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Reporting bugs or any other issues

SvivaManager

Hello,

I am a customer of many different ESRI products and I am being supported by a representative company at my country, which supports all my needs and problems which I may have regarding the products of ESRI I own.

This means that whatever way of communication I would like to have with ESRI, it all must go through the representative company and not directly.

This arrangement is all good and nice until the point I witness many "unimportant" bugs and faults which are not reported to ESRI for mostly the reason of complexity to open a case/bug or the expected answers or just the importance of such report and I cannot help but wonder how ESRI claims to understand the needs and requests of users and customers and make a true connection if all communication is being made through a 3rd party company?

In the last 3 years a lot of "small issues" I found was filtered out instead of being reported to ESRI and I am fine with this, but today I have 3 bugs I'm URGING to report and I really must admit I'm very annoyed by knowing that I cannot report it to anyone other than my representative company - which will probably find me a different solution / work around so we could forget all about those bugs as most times and not report them.

And still... I wanted to ask, as customer, is there actually a way to communicate with ESRI directly or am I forced to go through a 3rd party as always?

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GabrielUpchurch1

It falls outside of my skillset so I lack the expertise to provide anything meaningful for the configurable app issue issue you referenced but I did do a quick check. I found that there is also a specific bug that has been documented regarding the erroneous URL that is generated. Here is the info:

BUG-000089526: In Portal for ArcGIS 10.3.1, a wrong URL is saved for an application created from the My Content page using a template.

The analyst that submitted this defect did a good job of relating it to BUG-000087735, which is how I was able to find it. Both defects are marked as "Assigned" which means Development has acknowledged there is an issue and they are looking into it. I am not in Development so it is not possible for me to obtain any specific details regarding where they are at in addressing the issue. Hope this info is helpful.

SvivaManager

It's very nice to know that ESRI's employees are that much caring and taking their work seriously beyond what expected in some cases.

I really hope ESRI will eventually take this support issue into consideration to find that this community is a strong enough support channel + customer's point of contact and invest more effort on combining it with its existing support structure - deeper that is.

Simply (or not) by being more involved and adding new features here like extra "admin buttons" that can link topics or their comments to different bugs and issues which are opened at ESRI's other systems. This could do wonders on the way ESRI approaching issues.

If this community really was some kind of a formal direct "communication line" for ESRI's support, since there is no "middle man" here, all that is left to do is acknowledgement on the issue and finding workaround suggestions, or in some cases, full solutions - easier said than done of course, but still worth consideration.

As an admin, you can get a lot of statistics to distinct real bugs from misunderstanding all through some simple tagging to topics and even then you can understand what needs to be added at the documentations for example. The possibilities are almost endless.

I'm honestly really curious about ESRI's progress with the bug I mentioned at my previous comment which I personally wrote the full solution and reason for that behavior (Portal - Configurable App Templates - Installed).

If ESRI could have linked this answer to their investigation team, this could have surely saved a lot of time.

GabrielUpchurch1

It is a challenging situation so I understand your frustration. Just as there are reasons why the current support structure is problematic, there are also reasons why it was advantageous (and even necessary) to set it up this way. The points you raise are not lost on Esri and efforts are being made to create a more unified support experience for all users. This is not something that would just be beneficial to users but would also allow Esri to be more responsive to the needs of all users (globally) and the issues they encounter.

Big changes, especially global ones that involve numerous independent organizations, take time so in the meantime, I would suggest doing as others on this discussion suggested. If you are not making headway with your local distributor then post your observations to GeoNet. My situation may be unique when compared to many other Esri employees but spending time on GeoNet is actually an optional (but paid) part of my job. I enjoy supporting customers through GeoNet so I take advantage of the opportunity when my other responsibilities allow. I have even submitted defects to Development on behalf of GeoNet users or confirmed that there was already a documented issue. I have also observed members of various product teams throughout Esri doing the same for their relevant products.

It is definitely a shot in the dark to post an issue to GeoNet and hope that an Esri employee with the necessary skillset and role in the company sees your post but it is always worth trying. Even if this doesn't occur, there are many incredibly knowledgeable users (such as those in this discussion) that are active on GeoNet and happy to assist you if they can.

DanPatterson_Retired

As I mentioned earlier...there is no filtering if 'bugs'...perceived or real.. are reported here. Some of the moderators and forum MVPs are esri staff who contribute on their own time. Why? conjecture on my part... it undoubtedly gives them a different perspective of the gis environment. Why do I do it? I teach...so you have to anticipate questions before they are asked ... there is nothing worst than a lame-*ass " I'll get back to you" answer from a prof.

Sadly, most people don't have the time to go through GeoNet leisurely and read the types of question that are being posted. Maybe you will

find something interesting
find out how to do something differently
maybe answer a question
gain a better understanding of what can be applied where.

So take 5 minutes out of your day... pick a couple of Places and/or Spaces and skim the previous days posts, you might be amazed and sometimes amused.

MikeVolz

I would report the bugs you've found here where the bug may have already been identified to ESRI by another enduser or other endusers can replicate your bug and they would have direct communication with ESRI to handle the bug instead of a 3rd party company filtering out your findings.

RebeccaStrauch__GISP

I can understand your frustration, and I'll be in a similar boat once I retire and work on my own for "just for fun". Chances are I will not be able to afford tech support on my own. Esri staff, from what I understand, do not get paid for monitoring the forums (and of course, many of us do it on our own time too), so they may not alwasy see the issues unless someone points it out. However, I have seen an increase of monitoring on some of the newer products.

Again, I'm not sure about how or if you can get involved in your particular situation, but, there are other ways to get involved and to provide direct feedback thru the beta programs. This does require approval, etc., but that is a way to test the issues you are having before public release...may get bugs looked at before you put them in production. And again, this may require going thru your 3rd party rep. ...and of course, it all takes a time commitment of some type.

ChrisSmith7

I concur there's a wealth of resources to help if you're willing to dig in and get dirty. When we evaluated ArcGIS Server, pairing with the JSAPI, we had a complete, working development application, from server set-up to code development, all without needing to contact Esri or asking forum questions.

Our evaluation didn't come with tech support, so we were on our own and managed workarounds, etc. from our own research. We're just one case... everyone is different, but there's a wealth of information available for those willing to look.

Of course, this may not always be ideal and/or possible when you've got pressing issues that need to be resolved, but, at that point, you should have a maintenance contract with Esri. If you own the product and are current with maintenance, there should be an easy way to report valid bugs. Easier said than done - I know!

SvivaManager

I do agree it's the correct way of managing so many customers with the possibly of too many false complains, but there are many times that bugs and even solutions to them (either workarounds or actual solutions) will be missed by ESRI because the direct approach is not allowed.

You can see the following thread as an example (might not be the best one though) -

https://community.esri.com/thread/161452

I replied there an answer with a solution to the problem and the full explanation on why this is happening - I know this bug for a while now but I can't report it and my account manager didn't either...

so, as always, we just wait for someone else to have it at the U.S and they'll report it directly.

I have more of those examples - including another old post I had here which was solved thanks to this great community and not thanks to my support representatives who actually directed me to the opposite way of solution and caused this error to last 4 months longer, and now that this issue was solved you would expect the solution to be reported to ESRI as something to be documented or pass on to others or maybe even get fixed by code!! but no.

We resolved the issue, moved on and all that's left from it is a post here without any involvement by ESRI.

Very disturbing by my opinion.

RebeccaStrauch__GISP

Not to take any side on the way other countries have to deal with it, but speaking from my experience as the Primary contact for my Department (in the US), the way annual maintenance is paid determines who and the number of users that can (are "allowed") to contact technical support directly.

When our staff contacts me about an issue, it may be that I have already reported it and/or received a workaround, and it may be that I already know if it will/or will not be fixed in a future release. If it goes beyond anything that I know about or can research thru GeoNet, Stackexchange, etc., I then have to generate the support ticket, but at least in my case, after initial contact I can usually have the support staff talk directly to the user (keeping me in the loop). With my users spread out across the state, it in not always possible for me to go to their machine to work out the details of the particular issue.

So, I agree with Dan that posting questions here is a good way to go if you don't think you are getting complete answer thru the channels available to you. You may get the exact same answer, but if you need that as assurance, it is a free, mainly community run forum. If it is a bug that hasn't been reported, it may be that someone else will encounter the problem and seeing you post may push the reporting along a bit faster (especially if they can contact tech support)

Also, it's good to check out the Esri Arcgis Ideas | Ideas Submission Portal page to see if someone has already submitted the "fix" as an idea.....they you can promote it. Also, alwasy check Patches and Service Pack - Esri Support to see if a fix has already been issued.

Keep in mind, not all bugs can or will be fixed....sometimes workarounds are what we have to work with. As a long time esri user, my main concern is to get things to work .....even if it takes a bit of tweaking. And just to add a bit more commentary.....I have to use far less workarounds than 30, or even 10 years ago.....so things are improving overall.....we just all expect more all the time. So, it may not be a perfect GIS world, but as long as we have resources like these forums, and can get things done.....

ChrisSmith7

Almost like they have to go their GP to get a referral to see a specialist who can give then review their symptoms for a resolution. Except here they'd still have to receive correspondence through the third party. If these are indeed bugs, this set-up may be filtering some of them out, which would affect us all.

DanPatterson_Retired

It is also a good idea to report your 'bugs' here for the following reasons:

It may be a bug and people are experiencing similar issues but
- aren't allow to report their bug, since only their account administrator or designate can
- they don't know administers their organization account (ie universities, gov't depts.)
- you are using a student copy and you have to report to your faculty member who
  - has no clue what you are talking about because
    - they just administrate the student licenses
    - don't know who administers the account at the local or national level

It may not be a bug and people know why and can provide a commentary:
- there may be a misinterpretation on how things are supposed to work
- It just may be a difference in opinion on how things should work. There have been many threads in this vein recently. I will not provide sample links, but they can be found.
other reasons appended here by others.
- ??????
- ??????

George_Thompson

I would recommend talking to your local account manager. As far as I know the only way to log issues with Esri (when outside of the US) is through a distributor.

Hope this helps......

Esri Technical Support

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