Support and Maintenance Portal

As a customer you can gain a lot from your software supplier but it requires effort from your side. Here an overview of profits (and the effort it requires):

• Make sure your staff is well trained and equipped. The less you need your software supplier the more you can do your self. In most case your own staff will be a lot quicker than the one of your software supplier and your system will run more smoothly. Seeking information (externally) cost time and thus money!
• When you start implementing a product for the first time make sure you hire good consultants that know the product well. Follow them carefully; when they leave your staff has to do it themselves.
• Go to all training sessions and workshops organized by your supplier. When do you know your staff need to be trained?:
  • When you require support from your supplier for functional and/or technical assistance. When you install a new version or upgrade
  • When you migrate to a newer version
• Make sure your supplier is well informed about your plans so he can anticipate on your plans to
  • migrate to a newer version
  • upgrade to the latest version
  • use more of the software functionality
  • train (new) staff
  • get your customizations in his standard product
• Upgrade to the next release as soon as possible because your supplier has a staff that is more familiar with the latest version than with earlier ones. It requires often more time of the supplier to answer questions about older versions. Falling behind the latest version makes it more difficult for the supplier to support your system
• Minimize the amount of customizations required. The more standard your system is, the more easily you can ask your supplier for help. A lack of customizations makes an upgrade or migration easier.
• When you call your supplier make sure you are prepared. Have all data available and your system accessible easily. You do not have to understand the problem well; you have to able to explain the details, steps taken and symptoms clearly.
• Make sure you know who works at the support center of your supplier. Spend time on a good relationship with them.
• Make sure your follow the actions of your supplier by reading about them (newspaper, internet, newsgroups, etc).
• Participate in discussion forum on your supplier’s website if available, it tells you a lot about the various players within the supplier's company.

To reduce the amount of incidents further:

• Have a good functioning system administration in place
  • Backup on a daily basis
  • Periodic check of the quality of those backups
  • System administration procedures implemented and followed up
  • Change control process implemented to track changes in your base system
• Have a stand-alone test system up and running for reducing the risks on the operational system:
  • by testing resolutions, upgrades, individual solutions, dumps, service packs and even feature packs
  • and testing your backup mechanism
• Check on a frequent basis your available disk space
• Check on a frequent basis the performance of your system