Technical Support - Frequently Asked Questions

For a general overview of Manifold Technical Support, please see the Support page. This page provides answers to frequently asked questions regarding Manifold Technical Support.

Why doesn't Manifold provide free technical support? Companies that claim to provide "free" technical are still charging a price for that technical support, but instead of direct payments for tech support they collect payment through indirect means, for example, by charging higher prices for product licenses or by charging high "maintenance" fees. In that case everyone pays more for products to subsidize some users with "free" technical support. With sophisticated products like GIS products, the higher product prices or other indirect fees can be thousands of dollars - a lot of money to spend for "free" technical support!

A more unfortunate result is that indirect pricing for tech support allows a small percentage of users to consume the majority of tech support services, often without making even a token effort to find an answer before contacting tech support. Responsible users who take the time to read documentation, to ask questions of their colleagues and to invest in their own expertise end up paying much higher prices to subsidize those users. That's not fair.

Charging just a small fee per incident encourages users not to waste tech support incidents on simple questions that may be easily answered by referring to product documentation. By freeing the tech support service from wasteful contacts, Manifold tech support can focus on providing a better level of response with more expert operators at a lower cost. That's why Manifold tech support provides the most expert support service at by far the lowest cost in GIS.

Why are incidents charged for simple questions? First, to discourage wasteful use of tech support so that more support resources are available for serious questions. Second, there is no way to predict if a particular email received from a user is a trivial question or a sophisticated question - each question requires reading by a trained engineer to assure that a sophisticated question that might appear to be a simple question to the untrained eye is properly answered. For that reason it costs as much to process an apparently trivial question as it does a carefully thought-out complex question. In fact, some classes of trivial questions require more time because users neglect to provide required information.

Can anyone use my tech support tokens? Yes, if they have them. Keep your tech support tokens secret to prevent other people from using them.

Why are CC'd emails excluded? Manifold.net tech support does not respond to any emails that are shared with third parties or are cc'd to any other recipient. There are three reasons for this policy. The first reason is financial: A tech support incident is a valuable service provided to a single individual. It is not offered to multiple individuals at the same time. The second reason is practical: Experience shows that users will puff up their expertise and are less willing to consider mistakes when an exchange takes place in front of third parties. To avoid any incentive not to be completely honest all tech support exchanges must occur in private. The third reason is privacy: Tech support may at times need to discuss information that is covered by the Manifold privacy policy. Because the policy allows no disclosure to any third party we require all such communications to occur in private. Even if users are willing to waive their privacy rights we are not willing to waive our privacy policy. Only if it is never violated can we absolutely guarantee the privacy policy.

Why do you ask for so much information? Long experience shows that having all required information at hand is the fastest way of resolving a tech support problem.

Why must I have the latest versions of everything and the latest service packs? Manifold uses many Microsoft system facilities to assure perfect compatibility with Windows. Version skew problems can arise or problems Microsoft has fixed long ago might therefore show themselves as problems encountered when running Manifold if downrev code is being used. Both Manifold and Microsoft eliminate problems by issuing service packs and by issuing newer releases. Because technical support is a limited resource, it does not make sense to waste it on figuring out and fixing problems that have already been fixed by either Manifold or Microsoft in an update. Requiring that customers use the latest release of Manifold and install the latest Manifold and Microsoft updates is the only way to guarantee that problems that have already been fixed are not at issue.

Can I get free tech support by sending a question to Sales? No. Tech support incidents also apply to questions of a technical support nature that are sent to sales. Such emails are forwarded to tech support and require a tech support token to process.

Can I ask more than one question in the same email? Only if you provide more than one tech support token. When more than one question is asked in the same email, Technical Support will apply a token to each question in turn until all tokens are used up.

Can I file a bug report without using a support token? Yes, if you do not request a reply and if you do not ask any questions. If you wish to report a bug, send an email of any length; however, make it clear you do not require a reply. For example, begin your letter with "Bug report - no reply necessary." Users will at times send in a bug report and then ask that the bug report be confirmed or denied as a known bug. This requires a token because the user is asking for a custom report of bug status. When submitting bug reports, do not ask rhetorical questions.

What does a tech support token cover? A technical support token covers any single question asked of technical support. The same incident continues no matter how many emails are exchanged until the single question is answered. "Single questions" mean those that relate to one function or to the lowest separable usage level of Manifold in a specific task. General questions will receive general answers, since they usually involve numerous functions or very many lower level usage levels. For example, a general question such as "How can I link to external database tables" will receive a general answer pointing out various Manifold Help topics to read, which will cost one token. The thread does not continue into subsequent specific questions, such as, perhaps, how to operate the ODBC dialog and so on.

Excluded from standard support are questions related to any form of scripting, any other programming, customization, SQL, License Server, Enterprise Edition features, Manifold IMS and any questions involving Runtime licenses. Excluded also are questions that are of a consulting or educational nature or that describe the operation of Windows in general or products other than Manifold System. Only supported are the specific functions and capabilities of Manifold. Development level support tokens are required for Manifold questions excluded from standard support.

Examples of supported questions:

• "How do I import a projected .shp file?"
• "Can Manifold import .ijk format for surfaces?"
• "How do I rotate a label?"
• "How do I link a table into a project?"

Examples of unsupported questions:

• "What is the difference beween .shp files and .mid/.mif files?"
• "How do I write a script to import .ijk format for surfaces?"
• "What is wrong with my XML customization?"
• "Manifold IMS won't launch on my machine. What am I doing wrong?"
• "How should I configure SQL Server with the right permissions for me to link a table into my project?"
• "Please write an example script that..."

Manifold Technical Support provides technical support on Manifold products, not on Microsoft facilities or on other products. Manifold can work with many other software products. For example, one can create a linked drawing in Manifold that draws its contents from a SQL Server table. However, support on Manifold is limited to Manifold only. For example, if you are having difficulty creating a linked drawing because your SQL Server system or Windows security is configured in a way that prevents your user login from accessing the desired SQL Server table then Manifold tech support will not provide the integration consulting to help you re-configure SQL Server or diagnose the improper administrative setup of Windows.

Consulting assistance is best obtained by retaining a consultant expert in Manifold and in the other technologies being used. Many expert consultants participate in online forums for Manifold and can often be recruited at reasonable rates by a posting in such forums.

Questions?

Please contact us at sales@manifold.net. We would like you to be happy with your licensing of Manifold products, so please do not hesitate to ask any questions before placing an order.