com<mailto:david_eas...@bmc.com> > Subject: Re: Overlay follies: Selection fields > To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG<mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG> > > It will be. We wanted to make the capability available between releases > rather than forcing folks to wait until the next AR System release to get the > functionality. > > It's a trend we're trying to encourage - where applicable, release small > utilities between releases to address customer issues more expediently. Then > fold those utilities (or the functionality they provide) into future releases. > > I assume the community would have a positive reaction to getting resolutions > more quickly... > > -David J. Easter > Manager of Product Management, Remedy Platform > BMC Software, Inc. > > The opinions, statements, and/or suggested courses of action expressed in > this E-mail do not necessarily reflect those of BMC Software, Inc. My > voluntary participation in this forum is not intended to convey a role as a > spokesperson, liaison or public relations representative for BMC Software, > Inc. > -----Original Message----- > From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) > [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Matt Reinfeldt > Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 8:39 AM > To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG<mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG> > Subject: Re: Overlay follies: Selection fields > > Ashish, > > Thank you! Looks like a great add-on that really should be a core component > of the Dev Studio... ;-) > > Matt > > -----Original Message----- > From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) > [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Ashish Thakur > Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 9:28 AM > To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG<mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG> > Subject: Re: Overlay follies: Selection fields > > Hi Daniel, > You can try new utility posted on BMCDN that can create overlay of all views > on a click. > > https://communities.bmc.com/communities/docs/DOC-17903 > > Regards, > Ashish Thakur > > _______________________________________________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at > www.arslist.org<http://www.arslist.org> attend wwrug12 > www.wwrug12.com<http://www.wwrug12.com> ARSList: "Where the Answers Are" > > _______________________________________________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at > www.arslist.org<http://www.arslist.org> > attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com<http://www.wwrug12.com> ARSList: "Where the > Answers Are" > > _______________________________________________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at > www.arslist.org<http://www.arslist.org> > attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com<http://www.wwrug12.com> ARSList: "Where the > Answers Are" _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com<http://www.wwrug.com> ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com<http://www.wwrug.com> ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ ________________________________ Portions of this message may be confidential under an exemption to Ohio's public records law or under a legal privilege. 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