Opening New Issues

There are multiple ways you can contact Percona to have us start work on a new technical issue. Use these same procedures for both per-hour consulting and annual support cases. Our processes are the same regardless of which type of customer you are.

Contact Options

Telephone & Online Chat (Use for all emergencies)

Use our emergency contact procedures .

Customer Portal (Use only for routine help)

Login to our Customer Portal. All emails, files, chats and any other work done for you by Percona will be logged there. Once logged in click on the "Create Issue" link, or send an email reply to an older issue asking us to open a new one for you. Use this only for routine issues, but not for emergencies.

Telephone & Online Chat (For routine help)

You may also use our emergency contact methods for routine, non-emergency help if that is more convenient for you. Call our staff on duty anytime 24x7. Feel free to ask them to create a new issue for you in our Customer Portal.

Tips And Guidelines When Using the Customer Portal

Make Issues Discrete

If you separate your requests into smaller, separate issues you will use our manpower more efficiently. This keeps your requests from being overlooked within what otherwise become long, multi-topic issues that become harder to follow.

Make Subjects Clear & Up-To-Date

Instead of a Subject like "Problem" or "Help!" say instead "Need Phone Call on Tuesday" or "Crashed InnoDB Recovery." When the topic discussed in the thread has moved on, update the Subject to reflect it. Saying "Schema Mods for Product Table" is a lot better than "Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Need Phone Call on Tuesday". Proper Subjects makes issues much easier to follow.

Anticipate Our Questions

In any new issue try to anticipate the questions needed for us to assign, schedule, and begin work. For example:

• Do you need work to begin ASAP as an emergency, or on the next business day, or anytime within the next few weeks?
• Can anyone work on this issue, or would it be best to assign it to a specific consultant?
• What servers, services, and other details must we know to begin work?
• Are there any limitations or constraints, such as hours when no work is allowed because of production impacts?

How The Customer Portal Routes Emails

Each issue in our Customer Portal has its own email address, which takes the form <issue-1234@customers.percona.com> for issue #1234 in this example. All emails related to this issue should go to this address and to no other. Sending emails personally to Percona staff is discouraged and is less efficient.

Each issue has a "Notification List" containing the addresses of everyone involved with that issue, both at Percona and at your company. Each email to <issue-1234@customers.percona.com> will be automatically resent to everyone on the Notification List for issue #1234. New users sometimes do not realize that they are talking to a group, not an individual, when they reply to an email.

Can We Use Your Issue Tracking System?

Yes. We are familiar with many different issue tracking systems and are usually able to use them. However for quality control and documentation, all information must also be duplicated in our Customer Portal. This may add slightly to our billable time.