Serena Technical Support Overview

SUPPORT PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Welcome to Serena’s award-winning customer support service. We’re committed to helping you succeed with Serena products and services through our comprehensive network of technical support and services. This Section provides an overview of the features and benefits of customer support, and tells you how to reach us wherever you are, whenever you need us.

The Support area of our web site is designed to help you quickly find what you need to take full advantage of our products and services, including:

  • Case Management: Convenient online support that is fully integrated with our case management system
  • Knowledgebase: Solutions created by our product experts to help you solve issues quickly
  • Live Chat: Chat services are available with a live agent
  • Telephone support: Unlimited access to telephone support provided by Serena technical and product experts
  • Email: Cases can be opened and updated by sending email to support@serena.com.
  • Product updates: New product releases, plus patches and fixes of current releases.
  • License Management: Self-service License key creation, rehosting, and Emergency (5-day) licenses for Distributed platform products.

OUR PHILOSOPHY

Serena customers gain access to all support features, including telephone support and product updates, through an annual plan. To help your organization gain the maximum benefit from its investment in Serena products, we provide:

  • Timely availability of highly trained experts who provide quality answers.
  • Access to information-rich resources, including our Knowledgebase and product documentation downloads.
  • Communication of product and company news.

To help ensure our program meets your needs, we have engaged a third party that provides ongoing formal feedback on our support processes and customer satisfaction.  Each case closure provides you an opportunity to tell us how we are doing.
 

Contacting Technical Support

Serena understands that it is critical to keep your systems up and running smoothly. The Serena Support Centers are staffed with available technicians during business hours, and can be reached for off-hour emergencies at any time. Information about business hours and contact methods can be found in Contacting Serena Technical Support.

Service Level Objectives (SLOs)

The documented Service Level Objectives are the guidelines used by Serena Software to establish response times to a request for technical assistance, known as a "case."

Support Web site User's Guide

Serena Software's web site is always available to our customers with solutions to reported problems and current product information. In addition, you may open non-critical cases and check on the status of cases you have already reported to Technical Support. Your support maintenance agreement allows you access to a community of experts, resources and information all focused on helping you leverage the full power of your Serena products. This includes web or phone access to our award winning support team (Omega Northface customer satisfaction award 3 consecutive years). Product updates are posted to ensure you have ready access to the latest technology at all times. Information about how to use the web site can be found in the Serena Support Web site User's Guide.

Submitting a New Issue  (Information needed for case submission)

Registered contacts may open non-critical cases quickly and easily from the Case Manager menu. Complete information about contacts, service level objectives, and information needed to resolve a problem is found on Submitting a New Issue.

Serena recognizes that virtualization technology provides significant utility and value to our customers. As such, Serena conducts functional testing and certifies our products using virtualization technology in addition to native environments. While Serena expects that our products will function properly when running on supported platforms in a virtualized environment as well as a native environment, there may be functional and performance limitations. Serena will not require that customers recreate and troubleshoot every issue in a non-virtualized environment, however there may be circumstances in which such action may be required. Serena will only make this request when there is reason to believe that the virtualized environment is a contributing factor to the issue. If the issue cannot be reproduced in a supported non-virtualized environment, customers will need to refer their issues to their virtualization vendor.

Issue Escalation Contact Information

Serena support engineers are available to help you during normal business hours and after hours in an emergency. However, should you wish to comment on the service you receive or related issues, please feel free to contact the Issue Escalation Manager depending on the product and your geographical location.

Product General Availability and Serena Support Critical Issue Notification Policy

How is the General Availability of a Product Communicated?

Customers self-subscribe to our Techmail notification list via the Serena Customer Support website.  Regular product updates are then emailed using this service. 

What is Critical Issue Notification?

Critical issue notifications are communications sent to customers who are current on support to alert of a critical situation which may have serious impact to Serena product usage or stability.  These communications are sent via email to a customer subscribed email list. 

Customers self-subscribe to our Techmail notification list via the Serena Customer Support web site.  Issues deemed to be highly pervasive or severe are then emailed using this service. 

How Critical Issues are Communicated?

Serena strives for the highest levels of service and communications with our customers.  Many factors are considered in the decision to send critical issue notifications.  Serena Support attempts to balance the need to alert customers of highly pervasive issues with the consideration for the alarm generated by such notifications.  For severe issues (issues that may be related to product security or data integrity, for example), Serena will proactively send a notice to subscribers.  Included in the communication is a description of the issue and potential impact.  If a work-around or correction is available, that information is also provided in the communication. A knowledge base entry is also opened on the Serena Support web site with this information.  This knowledge entry is then available for customers to reference for further details and access to download corrections (if applicable). 

All statements regarding Serena’s Critical Issue Notification policy are subject to change without notice.

Tech Mail Subscription

A Tech mail subscription allows each user to select products installed at their site. Users can choose to receive proactive technical e-mail updates from support on their selected products. Some advantages are:

  • Serena can proactively communicate urgent fixes or alerts for your product installation.
  • Users are notified as soon as new products become Generally Available (GA).
  • Users can select/de-select the Serena products about which they want to receive notifications from support.
  • Reduces the “clutter” of receiving communications about subjects irrelevant to you.

To subscribe to our technical notifications, log on to the support Website and choose the Product News tab which is located on the same line as the Case Manager tab. The Tech Mail logo will be located to the right of the Product News page. Select ‘subscribe now’, complete the form and submit it.

Nontechnical Email Notifications

For additions and deletion of nontechnical email such as marketing email, refer to your profile located above the RED tool bar at the top of the support page above. Place the cursor over your name, then select ‘Edit your Profile’. Once your profile is displayed, review your selections under ‘Communication Preferences’.

Software Support Lifecycle (SSL)

Serena offers standard maintenance and support during the Software Support Lifecycle for its products. Serena also offers its customers extended support and migration offerings for products that have reached the end of their SSL.

Contacting Support Services

Your support services account representative can help to purchase or renew a support agreement, request a free product update, or purchase a new product.