Support Guidelines and Policies

Support Services Provided:

• Our main Support landing page is located at https://www.snapstream.com/support.
• SnapStream Technical Support is available to ensure customers achieve maximum value of the purchased SnapStream products and solutions, both hardware and software. Technical Support provides product information, guidance, feature assistance as well as a timely resolution of problems or errors for SnapStream products and solutions. For any questions regarding support policies or the scope of services provided, please contact Technical Support at support@snapstream.com
• NOTE: This document does not surpass or supersede the EULA (End User License Agreement) of the product that is provided at installation.

Technical Support Definitions:

• Priority: The below priority levels categorize the impact of reported problems. Technical support will set this once assessing the details of the request. Note that priority levels may change during a support ticket lifetime as new information is discovered.
  • Urgent: Examples may include data loss, product down or completely unusable with no workaround, or acute security vulnerability.
  • High: Prominent functional failure or major degradation. The product can be used but with limited functionality.
  • Normal: Average functional failure or unexpected result. A feature is not working as expected or certain limited conditions cause errors.
  • Low: Minor and benign issue, a question about product functions and capabilities, or feature request.

Access to Support Resources:

• SnapStream Support Site: To get started with Support resources, consult our web page here: https://www.snapstream.com/support. From here, there several resources at your disposal.
• Knowledge Base and Self-Help: Our searchable and categorized knowledge base articles provide useful information and guidance for common questions or apparent problems. This can be found at the following location: https://support.snapstream.com/hc/en-us
• Searchable Online Help: Customers can search and view comprehensive online help that provides detailed and categorized product conceptual and procedural information for the Web UI. This can be found at the following location, depending on your version:
  • 9.1: http://help.snapstream.com/9.1/index.html
  • 8.5: http://help.snapstream.com/8.5/default.htm
• How-To: Various informative guides on how to use essential SnapStream features can be found using the following location: https://www.snapstream.com/support/snapstream-how-tos
• Training: Customers can schedule introductory and advanced user training using the following reservation system: https://www.snapstream.com/support/training

How to Submit a Support Request:

• SnapStream technical support highly encourages customers to take advantage of the resources available before submitting a support request. If a customer has exhausted the Knowledge Base, they can submit a support request ticket by the various means listed below. Note that presently there is no limit on the number or frequency of support requests.
  • If all support agents are busy, customers will have the ability to leave a voice message. When leaving a message about a new issue, customers should provide sufficient details that sufficiently describe the request. Please see the expectations of the customer section.
  • When calling the support line about an existing ticket, customers should provide the ticket number and your name and contact information.
  • Customers can open a new support ticket directly from our customer portal at https://support.snapstream.com. This is the preferred method of submitting a support request. Customers can register by creating a new account on the login screen.
  • A support request can also be submitted by emailing support@snapstream.com. Note, however, that submission of support requests by email will be deprecated in the near future.
  • Additionally, customers can call the Support phone line and speak to a support engineer by dialing our US number: (877) 696-3674 or (713) 554-4560.
• Customers will receive an acknowledgment of the received request as well as a corresponding ticket number. Customers can also view the status of currently open support tickets as well as ticket history via the support portal. The support portal also provides the ability to add comments to a current support ticket and add attachments. We highly recommend communicating via the ticket comments text boxes.
• Note that the following are the different statuses that are part of a ticket's life:
  • Open: This indicates the ticket is currently being worked on by support staff, escalated to engineering, or is awaiting a third party such as a vendor.
  • Awaiting Your Reply: This indicates support is depending on customer's feedback, an answer to a question, etc. in order to move forward towards resolution.
  • Solved: This indicates confirmation the original issue was resolved or answered or is no longer occurring. Note that a customer can also set this by selecting "Please consider this request solved" just under the comment text box.

Feature Requests

• Customers can submit a feature request by submitting a ticket to support and providing the following information:
  • An indication in the subject that this is a feature request.
  • What version of the product is it concerning?
  • Is it an enhancement to a current feature?
  • What is the intention of the request? What problem is it trying to solve? Any context that can be provided would help engineering know how to best address the feature request.
• Note that sometimes a support ticket may evolve into a feature request.
• Support will subsequently submit an engineering item into the prioritized product feature list for potential consideration and prioritization into a future release of the product. Once this is done, support will close the corresponding support ticket.

Software Upgrades

• As new software versions become available, customers can download and upgrade their systems or if desired schedule support to perform the upgrade on applicable systems.
• To schedule an upgrade time, customers can use the following reservation system: https://www.snapstream.com/upgrade
• Alternatively, if an unassisted upgrade is required, support can provide a location for downloading respective software installers upon request.

RMAs

• System: On a rare occasion that an entire hardware system is faulty and has been diagnosed by support as needing replacement, SnapStream may provide a system replacement assuming that it is still under vendor warranty (typically 5 years). If your system is older than 5 years old, the hardware has reached End-of-Life and cannot be serviced for hardware problems. Please contact your sales account manager for more information about upgrading your hardware or sending an email to sales@snapstream.com
• Parts: These may include hard drives, tuner cards, cables, IR emitters, etc. If the customer is under service contract any of these are deemed by support to be faulty and needing replacement, SnapStream will ship a replacement part or comparable replacement part to the customer's requested address. Note that once received, customers are expected to return the original faulty part using a return shipping label electronically provided by the support engineer. Minor parts such as cables are usually not expected to be returned.

Support Expectations

• Support Operating Hours:
  • Standard support hours of operation are Monday - Friday, 7 am - 7 pm Central US time, except for national US holidays.
  • Beyond the above hours, on-call supportis available for emergencies and urgent problems.
    • During this time customers can submit a ticket via https://support.snapstream.com. Please provide as much detail as possible about the problem.
    • Our ticketing system will reply with an automated response asking if it is a critical emergency. If so, please follow the instructions and reply accordingly.
    • If the support ticket is indicated as a critical emergency request, a support engineer will respond within one hour. Otherwise, customers should expect a response during the next day's standard operating hours.
      
• Support Response Time Expectations: The goal of technical support is to partner with the customer to provide a timely resolution to support tickets. All tickets are different in depth and complexity and may require different times to workaround or resolution. The following are estimated expectations for when Technical Support will respond to an incident:
  • Urgent: 1 hour within operating or extended hours
  • High: 4 hours within operating hours
  • Normal: 1 business day
  • Low: 2 business days
• Tickets requiring a software fix: If a support ticket is identified as a software defect that has no workaround, it may require a software release to the product to resolve the error. The timing for a provided software fix for the identified defect may depend on the severity of the issue.
• Support Communication: During the support ticket life, Technical support will provide to the customer continuous updates on current findings, explanation of progress, the rationale for information requests or configuration steps, and strategies or next steps. Communication will typically be provided via the ticket and may occur over the phone as applicable. Communication is always expected to be concise, informative, professional and courteous.
• Escalations: Customers who are not satisfied with the progress of the resolution of their ticket and the impact to the business or are concerned with the service responsiveness may request an escalation of their support ticket. Customers may send an email to support-escalations@snapstream.com for consideration. Emails should include the ticket number, description of the current status of the ticket, and the reason for escalation.

Expectations of the Customer

• Service Contract: To receive technical support services, customers are required to be under a non-expired service contract.
• Information When Opening a Ticket: In order to quicken the resolution of a support ticket, customers should provide as much relevant information as possible at the time the request is submitted. The following type of information would allow support to provide more effective assistance to the customer:
  • What visible symptoms are occurring?
  • What steps were taken that led up to the unexpected result?
  • What, if any, changes were performed on the system?
  • What, if any, changes occurred in the environment or upstream sources (e.g. cable boxes, feeds, network, etc.)?
  • Is the issue isolated to a user or multiple users?
  • Is the issue systemic and widespread or isolated to a particular function?
  • What diagnostic steps have already been taken by the customer?
• Ongoing Information: As applicable, Technical Support may require additional information about the customer objectives and technical environment in order to help diagnose problems, provide answers, etc. These may include but are not limited to, steps taken, screenshots, product log files, computer system information, user accounts, network configuration, etc. All information provided will be kept confidential and not shared outside of SnapStream. 
• Access to Systems: In many cases, the use of online remote access tools (such as LogMeIn Rescue) may be used to understand the scenario, inspect the system, gather information as well as provide guidance to customers.
• Configuration Changes and Diagnostic Drops: If necessary, Technical Support may require configuration changes of computer, network, storage, and other systems to diagnose and resolve the customer ticket. In addition, it might be necessary to install additional software, tools, or diagnostic code from SnapStream in order to further resolution of the customer ticket.
• Communication:
  • Referencing ticket number: Correspondence regarding a support ticket should always reference the ticket number. If emailing about a ticket, use the original thread created from the support request that includes the ticket number.
  • Limit of request scope: In order to focus on the resolution of the original support request, customers should limit the scope of the current ticket to the original topic as applicable. If there are other unrelated problems or issues that also require support, customers should open a new support ticket.
• Timely Response: To improve the speed of resolution of the support ticket, the corresponding timely response of technical support requests for information and feedback is expected of the customer. Unless previously noted by the customer (e.g. vacation taken), tickets waiting on the customer for more than one week will be set to Solved status. If support is diagnosing an open Urgent priority ticket that requires customer interaction, the immediate availability of the customer is expected.

revised July 31, 2020