Support handbook

1. Introduction

This document describes the support process to help the Ataccama subscribers with the request creation process. It defines the important terms and covers all the necessary information about roles and responsibilities.

2. General terms and support services eligibility

Knowledge prerequisites

Administering Ataccama Solutions generally involves the following elements listed below. For the purposes of this handbook, Solutions means licensed software, platform services, software, support services and other products or services as set forth in your Agreement with Ataccama (but not including Professional Services):

Running structured query language (SQL) commands and installing a database. It is recommended to have a good database administrator (DBA) for database troubleshooting and administration.
Administering Windows and/or Linux OS.
Installing and maintaining production web technologies, as applicable.
Configuring and administering essential third-party software and/or technology that may be integrated into Solutions architecture.

Ataccama Support Overview

To receive support, Customers must have a valid subscription or support request for the relevant Solutions.

All incidents are to be reported exclusively to the Ataccama Helpdesk, which is an online management system which ensures that all questions and issues are logged, addressed and tracked through to completion. Ataccama has an alerting system in place to ensure timely response to reported incidents, in accordance with respective service level agreement between Ataccama and Customer.

Support is limited to access by system (or solution) administrators with an authorized email domain.

Supported products, as well as supported essential third-party software, are version-specific. Ataccama shall not be held responsible for faults arising out of third-party software, and in some instances Ataccama may advise Customer to report incidents with the third-party vendor directly. In these situations Ataccama may assist Customer and third-party vendor.

Interactions between Ataccama and Customer may be recorded. Customer consents to Ataccama’s remote access to Customer’s computer systems for the limited purpose of providing of Support Services, and Customer remains responsible for notifying Ataccama personnel prior to exposure of any limitations to such remote access applicable to Customer.

Customers are responsible for administering, maintaining, and upgrading their own installations (excluding Ataccama Cloud Customers). Ataccama Support offers Solutions issues, general upgrade guidance, and general configuration recommendations. If you require further assistance with the implementation, design and architecture, and/or performance refining, please consider the following resources:

Training Offerings
Professional Services (means consulting, configuration, deployment, training or other similar services provided pursuant to a Statement of Work)
Business Value Consulting
Partners
Community Portal
Contact us.

Support Levels, Service Desk Ticket Priority and Response SLAs

For a complete description of the specific support levels and corresponding response SLAs, please see the Ataccama Software Support Terms and Conditions part of your contract. Terms and Conditions may differ according to a chosen support plan.

Based on the type of the issue encountered and the agreement in your contract, you can choose one of the following ticket categories:

Sev 1(Blocker)*	(PROD only) The Ataccama production system is down or is otherwise inaccessible, halting all business operations. Immediate resolution is required to restore functionality and resume business operations to the production system. Example 1: All users are trying to access Ataccama production environment via web page and the page is not accessible. Cloud solution is not accessible for all usersExample 2: The application is not starting or core services are failing to launch
Sev 2(Critical)	(All Env) An urgent issue affecting a business-critical feature, causing significant disruption to daily operations. While a workaround may exist, it is insufficient to prevent a serious impact on business processes and requires prompt attention to mitigate the disruption. Example 1: Critical functionalities of the tool in the production environment are failing, preventing the majority of the data processing on the platformExample 2: Non-prod environments are not accessible for all usersExample 3: Significant and persistent historical performance degradation of the platform, affecting multiple users or application functionalities
Sev 3(Major)	(All Env) A significant but non-critical issue affecting the software or a non-production environment. While business operations can continue or an acceptable workaround is available, the issue requires resolution to avoid further impact. This also includes initial configuration issues and non-urgent inquiries related to the product. Prompt attention is needed to ensure the issue does not escalate. Example 1: Intermittent issues with data processing failures, affecting only a subset of users or certain projectsExample 2: Some functionalities are not configured correctly or features are not behaving as expectedExample 3: Important configuration is missing or is inconsistent across the environments
Sev 4(Minor)	(All Env) A low-impact issue or general inquiry in a non-production environment that does not require immediate attention. This includes cosmetic or documentation issues and minor functionality concerns that do not significantly affect productivity. Example 1: How to questions, use case discussion, requests for documentationExample 2: Cosmetic issues with the product or UI inconsistencies Example 3: User account issues related to the Ataccama Help Desk or Documentation Portal

*Ataccama Support reserves the right to reclassify any reported incident misclassified as falling into the Sev1 (Blocker);

Based on the service-level agreement, we provide remote assistance (Helpdesk) and remote web sessions (Zoom, WebEx). Time zones for support are Eastern Time Zone and Central European Time.

Services Provided by Support

Ataccama Support provides the following services:

Addressing queries about Ataccama Solutions, their default features, and basic usage through Helpdesk.
Providing general guidance on the configuration of Ataccama Solutions.
Providing fixes (patches, bugs and similar fixes), including root cause analysis of technical issues that are raised under Ataccama Helpdesk during standard usage of Ataccama Solutions and integration of Ataccama Solutions. Please note the scope of root cause analysis performed by Ataccama excludes third-party applications unless implemented as an essential part of an Ataccama Solution.
Acknowledging bug reports, providing fixes and/or recommending workarounds.
Receiving product feedback and new feature requests, and escalating them to product management.

Additional information regarding bugs and patches:

Patches are only issued for Critical and/or Blocker bugs for the current and previous two major versions of the Ataccama Licensed Software.
Critical bugs are generally fixed in the next maintenance release, in accordance with Ataccama maintenance release schedule(s).
Non-critical bugs are scheduled based on a variety of considerations.
Customers are responsible for maintaining their patches during any Updates and server migrations (excluding Ataccama Cloud Customers).

Ataccama may require additional information to research any reported incidents further. This may involve the cooperation of other Customer departments and/or further information requests, including (but not limited to) time, duration, consistency, and/or specific queries about the incident. Please note that resolution times may be impacted if reasonably requested information is not provided in a timely manner, to Ataccama.

Services Not Included Under Ataccama Support Services

Ataccama Support Services do not include the following:

Networking configuration and maintenance in relation to Ataccama applications or the servers they are hosted on based on a default Ataccama installation;
Support and maintenance of configured solutions, implemented for the business requirements of the Customer;
Performance optimizations or tuning;
Custom add-ons and/or integrations and/or software parts that do not belong to the original Solutions as provided by Ataccama or not officially supported by Ataccama and/or its Solutions;
Completion of step-by-step upgrade processes of Ataccama Solutions and the migration of customer’s project;
Customers without a valid Subscription which includes Support Services
End-of-life (last two major releases), beta, release candidate and development releases.
Customized versions of Ataccama products (where the original product code has been illegally modified by the Customer or a third party).
Creation and provision of development services.
Third-party application integration or third-party plugins (excluding supported third-party software).
Direct Support for End-Users, derived from existing Partnerships.
Non-English language support.
Support Services rendered necessary because (i) Solutions have been improperly installed or tested, other than by Ataccama; (ii) Solutions have been altered, modified, or adjusted without Ataccama’s approval; Solutions have been maintained or repaired, or attempts have been made to repair Solutions, other than by Ataccama; (iii) Solutions have been subject to general conditions not conducive to the proper functioning of the Solutions, including (without limitation) devices or peripherals not supplied or recommended by Ataccama.

Paid Services

The following services are not included in the Ataccama Support scope, but may be provided as a paid service*:

Product training (remote or onsite).
Configuring Ataccama products according to specific technical or business requirements.
Providing step-by-step guidance on the implementation or configuration of a particular feature.
Installation and upgrade services.
System and performance tuning.
Deployment and capacity planning.

*done by Ataccama consultants based upon an agreement between the customer and Ataccama.

Eligibility for Software Support and Maintenance

To receive support, Customers must have a valid subscription or support request for the relevant Solutions. Customer Support is activated when Support Services are purchased from Ataccama and shall be valid under the respective Subscription Terms.

Ataccama supports the current major version and the previous two versions. You can refer to the Ataccama Lifecycle Policy for more details on our policy on software releases: https://docs.ataccama.com/one/latest/ataccama-lifecycle-policy.html.

3. Registration and Support Channels

3.1. Support Channels

Ataccama Help Center portal contains the following resources:

Documentation Portal: Browse our product documentation.
Helpdesk Portal: A primary channel for reporting bugs and issues. Used to keep track of all of your open issues.
Download Media: Latest supported releases and current product versions. You can also access previous versions of products as needed.
Content For You: Information tailored specifically to you and your business — custom plans and guides, relevant presentations, recorded calls between our teams, etc.
Community Portal: A forum that you can use to discuss, share your knowledge about and find answers to Ataccama tools-related questions by cooperating with other Ataccama customers.

3.2. Registration

To be granted an access to the Help Center and all its resources, register at support.ataccama.com with your company domain email.

Authorization on the Registration portal is based on the email domain name. The domain names that your organization provides to us are added to the corresponding LDAP group on our side and every person that has an email address containing one of your organization domain names is automatically granted access to Help Center portal.The whole process is automated, there is no need to grant access individually for any of your colleagues.

4. Creating Support Requests

4.1. Step 1 Access the Support Service Desk

To access the Ataccama Support Service Desk:

Go to atajira.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portals or click Service Desk on the Help Center homepage.
Log in with the credentials you used to register at support.ataccama.com/.

4.2. Step 2 Create a Support Request

To create a request:

Select the request type that best suits your situation.
A screen with request details opens. Fill in the fields and add attachments.See Recommendations for Creating Requests for guidelines on describing your requests.
Select Create.

4.3. Viewing Your Requests

Select My requests in the upper-right corner to see your open and closed requests. The number indicates your open issues.

You can search and filter requests by status.

Select the request to view its details.

4.4. Possible Actions Inside a Request

After you open the request details, you can comment, add attachments, and invite other participants to track the request.

You can also comment on a request by replying to Service Desk email notifications.

4.4.1. Text Formatting

See Atlassian Documentation for the full notation specification.

4.5. Service Desk Portal Email Integration

Once you submit a ticket, you become a Reporter. You will receive an email every time someone posts a comment to the ticket you created. You can answer the comments by logging in to the Service Desk.

4.6. Service Desk Permissions and Access Rights

Once you raise a ticket, you can add participants to it by typing their names or email addresses in Request participants field.

Only the added participants have the possibility to view the ticket contents and post answers to it on Service Desk portal. You can also add participants to any existing ticket later, not only at the moment of raising it.

5. Request Resolution Workflow

Request resolution workflow starts by creating a request and ends by closing it. The following figure illustrates the statuses (rectangles) between which a request can move.

6. Recommendations for Creating Requests

When creating new requests, follow these best practices to assist the efficient issue resolution.

General rule: when in doubt, use your best judgment.

6.1. Write an Informative Request Title

Many requests are managed and assigned by the request title. Therefore, using a descriptive summary is highly advised as long as it is written in a concise manner. For example, instead of “DQA: Drill through doesn’t work”, say “DQA: Drill-through cannot write Boolean using ODBC to MSSQL”.

6.2. Send in the Exception Text

In the process of reporting a request, thrown exceptions are of great value. For cases when an unexpected runtime action occurs, or the runtime crashes entirely, locate the thrown exception and copy/paste it into your request description.

We do prefer text over screenshots in these matters.

If the GUI does not perform as you expect, check the Error Log view in the Status Panel. It is hidden by default, but experienced users are advised to activate this feature in the menu: Window > Show view > Other… > General > Error Log. Double-click an issue to open the window where you can view and copy the exception text.

If the runtime in GUI crashes or reports any [FATAL] message or Profiling Drill-through fails with a [WARN] message, a run report appears in the Run Results view of the Status Panel. If it is not visible, activate the feature in Window > Show view > Other… > Ataccama DQC > Run Results. Double-click an issue to open the window where you can view and copy the exception text.

6.3. Send in Plans and Data Files

We encourage you to share any created plans or data files with us. Scenario description is necessary, but plans and data help us reproduce your issue — we will verify the fix to confirm the issue no longer exists. If you prefer, we can also edit and extend the plan for you instead of describing what you should change.

Uploaded data is stored behind the Ataccama firewall on internally hosted servers.

Inform us about all the environment variables you can. Applicable questions typically include the following:

Which version of Java was used to run DQC?
Which OS was used and on which OS is the database running?
Which driver was used to connect to the database?
Exactly which database version was used?
Which product version was used?

6.5. Tell the Story

Describing the story of your task helps us in two ways.

First, we receive a more thorough description of the request priority (not only priority set to critical), which helps with timing: we will know whether the solution is required for a presentation next week or as a quick response because of a customer call this afternoon.

Second, an alternate solution might exist. Knowing your goal instead of what is not working for you may lead to a more efficient solution.