• Replies 6 replies
  • Subscribers 436 subscribers
  • Views 5162 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related

Getting started and finding help?

Paul

Hi,

I had an interesting discussion on twitter with an Agency yesterday who didn't use our technology, but employed some Freelance translators who did.  The Agency gets support questions from their translators and this takes time out of their busy routines even though they don't know how to answer the questions anyway.  So knowing where to find help is something we want everyone to know.

I think SDL provides a phenomenal amount of support and users are able to get help with or without a support contract in many places.  This blog article, SDL Sustenance, provides a good overview so I won't repeat it here and there are also various facebook sites set up as unofficial help resources, many of which we also participate in.

So my question is why do people still think you can't get help or support for SDL products?  For me this very statement is a source of frustration when I think about how much we do.  We even email our userbase on a regular basis with information on the resources available and I can only think it's because people don't even look at what they have already been given.   Or maybe it's just because it's easier to ask the people they work with on a daily basis and this is very often the Project Managers in an Agency.

What's your view on this and what could we do that would make it more obvious so you don't ask in all the places that really can't help you at all!

For all the Project Managers out there who might be reading this I'd recommend you keep a note of the link to this community... it could be the easiest solution you'll ever have!

Paul Filkin | RWS Group

________________________
Design your own training!
You've done the courses and still need to go a little further, or still not clear? 
Tell us what you need in our Community Solutions Hub

Rate translation
×
Suggest better translation
×
Moderator UI
×
  • Get AI Suggestion
Parents

  • I had a problem yesterday and posted it on ProZ forum because I could not find any way to log a support case.

    Before posting on ProZ I spent a long case reading the entire SP2 Installation guide, and many articles in the KB, and tried as many options as I could think of to reach a support service.  I remember reading about the "SDL Community" while looking for a solution. However, the name chosen does not really give the idea of a support resource.

    When I clicked on "support" on  I only received an answer to buy a "Premium Software Maintenance Agreement". The link for the normal Support is lacking there. I think that the correct way is to provide a link called "support" where the user can report any bugs and failures experienced.

    My post remained unanswered for about 20 hours until now. I will now see if I will have more luck with posting in the SDL Community - but where exactly?? Once again, the names of the link do not suggest where should I post an apparent Trados Studio 2014 SP2 malfunction problem. I will no try under "Solutions & Products > Knowledge Center" and see if I can receive a reply there...

    PS I have tried to explain my problem in the "Knowledge Center" here - but the form only allow for very short messages and return key sends the message. I am afraid the result will not be very clear there. Sincerely I do not know anymore if I have lost my mind or SDL is making communications so hard on purpose. I guess now I should spend the next hour reading the "SDL sustenance" (!!) article and trying all the options offered there... My wife will have to wait longer for dinner....
Reply

  • I had a problem yesterday and posted it on ProZ forum because I could not find any way to log a support case.

    Before posting on ProZ I spent a long case reading the entire SP2 Installation guide, and many articles in the KB, and tried as many options as I could think of to reach a support service.  I remember reading about the "SDL Community" while looking for a solution. However, the name chosen does not really give the idea of a support resource.

    When I clicked on "support" on  I only received an answer to buy a "Premium Software Maintenance Agreement". The link for the normal Support is lacking there. I think that the correct way is to provide a link called "support" where the user can report any bugs and failures experienced.

    My post remained unanswered for about 20 hours until now. I will now see if I will have more luck with posting in the SDL Community - but where exactly?? Once again, the names of the link do not suggest where should I post an apparent Trados Studio 2014 SP2 malfunction problem. I will no try under "Solutions & Products > Knowledge Center" and see if I can receive a reply there...

    PS I have tried to explain my problem in the "Knowledge Center" here - but the form only allow for very short messages and return key sends the message. I am afraid the result will not be very clear there. Sincerely I do not know anymore if I have lost my mind or SDL is making communications so hard on purpose. I guess now I should spend the next hour reading the "SDL sustenance" (!!) article and trying all the options offered there... My wife will have to wait longer for dinner....
Children
  • in reply to Luca Tutino
    Hi Luca,

    Sorry to hear about your problems. Post them in here and I'm sure they'll get some attention.

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

    ________________________
    Design your own training!
    You've done the courses and still need to go a little further, or still not clear? 
    Tell us what you need in our Community Solutions Hub

  • in reply to Luca Tutino

    Hi Luca,

    Some interesting points in your post.

    I remember reading about the "SDL Community" while looking for a solution. However, the name chosen does not really give the idea of a support resource.

    This was actually deliberate!  Not because we are trying to make it difficult though!  It was originally called the SDL User Support Community, but we renamed it for a couple of reasons:

    1. SDL have many products and this community is only related to the Translation Productivity set of products which are primarily Studio and MultiTerm.  So we then thought about SDL Trados User Support Community...
    2. But this suggests Support and this is not what we are about in here.  We have technical Support teams, and they provide support to users paying for a support contract and looking for the peace of mind that they will be guaranteed a response within certain timelines.  We also intend to provide a Support link in the main Communities pages in the near future.  So we needed to ake sure that there was no confusion between the two.  In here we will help as much as we can, and other users can help out too.  So this is a community resource, and I hope we can be responsive enough as a community to make things easier for all users, and not just those with a support contract.  But of course we can't provide the same guarantees...
    3. So we settled on Translation Productivity as this name matches how we organise ourselves in SDL.

    I would have thought thatn perhaps looking under Products & Solutions -> Language might have been a more obvous choice but I can see why Knowledge Center would be inviting too!  If you visit the main SDL website you can see this under solutions and this is what we have matched in the community:

    So Language relates to all the communities we are setting up for our Language Solutions.  Translation Productivity was the first one!

    When I clicked on "support" on  I only received an answer to buy a "Premium Software Maintenance Agreement". The link for the normal Support is lacking there. I think that the correct way is to provide a link called "support" where the user can report any bugs and failures experienced.

    I think "normal support" is what a PSMA is.  Most customers of any software house expect to pay for support, unless it's a community support facility of some kind.  The Support pages do have this and there is an inviting gap which looks as though it's just waiting for Community!  But we should add Community into the mix as this is the place where most Translation Productivity users will be looking for help.

    Just one good thing about this is that the posts in here can be seen by everyone at SDL.  So the good and bad things you say about us, the good and bad responses we provide... everything.  So this is the place we are using to help us improve the overall customer experience and this means giving you, a user without a proper Support contract, a place to tell us you think you've found a bug, or you can't open a file etc.

    My personal opinion is that I would always purchase a Support Contract for something that was business critical for me.  But if some users choose not to then at least we can read about their experiences in here.

    I have tried to explain my problem in the "Knowledge Center" here - but the form only allow for very short messages and return key sends the message.

    The community site has several features.  There is a simple feed to leave a message or see what people are posting. Each of the communities we have has their own, and you posted into the Knowledge Center feed.  It's best to use the forums for this because you can leave images, videos and generally explain yourself better.

    Sorry about your dinner... we have so much help for you to read through it may take a while ;-)

    Paul Filkin | RWS Group

    ________________________
    Design your own training!
    You've done the courses and still need to go a little further, or still not clear? 
    Tell us what you need in our Community Solutions Hub

    emoji
  • in reply to Paul

    Dear Paul,

    Thank you for your reply. I posted a new thread in the Translation Productivity > Studio section of this forum with a copy of my message on ProZ SDL Trados Support forum explaining what went wrong.