Sitefinity Customer Support Guide

Sitefinity Support Hub

The Sitefinity Support and Learning Hub is a comprehensive resource for everything about Sitefinity. We recommend bookmarking this site and making it your first stop on your Support journey.

Download the Latest Version of Your Product

The Download Center provides access to all versions of Sitefinity you have a license for and includes the latest patches as they become available

Support & Product Policies

Languages Supported

All our support offerings are primarily in English for both phone and written communications. For non-English speaking customers, Progress Technical Support may utilize a third-party interpreter service to assist with phone discussions associated with Severity 1 cases. Languages supported would be subject to availability by the third-party interpreter.

Scope of Support – What is Covered & Not Covered with your Maintenance Agreement

Prior to opening a case with your Support team, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with our Scope Of Support Policy. The Sitefinity scope of support policy varies by support plan and describes the specific Support services provided by the Sitefinity Support team, as well as services known to be outside what we can provide.

Support Service Level Objectives and Severity Levels Definitions

Progress Technical Support has Service Level Objectives (SLOs) we strive to achieve at least 80% of the time. The SLOs documented here for response and resolution times are Progress Technical Support’s internal guidelines. They are provided here for information purposes only and are not legal commitments or agreements. We carefully define our severity levels to make it easier for you to inform us about the seriousness of the current situation. Note that Severity, Priority and Business Impact are not the same. Below is a brief glossary of these three terms to help guide you:

• Severity: Describes the condition of your system at the time you open your Support case.
• Priority: Describes how important this issue is to you in having the issue resolved. This is not a field in SupportLink, but something you can share with your Support Engineer.
• Business Impact: Describes the impact that the issue is having on your business operations. 
  
  For example: One of your websites has a page that does not display product information properly. The page is available and loads fine, and your end users can accomplish their tasks. But the page would be embarrassing if your customers see it. It is Thursday and you expect to send promotional emails about the page on Monday and you expect some end users may not fully use the page as a result. In this example, the Severity of the case would be set to 2. The Priority you communicate to your Support Engineer would be High, or Urgent. The Business Impact would be “embarrassment to your company and frustration to your end users”.

To read more details on our SLOs and severity definitions, please select the appropriate page depending on if you are On Premise or on the Progress Cloud

• On Premise SLO & Severity Definitions
• Progress Cloud SLO & Severity Definitions

Progress reserves the right to adjust the severity level in the case based on the known condition of the issue as understood by the Support Engineer.

Sitefinity Support Lifecycle Policy and Best Effort Support

Full details can be found on the Sitefinity Lifecycle Policy page

NOTE: Although Progress will provide best effort support on retired releases, Progress strongly recommends customers upgrade to a fully supported Sitefinity release as soon as possible to maintain the highest level of support for their applications and systems.

Sitefinity System Requirements

Full details can be found on the Sitefinity System Requirements page

How to Renew Your License and Upgrades

All Sitefinity licenses include at least one year of technical support and product updates. We offer a best in class technical support service that is included with license maintenance, with more enriched services available for purchase. Renewing your maintenance is the most cost-effective way to benefit from the latest technology and product innovation. For more information, see the License Renewals and Upgrades page.

Requirements for Interaction

Progress' relationships with its vendors, partners, customers and the community Progress serves is a top priority. For that purpose, Progress is committed to build a collaborative, creative, respectful, and professional experience for all. Our goal is to provide our customers, and partners, with exceptional customer service. To achieve that goal and to make the customer service experience positive, we need your help by following the following guidelines when interacting with any Progress employee, business partner, visitor, contractor, or another customer:

1. Please be kind and respectful;
2. Refrain from using any demeaning, aggressive, or intimidating language, and any harassing behavior; and
3. Always use professional language.

Aggressive or abusive behavior may include language (whether verbal or written) that may cause a Progress employee, business partner, visitor, contractor, or another customer to feel afraid, threatened or abused and may include threats, personal verbal abuse, derogatory remarks and rudeness. Inflammatory statements, remarks of a discriminatory nature and unsubstantiated allegations will also be considered abusive behavior. In cases of such behavior, Progress may decide to:

• Advise that these actions are considered offensive, unnecessary and unhelpful and ask that the offensive behavior stop;
• End telephone calls / appointments / meetings;
• Terminate any direct contact;
• Removal of SupportLink credentials and any ability to open cases online or via telephone;
• Take any additional actions considered appropriate to the circumstances.

Eligibility to Receive Support

Technical Support is available to all customers with an active Software Maintenance Agreement contract.

Sitefinity End User License Agreements (EULA)

Sitefinity CMS License Agreement

Sitefinity Cloud License Agreement

Security

While working with Technical Support during the lifecycle of your case, we will work with you on identifying and reporting any security observations you have with our products and would like to report to Progress.

For more details around Progress Software resources for Security, Privacy, Compliance and Due Diligence, please see Progress Software's Security Center

Your Support Plan Offerings

All Sitefinity products on active maintenance come with Base Support included. Additional plans are available to purchase to meet your specific business needs. We recommend reviewing your specific support plan to become familiar with what services are available to you, and to determine if a higher-level plan is right for your needs.

If you are unsure which plan you have purchased, please contact your Progress Account Manager.

Submitting An Enhancement/Idea

If you have an idea for a product enhancement to improve Sitefinity, we welcome you to submit your suggestion in the Ideas Portal. The Ideas Portal is an important area that Progress Software Product Management reviews to help plan upcoming product roadmaps. Within the Ideas Portal, not only can you submit your ideas, but you can track their progress as well as vote on the ideas that others have suggested. We love reading your suggestions and applying what we can to a future release of the product!

Support Case Management

Managing your cases starts with our premiere tool – SupportLink. SupportLink allows you to open, manage, communicate with your Support team, escalate, and close cases. We strive to provide a fast responsive service based on our published SLOs (see above) and, in most cases, this is the most efficient way to work with Support.

Accessing SupportLink

Prior to accessing SupportLink to open and manage cases, each Sitefinity Developer user must go through a 2-step process to enable access.

Creating a Progress ID

A Progress ID is essential for accessing an extensive network of Progress offerings and a wealth of helpful resources, including accessing SupportLink, full participation in the community, Customer Self Service, product downloads, and much more - all with a single login.

Creating a Progress ID is essential for logging into the SupportLink portal and accessing the assets you have under maintenance.

• To create a Progress ID, follow the instructions carefully laid out in the knowledgebase article: How to Create a Progress ID

Requesting SupportLink Access

• Once you create your Progress ID, you will receive an email at the email address you supplied that contains additional required steps. Follow email instructions for finalizing SupportLink access.

Adding licensed Developers

For Sitefinity customers, each developer that needs to engage with Support must also be added as a Licensed Developer on each domain for which you have a license.

This must be completed by your company’s license holder, or administrator. If you are unsure who your administrator is, you may contact your Progress Account Manager to discuss. Support is not authorized to provide the contact details of other people to users.

See the Knowledge Base article: How to add a user as a Licensed Developer in Sitefinity.com, for instructions on how to add a Licensed Developer

Finding Information Quickly - Self-Service

Self-Service is a great way to find answers to many of your questions. Progress is constantly updating and adding new content to optimize your experience and efficiency, allowing you to save time, and eliminating the need to open a case.

Prior to opening your case with Support, it is a good idea to search existing knowledge to discover if your question has already been answered. To provide you with the best Support experience possible, Progress has created multiple sources of knowledge you can explore.

• Sitefinity Documentation: The Sitefinity documentation has extensive explanations of almost everything within Sitefinity! Give it a read and discover how Sitefinity can help you make the most of your use of the product
• Progress Sitefinity Knowledge Base: The Progress Sitefinity Knowledge Base has a wide range of topics asked by other customers and has proven to be helpful in answering their questions. The intelligent search engine will quickly narrow down to all relevant topics based on your search. There is also a downloadable KB (ProKB), for your convenience, available from the Knowledge Base home page.
• Progress Community: The Progress Community is a very content rich resource that delivers almost everything you might ever need for working with Sitefinity. Here are just a few samples of the content available to you:
  • Support Hub: is a comprehensive resource for everything about Sitefinity. We recommend bookmarking this site and making it your first stop on your Support journey
  • Product Forums: Want to collaborate directly with Sitefinity users like yourself? The Community Forums are the ideal choice for you. Just select the appropriate sub forum based on the area of focus for your questions and post your questions there. You’ll soon have responses that will help move your project along. And you may even be able to help others too!
  • Code Sharing: Whether you are sharing a novel solution to a common problem, or need one for yourself, the code sharing repository is a great place to get started

Opening your case - How to get Support

If you have an active Support maintenance subscription and have a plan that comes with access to our expert Support team, we offer multiple options for you to get your questions answered.

• The Sitefinity Product Forums: The various Sitefinity Product Discussions Communities are a great place to get help that does not require a fast response. Many Sitefinity Developers and Support Engineers monitor the community and will respond if they feel their expertise is needed here. In addition, you can get responses from hundreds of other Sitefinity users like yourself, giving you an even wider network of experts
• SupportLink – Web Portal Case Submission: SupportLink allows you to open, manage, communicate with your Support team, escalate, and close cases. We strive to provide a fast responsive service based on our published SLOs (see above) and, in most cases, this is the most efficient way to work with Support
• Phone Support – For when you need a Support Engineer urgently: For customers that have a Support Plan that comes with phone support, you may choose to open your case during the business hours defined by your Support Plan (see above). If you have an existing case you are calling about, please mention the case number to the Support Engineer at the beginning of the call

NOTE: On Weekends it is strongly recommended to contact Technical Support via the phone for any issues that meet the Severity 1 definition, as defined by above, to ensure you are connected with a Support Engineer as quickly as possible

Managing Your Open Cases:

While your case is open, you will be able to log into SupportLink to communicate with your Support Engineer, check on the status, attach files, view linked knowledge base articles, escalate your case, and much more. To prevent your case from being closed too early, be sure to stay active with your Support Engineer throughout the life of the case.

SupportLink will communicate with you via email for your convenience so responses land in your inbox in real time. From there, you can either reply directly back into the case, or you can log into the portal to reply. For the full Support experience, we highly recommend that you log into the portal.

Case Management Essentials

We understand that you need answers to your questions as quickly as possible. This is our goal as well. To help resolve your cases quickly, we recommend the following actions:

• Communicate frequently – Read the case comments your Support Engineer leaves you from the case, take the necessary actions and respond back to your engineer as quickly as possible
• Provide as much detail as you can about the issue and expectations
• Always attach any files needed to reproduce the issue you are experiencing, or logs needed to understand the problem
• Include error messages and warnings, include error codes if known
• Escalate* – If your case needs more attention than is currently happening, you can escalate your case
  * Not all Sitefinity plans come with the ability to escalate. Please refer to your Support Plan details to determine if this feature is available in your plan.

Case Teams

At times, you will want to have other members of your team be notified of any updates to your open cases. There are two types of case teams available for your team to use:

• One Off Case Team: Per your request, we may add one or more members of your team to a single open case. They will receive updates for that case, but no other cases. For this situation, only the person’s email address is required to add them to a single case
• Permanent Case Team: Alternatively, we can create a permanent case team. Going forward, every single case created by anyone under your company account will automatically have everyone from the case team attached to the case. This is only for new cases created after the case team is created. To achieve this, you will just need to provide a list of the people from your company you want on the case team and work with your Support Engineer to create a full contact entry for each person not already in our system. This will include full name, address, phone, email address and other details

If either of the above sounds like something you would like to enable, speak to your Support Engineer about it and they will work with you to complete the process.

How to Escalate a Case*

While most cases can be prioritized according to severity, for issues critical to the success of your project, you might need to provide additional context. In such cases, initialize an escalation of your case. When you escalate a case via a Technical Support engineer, we will promptly respond and arrange with you conference calls and status updates as appropriate.

Reasons for escalating a case include:

• Reasons for escalating a case include:
• High risk of interrupting business operations
• The production environment is impacted in a critical way
• Low satisfaction with the level or timeliness of our regular support service

You can escalate your case through the SupportLink portal or by informing your Support Engineer directly.

If an escalated case is still not being serviced to meet your needs, you can escalate further to the Support Management team. For details on how to escalate your case, please see the How To Escalate A Case page. Please provide the Support Manager with the case number and the reason it needs to be escalated further.

* Not all Sitefinity plans come with the ability to escalate. Please refer to your Support Plan details to determine if this feature is available in your plan.

Closing Your Case

If you are satisfied that your Support Engineer has resolved your issue or taken it as far as possible under our scope of support policy (see above), you can close your case in SupportLink. Once you mark your case as closed, your Support Engineer may have a few remaining tasks to do and may need to communicate with you further on those tasks. If you resolved your issue on your own while working with our Support team, we would still be interested in hearing what solution you discovered and how you implemented it. Your discovery could help other customers like you solve the same issue. We encourage you to communicate in the case your satisfaction and intent to close the case.

If your Support Engineer identifies that a solution was provided to you that resolves your issue, they will close your case as resolved on their own, informing you as they do that your issue has been resolved. In rare instances, if we determine that no resolution is available for your issue, we may need to close your case even though there is not a satisfactory resolution. In these unusual situations, we will provide you with any information that we think could be beneficial for you in moving your project forward.

Customer Satisfaction Survey

Upon closure of all Support cases, you will be provided with an email that contacts a link to a customer satisfaction survey. This short two-question survey will let us assess how well we did in working with you. These are the two questions we will ask you:

• How satisfied were you with the support provided by your Progress Technical Support Engineer?
• To what extent do you agree with the statement "Progress made it easy for me to resolve my issue"?

We encourage you to submit this survey after every support case. We take all feedback received from these surveys very seriously (both the ratings and all comments). We strive to improve the Support experience based on the feedback we receive.

Reopening your case

If, after closing a case, that specific issue reoccurs, you can re-open that case within 30 days from within SupportLink. The issue must be exactly the same and from the same system, otherwise, a new case will need to be opened. You may also call Support on the phone and ask for a case to be re-opened that way.

Progress Alert Notification Service (PANS)

PANS is our email notification service and is the primary way we communicate vital information to our customers. This may include notifications concerning critical alerts, product alerts, new knowledge base articles and support information. Users are not signed up to PANS by default. You can tailor this service to your specific needs by subscribing to different products and filtering your email notifications. For more information on PANS and instructions on subscribing, please see the PANS Introduction page.