lotsaram wrote:Really I can't understand why the support team isn't better coordinated. You would think for an issue affecting everyone on the version with multiple PMRs then everyone with the same issue would be notified once there is a build that addresses the issue?.
It is not because Support is not a coordinated body. Support is as much in the same boat as the people on this forum. The releases are governed by a multitude of things and the dates are the same. Support only knows when an Interim Fix or Fix pack is due out when we get told.
Bear in mind there are people on this forum covering all of the time zones and Support is the same. There is a Euro Zone, an Americas zone, an Asian zone and an Australasian zone. So, the dissemination of information has a long way to travel and that is after the news has to be generated and checked.
The people that work on these releases do put a lot of effort in to getting them out as soon as is possible, but when you have a load of cats and you want to push them up a hill, the cats have other ideas. The same with code and computers in general.
Whilst your expectations on what should happen might be one thing, the reality of the situation could be something else.
At any one time a Support Analyst might have 50 cases that he or she is dealing with, depending on what product they support. Those 50 cases might be a range of issues with a range of customers with a range of ideas of what should happen next.
This analyst might be in the UK .. He might have 10 other colleagues with a similar number of issues.
Then he might have French & German colleagues, each with their own situation.
They all might have US colleagues, Indian colleagues and Aussie colleagues.
None of them have visibility of the others PMRs and each of the analysts will specialise in an area of support that interests them and they give help for.
So, an analyst in the UK might specialise in performance issue and he/she is siloed in the UK. If he gets a CAFE PMR he might have no idea of the problem solution. But the guy sat next to him does. So they communicate. Collaboration is continuous in Support.
So, coordinating 100 analysts in up to 15 different time zones is not going to happen. What does happen is that when the central development team releases a fix they will disseminate that information to the whole range of analysts.
All the analysts want to do is get their PMRs closed.
There are numerous methods of finding out when Fix Packs and Interim Fixes are due out, and not all of them will come through support, so to lump all of Support together, calling them uncoordinated, is unfair.
So as The Board knows,
The Fix Pack 6 (Interim Fix 2) is out now and it fixes (at least) 6 issues, maybe even more.
I would suggest contacting your IBM Business Partner, your sales team or the Support Analyst that you raised your PMR with for details on how to get it.
You will need
- The name of the person downloading the IF
The Web ID of that person/entity
The actual Interim Fix that you are requesting.
The PMR that it is related to