Year-Round Benefits - Support Help Desk

Help Desk tickets may be submitted 24 hours a day at https://support.aspdotnetstorefront.com. Hours of operation for our Year-Round Support Help Desk are Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm Pacific time (excluding U.S. observed holidays).

Support incidents must be submitted through our support website. Support issues emailed directly to our staff members or through our sales department cannot be addressed. This ensures that all support requests are handled as quickly as possible. We want to assure you that submitting all requests properly will mean that no questions 'slip through the cracks', and that we can achieve optimal response times.

If you have modified your software and are encountering errors, please be sure that the issue also occurs in an UNMODIFIED copy of AspDotNetStorefront before submitting a ticket. That helps us to be sure that we are supporting the entire user base at the same time, and not spending vital time on a custom issue that has sprung up without us! Read more about customization below.

Support Scope

Since September 1st, 2013 The Help Desk (formerly Free Help Desk) is provided to all AspDotNetStorefront users with current Year-Round Benefits on all versions of AspDotNetStorefront version 8.0 and above.

Response Times

Customers taking advantage of our Help Desk can always expect a response no later than 2 business days.

Support for Outdated Versions

We have sunsetted versions earlier than ML version 8.0.0.0. Customers on earlier versions are strongly encouraged to upgrade to a recent release, and may seek assistance in our online forums in the meantime.

Customization

It is impossible to account for the complex needs of every individual business in any software product. We recognize this, and offer source code so that a qualified developer can make the modifications desired for your environment.

If you are a store owner or developer seeking help with a custom project, we have the most remarkable development partners available to team with you on customization. These are accredited developers who are known to deliver premium work on a highly professional basis. Determining how to make these modifications is the sole responsibility of the developer.

Upgrades

AspDotNetStorefront highly recommends that all customers stay up to date with the latest release of the software. While we strive to make the upgrade process as straightforward as possible, some store owners may still need assistance with performing upgrades periodically. While we cannot do the work for you, our technicians are happy to provide assistance with any questions that may arise on storefronts that have not been modified. Customers having problems upgrading customized sites can take advantage of our Priority Help Desk access, though depending on the extent of the modifications, the assistance of one of our DevNet Partners may be needed.

Data

We strive constantly to make the software as flexible and robust as possible; however as with any application there are restrictions on what kind of data the software can handle. Should you end up with a corrupt database, or with invalid or poorly formatted data that the software cannot handle, our Support Technicians will not be able to assist with manually cleaning the database. Our Development Partners stand ready to assist with that type of work.

Hosting

All AspDotNetStorefront hosting customers are eligible to discounts off Year-Round Support Help Desk as part of their hosting plan. Year-Round Support Help Desk tickets may be submitted 24 hours a day at https://support.aspdotnetstorefront.com. Our Network Services department is available to respond to Year-Round Support Help Desk tickets for hosting related issues from Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm PST (excluding U.S. observed holidays). Emergency support is also provided 24x7 using the Year-Round Support Help Desk.

We are able to resolve most hosting support issues within 30 minutes during business hours. Requests for emergency support outside regular business hours will be handled by our staff of on-call technicians. Year-Round Support Help Desk requests for typical issues like changing FTP passwords, backing up a database, configuring permissions, etc. are included with your hosting plan. Issues that involve custom support, advanced configuration, troubleshooting site errors, or other custom projects may be billed at our hourly rate. We may also elect to schedule certain support during a maintenance window to minimize downtime on the servers.

Response Times

Priority Help Desk tickets submitted before 2pm Pacific will receive a response on the same day guaranteed. Tickets submitted after 2pm Pacific will receive a response on the next business day at the latest.

Customization

Although assistance with customizations is limited, our Support Technicians may suggest code modifications or work arounds to attempt to resolve the issue. In some cases, we may advise that an entire block of code be removed and rewritten, and we may need you to provide your modified files or database backup so that we can install and troubleshoot locally. If this is requested by our support team, please supply a download link to a zip file that contains the files/data requested. Please do not attempt to attach large files to our ticketing system, as large files will be rejected. We will provide guidance on the best way forward, but we cannot rewrite the code for you. If you require further development assistance than the support provided via our Priority Help Desk, we can provide a recommendation to one of our accredited Development Partners.

Product Installation

If software installation is purchased, our support staff will work with your host to get the software installed for you. If, throughout the installation process, it’s discovered that your host does not meet the minimum requirements to support your new software, we can provide you with recommendations of hosts that are known supporters of the software. We offer hosting services for our software. To learn more, click here.

Our installation services cover doing a clean install of the software only. We will upload the files necessary, create the database, and get the software running. Regrettably, we cannot configure your site for you, set up your products, or skin your new store. If you need a partner to assist with these things, please seek help from one of our accredited Development Partners.

While the software is often run in cloud environments, web farms, or on virtual servers, our paid installations can only install on these types of hosting platforms:

Shared Hosting: This is the ‘basic’ type of hosting offered by the majority of hosts. The site runs on a server shared by many other websites, and the store owner has limited access to the server. This is generally sufficient for small to medium sized stores.

DedicatedServers: With this type of hosting plan, the store owner has much greater control over the server (usually through Remote Desktop access), and only your site(s) run on the server. These plans are more expensive and require a greater degree of technical ability to manage, but are great for larger, busier sites.

If you choose to host with AspDotNetStorefront, our installation services are available for our Cloud hosting packages.

For customers purchasing an install on a shared hosting environment, we will need the following information, which can be obtained from your host:

  • FTP server address
  • FTP username
  • FTP password
  • SQL server address
  • SQL database name
  • SQL username
  • SQL password
  • Host control panel URL and login information (if available)
Please do not provide this information electronically! This information, when provided via email, is not secure. Instead, we will contact you prior to your installation to obtain the access required via a secure connection.

Customers purchasing an install on a dedicated server will need to provide Remote Desktop and FTP credentials. Installs cannot be done through GoToMeetings, Remote Assistance Requests, or other session-sharing methods.

The following work will need to be done before we begin our install in a dedicated environment.
  • Install the required .NET version
  • Install SQL Server 2005 or 2008 and SQL Server Management Studio
  • Install IIS (6x or higher) if not pre-loaded on the server

In most cases your hosting provider should have all of this set up for you, but you can contact them to check prior to our installation. Our support staff cannot perform these tasks for you, or make any other changes to the server that may affect other applications/sites running on it.

Training

Training is scheduled with our Support Technicians via an online GoTo Meeting. Training is available in one hour sessions. Training time will need to be consumed at the time of the scheduled GoTo Meeting, unused time cannot be carried over to subsequent sessions.

Prior to the scheduled training session,you will be asked to provide an overview of training material that you would like covered in your session. We ask for this so that you can make the most of your session, and that we are prepared to answer any and all of your questions.

This is an educational resource only, our Support Technicians cannot assist with troubleshooting over the phone - this service is available for training purposes only. We can assist with “how-to” type questions, help you plan the organization of your site, provide basic information on SEO and site management, etc. Please use our Help Desk for assistance with troubleshooting software issues.