How to use the Sitecore Support Portal


Summary

This article provides the following detailed information about how to use the Sitecore Support Portal:

For information about the overall Sitecore Support Process, please review the KB0463549.

Access To Support Portal

Sitecore Support service is offered through the Sitecore Support Portal available at https://support.sitecore.com. New users can be registered at https://www.sitecore.com/account/signup.

If access to the Sitecore Support Portal has not been granted as part of the initial Sitecore on-boarding or training, ensure the prerequisites below are met and contact your Sitecore Account Representative or reach out to us through SupportPortalAccess@sitecore.com. Use this email in case of password reset issues or to remove contacts (for example, former employees) from the list of contacts with access to the Sitecore Support Portal information.

General Prerequisites

To have access to the Support Portal, the following prerequisites must be met:

Access for Experience Platform, Experience Commerce, Managed Cloud, and Content Hub

For the above products, in addition to general access prerequisites, a user has to pass an appropriate Certified Developer or Certified Administrator training and also successfully pass an associated exam. Certified users can create new cases and service requests. Non-certified users can only view and edit those ones created for their company.

For Sitecore Customers with an active support contract who do not have any users with an appropriate software certification, Sitecore highly recommends establishing relationship with a Sitecore Implementation Partner or obtaining appropriate in-house capabilities.

Additionally, access to support cases can be granted to non-certified named support contacts (a single contact for Experience Platform, Experience Commerce, and Content Hub, and up to 8 contacts for Managed Cloud). Such access can be enabled for the purpose of reporting production incidents or requests related to the managed infrastructure, only for users who have full administrative access to the Customer's environment, and is subject to the user(s) carefully following Sitecore Support best practices documented at KB0004553.

Access for Freelancers and Independent Contractors

For users with an appropriate certification who are implementing Sitecore projects in a freelancer or independent contractor capacity, it is possible to provide access to support when the user is able to confirm a relationship with a Sitecore partner or customer either by providing a personal email address with the corresponding company's email domain name or by providing confirmation from the company's representative of the ongoing relationship with this company.

Account Sharing

Every Sitecore user account is assigned to an individual and must not be shared with other people. Accessing the Sitecore Support Portal with another person's account is a violation of Sitecore's security policy.

Create A Support Case

The Support case is designed to communicate issues that are in scope of Sitecore Support team (for example, bug reports, enhancements, feature requests). When creating a support case it is important to follow Support Portal Best Practices documented at KB0004553.
To create a new support case for Sitecore Support, proceed as follows:

  1. Click Support Cases:


  2. Сlick Technical Support.


  3. Click Software and choose one of the supported Sitecore products in the drop-down list. Depending on user's permissions and choice, various options are available. Select the appropriate Sitecore product for the issues related to the product.


  4. Fill out the fields with the relevant data and click Submit.

    Note that all fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required.



    The description of some of the basic fields that might be required:
    • Contract: Select one of the available Sitecore licenses from the drop-down list or add a new one. For more details, review the How to use Sitecore licenses on the Support Portal article. The list is sorted by the account name.
    • Short description: Provide a title of the subject. It must be informative and correspond to the issue Description.
    • Description: Provide a detailed explanation of the issue. Include additional information, for example, release deadlines, affected user groups, or business functions.
    • Impact: The selected Impact refers to the business urgency of the problem.
    • Environment Type: Choose one of the suggested options that is best suited to your affected environment.

    In order to allow Sitecore better accommodate your location and assign the case to the appropriate support team for faster communication, adjust the Preferred Support Team Location attribute as described here.

View Support Cases

After logging in to the Sitecore Support Portal, click on the Support Cases to see a list of the existing support cases. Every support case is linked to a company that the user is associated with when they open a case. This means that:

This list includes cases that have been reported by your colleagues.

The search box in the upper right of the page can be used to search through the cases.

The list typically contains the following columns:

Number: The Sitecore ID of the case. The lower the number is, the older the case is.

Short description: The subject of the case.

Account: The name of the company that the case is registered for.

Contact: The name of a contact person.

Priority: Priority defined by Sitecore Support based on the severity level of the issue.

Updated: The date and time of the last action that was taken on this case. If a solution or question has been added to the case, this action changes the date and time displayed in the case.

Stage: The status of the case. A case can be in one of the following stages:

Edit A Support Case

To edit a support case click Support Cases.

Choose the required case in the list and click on it.

The editing interface consists of the Dialog area on the left and Case details on the right.

Case View

Communication with Sitecore Support is carried out through the messages in the Dialog area.

You can either send Sitecore Support a plain text message or use the HTML editor.

To send a plain text message, use a text box above the Dialog area and click Send.

To use the HTML editor, click on the </> icon (Add Rich Text Note), write your message, and click Post.

Html Notes

The message is posted at the top of the Dialog area.

Export Support Cases

To export support cases associated with your company to pdf, Excel, or csv file:

  1. Click Support Cases.

  2. Then click on the three-line collapsed menu icon 

  3. Select the file format to export data to.
  4. The file will be automatically saved in your default download location.

Check Open Support Cases

To find open support cases which require action on your side:

  1. Click Support Cases.

  2. Then click on the filter icon
  3. Specify the Waiting for Customer stage in conditions and click Run.

To save the applied conditions, click the Save Filter button at the top left of the filter menu, type the Filter name, and click Submit. Later you can quickly access your filter by clicking the Load Filter button.

 

Create A Cloud Service Request

To create a new service request for Managed Cloud, proceed as follows:

  1. Click Create Service Request on the homepage.
  2. Select the appropriate Service Catalog request.
  3. Fill out the fields with the relevant data, and then click Submit.

View Cloud Service Requests

After logging in to the Sitecore Support Portal, click on the View Service Requests section to see a list of the existing service requests of your company. A service request is one of the specific items listed in the Cloud Service Catalog.

Visibility of service requests works like this:



The list includes requests that have been reported by your colleagues.



The list typically contains the following summary information:

Edit A Cloud Service Request

To edit an open service request, click the View Service Requests option.

To access the details of a request in the request list, click on the row for the request:

This displays the service request details:

When editing a service request, you can only add new messages because the request fields are locked.

Important: Communication with the Sitecore Managed Cloud Support happens through the Input field. Be sure to click Send after writing a comment for the current request.



Note: If the comment needs enhanced formatting, please use the </> icon on the top of the field. This allows you to use rich text formatting for any comments (such as the bold italics below):

 

Create A Support Case using Sitecore Cloud Portal

To report an issue to Sitecore Support from the Sitecore Cloud Portal, proceed as follows:

  1. On the menu bar, click Home.

  2. Click Create a support case:


  3. Fill out the fields with the relevant data and click Submit:


    For more details, refer to https://doc.sitecore.com/portal/en/developers/sitecore-cloud-portal/create-a-support-case.html

    Important: when created, you receive a support case notification email message. There are two options to communicate with Sitecore Support on the created case:
    Always follow Support Portal Best Practices documented at KB0004553.

 

Add Attachments

There are different ways to provide files to Sitecore Support depending on the file size. To get acquainted with each approach in detail, see the KB0862874 article.

Subscribe Users To Account Support Cases

To subscribe users to the updates of cases and requested items that belong to the account:

  1. Click on your profile name at the top-right corner and select Notifications:




  2. When clicked, choose Support Ticket Updates (Cases, Requested Items) in the Select Scenario dropdown field:




  3. The Select Account field becomes grayed out.
  4. Click the Add button.

  5. Search and add the email address of a subscriber from the dropdown list in the popup that appears:



  6. The Remove Selected button can be used for subscribers' removal when necessary. A pop-up will appear, asking a user to confirm the removal.

Added emails will receive notifications depending on support cases (tickets) and requested items once they get created or updated.

 

Subscribe Users To Specific Case Update

To subscribe for case updates, add custom emails to the list as follows:

  1. Click Support Cases.

  2. Choose the required case in the list and click on it.
  3. Add the email address of a subscriber in the Watch List field on the right and click Add Email To Watch List.

Added emails will receive notifications when the case gets updated.

Set Preferred Support Team Location

To specify the support team location which is the best fit for you:

  1. Click on your profile name at the top-right corner and select Profile.
  2. Choose an appropriate team from the "Preferred Support Team Location" in the dropdown list.
    The "Preferred Support Team Location" should correspond to the user's physical location.
  3. Click Refresh to see changes.

Troubleshooting Access Issues

If your username and password are not accepted by the Sitecore Support Portal, try the following troubleshooting steps:

If you are able to log in but do not have appropriate permissions, when encountering password reset issues, or if you experience any problems with accessing the Sitecore Support Portal, reach out to us through SupportPortalAccess@sitecore.com.

Useful References

The following references contain additional practical and detailed how-to information about working with the Sitecore Support team: