My goal is to help you, and I'm not going to leave you stranded. You're my client now and I'm going to take care of you.

But I need to ask you to give this a really good effort before you fire off a support ticket. I'm going to be grumpy if the answer to your question is sitting in an obvious spot (Knowledge base, forums, etc)

The Right Way -

1) Read the knowledge base articles and try to find a solution

2) Use the knowledge base search feature

3) Search the online forums at www.ultimateformmail.com/ufm2 by using the Search feature (top right of the nav)

4) Re-read the troubleshooting article in this knowledge base

5) Look at the demo contact form files for guidance (view source, copy and paste, etc)

6) Try to at least pin point the issue

7) If you send a support ticket, please send me the details I need to help you the first time so we can fix your problem without sending the ticket back and forth a few times just to get the pertinent details (see below)

8) Please make sure you've already upgraded to the latest version. There's a reason why I update the code... to make it better and fix bugs.

9) Understand that as much as I want to help, I'm not always working at the same time you are. I might not be in the same time zone as you, and I might be out of the office or tied up. I promise your ticket will be answered.

10) If I ask for your ftp info, understand that this is a last ditch effort on my part to give you the best support I can... I wouldn't ask if I didn't need it, and I have no intention of harming your site.



The details I need in a ticket:

*Website url of your contact form (don't make me find it, please)
*What the problem is
*What version your are using (should be the latest)


The Wrong Way to Ask for Help

1) Don't give up too fast and fire off a support ticket without even trying to solve it on your own, only to find out that the answer was in the knowledge base or user support forums

2) Don't give me incomplete info in the ticket, so that my first reply is "Please give me the following info I need to help you"

3) Please don't tell me you're in a rush. (I will help you as fast as I can, but you need to know that telling me you're in a rush sounds to me like you're pushing a time crunch problem of yours off onto my plate.)

4) Please don't send me a direct email. I used to provide support that way, but here's the problem:

*I can't spend all day answering emails
*I can't keep track of them all

That's why I started this help desk. I've set it up so you don't even need an account username or password to get a ticket rolling, so it's almost as easy, just more organized, and it kind of forces you to at least glance at some possible solutions before sending me your ticket.

5) Don't copy and paste all of your source code into the ticket. I don't have time to wade through your controls/config file... debugging is tedious, especially when I didn't cause the error, so I just don't do it. Period. There are better ways.


A quick note on my attitude and helpfulness

If you come away from this article thinking I have a poor attitude or if you doubt whether I will help you or not, just take a quick trip over to www.ultimateformmail.com/ufm2 and you'll see that some guy with the username Coder has answered hundreds of questions personally... that's me.

Point is, you're going to have to search far and wide to find someone more helpful than me... but following some simple rules will help me maintain sanity and speed up my support for you.

The things I mention in this article occur weekly, and I want to attack the problem with a little humor, and common sense.

"Help me help you"

-Jack