How Does It Work?

Assima Support Center is built around the concept of "issues": an issue is a question or a problem submitted by a The Wizard Training Suite user. This system allows Assima 's support and development teams to manage the process of answering questions and correcting problems.

A status is associated with each issue. During the lifecycle of the issue, this status will change until the issue is closed, which means the user considers the question has been answered or the problem corrected satisfactorily.

Comments
Each issue can have comments associated to it. Comments are used to describe the problem and provide as much information as possible about it.

For instance, the user must explain what kind of issue occurred and how it can be reproduced. Assima 's support and development teams will also post comments as necessary, for instance when more information is required, to give tips and hints, to provide answers, etc. This is a very effective way to communicate because all comments related to a given issue are kept in and available for consultation from the same place.

When adding a comment, it is also possible to attach one or several files to it. This enables Assima Support Center users to submit their thesaurus, some screenshots, sample applications that reproduce the problem, or even entire applications into Assima Support Center.

Email Notifications
Each time someone posts a new comment, the person who reported the issue will be notified by email, so that the user has the latest information and is able to follow the status of the issue.

Issue Lifecycle

When an issue is entered by a user, its status is set to "New". Assima 's staff should then handle the issue as required, until the user is satisfied and marks it as "Closed". This is the responsibility of The Wizard Training Suite users to report new issues and to mark them as closed when the issue has been processed satisfactorily.

Between the status "New" and "Closed", which are set by The Wizard Training Suite users, the issue's status will be set to other intermediate states: "Assigned", "QA Pending", "Verified", "Postponed", "Reopened". The issue's lifecycle is outlined on the picture.

Assigned Issues
When a new issue is reported, it appears as "New" in Assima Support Center. People in charge of Assima Support Center will be notified of this new issue and they will assign it to one of Assima 's employees.

If the issue is a question, a member of the support team will answer it. If the issue is about an incorrect behavior of The Wizard Training Suite, then a member of the support team will try to reproduce it; if necessary he or she will contact the The Wizard Training Suite user that reported the problem to get help on how to reproduce the problem. Once the problem is reproduced, the issue will be assigned to a developer if it cannot be solved by the support staff.

QA Pending Issues
When the issue is answered or the problem is corrected, it will be marked as "QA Pending". If the issue required a correction in The Wizard Training Suite, the developer will specify the next version (build number) that will provide the correction.

The issue will then be assigned to one of the members of the support team to check the correction. The verification will be done using the release version that should be delivered to the The Wizard Training Suite customer.

Verified Issues
When the verification is complete, the issue is marked as "Verified"; if a correction was made, the customer will be provided with the new version. It is the customer's responsibility to check that the issue is properly resolved and then mark it as "Closed".

If the customer considers the issue is not resolved, then he or she can change the status to "Reopened". Otherwise, the status must be set to "Closed". If the status is still set to "Verified" 30 days later, then the issue will be considered resolved and marked as "Closed" by the Assima Support Center.

Closed Issues
By default, issues that are "Closed" are not displayed in the list of current issues. To display them, the user can click on "My Closed Issue" in the menu bar or change the issues filter accordingly. A "Closed" issue can be set to "Reopened" if the problem appears again.

Postponed Issues
The "Postponed" status is used in few circumstances where the issue can not be set as "Closed" and can neither be considered as open. For instance, this is the case if a problem appeared once but could never be reproduced afterwards. Or, if the user is not sure a correction is needed at this time (for example if the user is waiting for a contract to decide if the issue must be corrected or not).