max

DevExpress support has been phenomenal for us!  From sample code sent to guide us, to links to already listed solutions, to quick logging of new feature needs.. support has been outstanding!

Not to mention the amazing personal touch when my wife, who battles end stage cancer, received a beautiful flower bouquet from the entire team!

The bottom line? I TRUST DevExpress to fully support us as we use their software to help develop our own. - Joe

I sent an email! The service is great with the exception of the resposne time. It needs to be a bit faster.

DX support is amazing. Quick to answer, provide samples, etc. I don't think it's possible to improve it further.

The support itself is great!

My biggest problem is actually not with the support team itself, but by the developers often 'refusing' to implement important features and events.

As an example, the BeforeDelete event in the XtraGrid without having to add own handlers to the embedded navigator buttons. Another example is an event that has to be triggered when a new row is to be added. A Cancel parameter in the InitNewRow would help a lot already.

you have great support but there is thing that you can do better...

for example

1 response time can be faster

2 a few support member make me angry with frustrating  answer so i like to see a feature to rate the quality of each support member by rating each answer

3  the worst part is when we need implement some new feature we can't wait month or year when you decide if you will implement it we need a workaround that we can implement in mid time you decide if you will implement what we ask or not

I've already sent an e-mail to the technical support staff, praising their fantastic work. I think they are the completing part of the whole development cycle; sure, the components of DX are fantastic (I think the best), but the support team makes working with the components even better, and without the team - the picture wouldn't have been complete.

Excellent work guys and gals!  :-)

Hello,

What I miss is some kind of "level 2 support".

I've used the XtraGrid for a few years now. So when I ask a question to the support I would avoid a few days wasted because I sometimes get answers that looks formatted for begginers.

On the other hand, I've just created my first XAF app and of course I asked only begginer questions. More than once I felt that I was answered by the level 9 support guy (I won't give you his name here) who was definitely bored anwsering always the same silly questions.

I can call myself a XtraGrid Master but also  a XAF Noob. I would love to have a multilevel (at least 2) support that could deal with the 2 types of problem that a support often meet :

1/ You learn the product

2/ You push the product to the limits

I'd like to agree with the comments that have already been posted in that the support team as a whole provide excellent service and most of the support staff are very helpful indeed.

A couple of niggles that need to be addressed have already been touched upon, but I'll reiterate anyway to help to make your service even better:

1) When pointing out the correct way to implement a poorly documented feature (and there are a lot!), the support team are superb.  However, when a bug is eventually acknowledged then nothing happens - it often just sits in a queue for years without being addressed.  Around 10% of the code in my applications is to work around DevExpress bugs that are never fixed.  This is a waste of time and resource - after all, I use your libraries to make development quicker and easier ;o)

2) As already pointed out, one or two members of the support team automatically give useless ill-thought out answers that require further responses.  Being based in Europe, when I post a question I don't usually get a reply until the next day since my working day is ending as yours starts.  When this is a pointless or incorrect answer, I have to re-post and that's another day wasted.  It can often take up to a week to get a query resolved when I need answers quickly.  Please bear this in mind.

Other than these minor points, I'm generally very pleased with the support provided by the DevExpress team.

Your suppport is very well, but i'm accord to johny and others:

3  the worst part is when we need implement some new feature we can't wait month or year when you decide if you will implement it we need a workaround that we can implement in mid time you decide if you will implement what we ask or not

I agree with the positive comments about DevExpress support. I have used many component vendors during my career as a developer and I would rate DevExpress support at the top of the ladder.

Although it is sometimes frustrating to be told that you cannot reproduce the problem, and then of course we have to create a small sample demonstrating the bug,  this is the most efficient way to deal with those sorts of problems.

Please keep up the good work.

I have always found support to be excellent not just for bugs but for questions, although I try to look on the community site first.

I think you could free up support time by improving the searching on DevExpress website to cut out duplicates. Couple of suggestions:

1) I can browse past blogs but can't search within them, searching goes across the whole community forum. So even if I know something was blogged about a while ago it can be difficult to find.

2) Tag support center issues, knowledge base articles... With key words i.e. event-handler, custom-draw, linq..... and allow searching by tags.

Just thought of another one possibly look at adjusting the forum to something more like stackoverflow.com with up votes for good answers and good questions. Again freeing up support time by better allowing people to find their own answers.

Overall, in my experience, no better product or support on the market (Winforms Suite).

However, please bear in mid the time zone issue, working in Europe it can sometimes take 2-3 days to resolve a support request due to days starting and finishing 5-8 hours apart.

Lets have loads more videos as they provide excellent, easy ways to learn the products without having to read through documentation and blogs.

Support has always been top notch for me and I salute you but in all things in life there is always room for improvement, not necessarily in the support but in the overall package that I invest in each year.

I still feel that the videos (Very important!) sometimes doesn't really help you on how that particular feature would be/should be implemented into a real world application. Sure it depends on the application, blah blah but it still would be good, no excellent! if you could show the feature implemented into a real world application.

I thought you nailed it with the DXAirways video series but come on, how long does one have to wait before it's finally finished? I have been watching this one with baited breath but gave up in the end because the videos are taking too long to publish. This is not a dig at the team, just frustrating to have to wait months!

I would recommend a lot more webinars, 60 mins long with OnDemand that really show off the DevExpress team skills, have a Beginner, Intermediate and Professional category. I would rather have these than the standard feature videos, if your developers want to do standard feature videos then fine but let them make a name for themselves and do it on their own.

IMO webinars are key to providing knowledge for your upcoming releases too. Articles, sure but I want to hear and see the excitement in your voices/faces, this is what inspires people, a picture is a thousand words and all that.

Where do i start guys :)

Just kidding. As a novice, to be honest, support has been absolutely excellent and the support team are fantastic and have come back to me in a reasonable timeframe with terrific results.

However, as a novice trying to break into development, i have noticed a few things that perhaps could be done a bit better on the website side of things (not in any particular order below)

I would recommend more complete example real world business applications (C & VB) - similar to DX Airways which is only in C i think located either in KB (Sample Business Applications) or Video (Maybe Perhaps for Subscription Users). This, i feel over all other issues gives users a better learning curve.

Knowledge Based Articles should be shown both in C and VB. I have come across answers in various knowledge based articles and then to be frustrated as the knowledge based article is also not shown in VB. (Having said that, i acknowledge the implementation of example runner in newer articles which is fantastic)

I do like your Support Categories Beta, but would prefer if the child links directed only to a new re-organised "DevExpress Master Knowledge Based Articles". These articles could then be revised easily if required. Perhaps a lot of simple novice How To Articles would help a lot of novices -  (e.g. "Filed under XtraGrid" XtraGrid - How to save xtragrid data back to database)

What a great service you're providing. I don't know any better support-team. ;-) Where is just one point I want to recommend:

"Processed (Accepted - Release TBD) by  DevExpress Team at...."

This is a nasty thing! Most time i look up in the support center. And often i found the TBD-state dated several year agos. My two personal wishes: Please specify the TBD-state more precise. E.x. "planned for vol.xxxx", "Planned. If we have the f.... time for it, to implement" ;-)

&&

All these old TBDs, that will never implemented: Set it to to a state like "passive"....

But remember my first words: DX-support is one of the best...

Best regards from Germany.

I think the support is very good usually.

I think one area of improvement could be the documentation. Often I run into a problem and get a solution from support. This is great but if the documentation had been up to date I wouldn't have needed to contact support at all.

Ultmiately DevExpress Support are awesome.Especitally we can find sample source code from  support,blogs etc.

It would be great  for greate customer experience , if you guys can come with "Phone Support" also ?

The support we have received from you guys has always been top notch. So good, in fact, I have often sent e-mails asking for tips and tricks for our own support department...

I have no issues with the support we have received. It's always been quick and efficient.

Your staff not only demonstrates skilled knowledge of the products they are supporting, they also do so in a very professional and timely manner.  In my opinion there is nothing you need to change.  Kudos to Dennis who has helped me out of some situations when I was learning XAF; and even when my questions may have sounded elementary to him he answers them without talking down to us.

@Robert - I think adding Phone Support would only affect the support since most of the questions may require research and workarounds.  Either way you look at it, and email or some form of internet interaction would be required so it would be a waist to add Phone Support.  Most importantly we can see how your issue was solved since it gets documented online (Support Center) and we can use the same examples to solve our issue if we experience it as well.

Keep going!!!!!!. Great support Knowledge base with great response too.

At least for me...

The only thing If it will be possible put a little bit more source code examples.

They really helps

Congratulations...

On the whole great support guys.

One thing that can waste time is when we're trying to find solutions to problems, trawling through articles that seem to help, only to find they're no longer relevant and apply to an older version. Maybe make it more obvious when an article has been superceded or even better remove it and put a link to an article that is the new preferred method.

Also, I agree with Brian that parity with examples in both VB and C# would be great too.

My experience with DevEx support has been a very positive one.  Being based in Australia, its generally a minimum of 24 hour turnaround to solving problems.  I understand there will be a constraint on support resources, but it would be nice to have support split up to accommodate three major time zones, Asia-Pacific, Europe and North/South America.

I'm not sure to what extent this happens, but have had a few problems where it is taking a considerable time to resolve an issue - mind you, its not straight forward, it might be useful to bounce issues that is taking more than a couple of days to resolve to get other support technicians to perhaps look at the problem. Chances are its already happening, but thought I'd just mention it.

Other than that, extremely happy with the level of support I am getting. Keep up the good work guys!

Your support is very quick, which I greatly appreciate.

However, my recent issues appear to have been dismissed rather too readily, which has left me questioning how willing you are to listen to your customers concerns.

In particular I am extermely dismayed that you have decided to drop support for C++Builder 2007 (which is the compiler we use for our productiobn code). Unless this decision is reversed (or you provide some other effective solution), we will NOT be renewing our VCL subscription again and will be looking at rival components to replace yours.

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My overall experience of support has been good (though never quite as timely as required but this is partly because I'm in Europe and partly because when I hit a problem it often causes a holdup until its fixed).

However, since your support is rated quite highly I feel that it is often relied upon rather than taking the more painful route of improving the help files. Sometimes I am working away from an internet connection and the help is what I have to rely on. The two issues I then have with the help is 1. whether something is covered and 2. Finding it.

And finally, (it is support related) you need to feedback on suggestions that are voted for better - have a published top 50 (or so) list.

Your support helped me in many situations and is greatly appreciated. The team was always willing to go the extra mile. The professional and friendly atmosphere gives me the support I require in these situations, which are usually filled with frustration and stress from my side.... other wise I wouldn't need support. ha.

The only thing I would appreciate would be a greater spectrum of education classes in Europe. This also belongs to the overall support from my point of view.

In general I am happy with the support.

However reporting a bug can be very time consuming. Offen we are expected to deliver a running project isolating the bug completely. Usually its easier and faster for us to find an alternativ solution... and not report the bug at all. I know that Devexpress developers are busy delivering new exciting features like the "gotyou" control and the more documentation you get from us, the easier it is for you. However we are also busy trying to make money. And trust me when we report  a bug 9 out of 10.. it is a bug.

I rarely need support from DX nor anyone else, so I am happy.

to improve your support, improve your product !

Do not waste time on improve the support, because goal should be the product leads to little support. If you find out how to make the product better, the support improves right away.

I agree with most comments that the support is very good.  

Overall the documentation needs to be improved.  I would rather see one good document then 5 examples in the support center for a great feature that users can never figure out.

A new status for suggestions or bug reports that have been "Accepted TBD".  Something between accepted and implemented... possibly Accepted for Consideration, then either reviewed - declined or reviewed - planned with a planned release date..  its a little discouraging seeing your issue being raised and alot of discussion and acknowledgement of the problem with the status as "Accepted TBD", only to look at the date and its been in that status for two years.

Also the "by design" drum should really stop beating for issues that are clearly not by design.  A good example is an XAF application where the differences are not well documented but the feature is.  Implementing the feature and finding it not working, but nowhere that clearly states it shouldn't.  Opening a ticket and receiving the response "web and windows are very different, this is not implemented by design".  I find it hard to believe that it was designed to not implement features that are documented, with tools to support them.

Overall DevX is great, and I've moved here from another vendor because of the great tools and support.. but these are definitely areas for improvement.

I think the support is very good and the support staff very helpfull.

One thing that could be improved is speed of access to the support website. I find this a little slow compared to other sites that I visit.

What could help alleviate this is to allow downloading of certain portions of the knowledgebase or articles (zipped up) so that we can then use them locally.

Keep up the good work guys.

Like many others have mentioned, the response time for searches in the Support Center could usefully be improved.  (Aside: presumably the Support Center uses DevExpress controls to maximum advantage, so it's a bit worrying that it can be so slow).

Searching (or rather, working your way through) the videos to find one's topic of interest is also a laborious process.  True, it's pretty, but I'd prefer something more functional.

In general the support is excellent and a good reason for buying from these controls.

Your support is second to none and is difficult to fault. I came across DevExpress just over a year ago when I was already using Infagistics and ComponentArt products. I was looking for a good report writer and you had what seemed a good one. I struggled with some issues with it and figured I’d try your support team even though I had not paid for it. The answers were quick and concise and got the problems fixed. I was very surprised as neither Infagistics nor ComponentArt give such good support even when it’s paid for.

Your support team have the ability to always find a solution. Even if the control can’t do what you want they always come up with an alternative or workaround that gets you what you want – I’ve not experienced this with other support. This is a major help when you are working to a deadline.

I’m really pleased that you are always going back and fixing bugs that have been fed back through your support team. My main reason for abandoning ComponentArt was the number of small bugs that they refused to fix even though customers were constantly pointing out the same problems. Infragistics contracted out their support and the quality plummeted. When I was told that the ‘Ajax control toolkit’ was not a product they knew about I knew it was time to leave!

Whilst your software is very good it is the fantastic support that keeps me with DevExpress. So much so that I have abandoned both Infragistics and ComponentArt products in favour of DevExpress only. So my advice would be to keep doing exactly what you are already doing, it works.

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It's been some time since I was evaluating your products (XAF in particlular) & I'm afraid it was the support department that was the final straw in me abandoning XAF as a platform to build my apps on.

I'm glad there are at least a few who are commenting on difficulties similar to what I was experiencing. I'm happy to accept that the support members were mostly *willing* to help, & that their *technical* expertise was quite good, but I found that the *understanding* of the difficulties I was experiencing was the problem. Most support staff I interacted with seemed to speak english as a second language & it often took numerous emails back & forth in order to get them to actually understand (if at all) what I was having a problem with. In the end it often felt like it was just a waste of time trying to get the answers I needed. Often I got useless answers that didn't really address what I needed help with (as commented on by several others).

I was also shocked & dissappointed by the large number of "issues" that had been identified & marked as TBA, that simply languished in that state for YEARS, with nothing being done about them.

I certainly hope that these things have improved since, but that was my experience of DXpress Support.

I think a more transparent system for enhancement requests that have been "accepted for a future release" would be good. I have come across several that are 4+ years old.  There is no feedback on what requested features will be in which upcoming builds or if the features will ever be implemented.

You are a team of geniuses.  All of you are very tech savvy.

It is hard to stump you guys, you always reply fast.

Somehow I managed to stump you with the last 3 bug reports that I sent.  They seem like really tough bugs because it's not any single component that is the issue but the combination of multiple components all together in order to make these bugs happen.  I spent long hours just creating those sample applications that show the bugs.

You always come back at the end with some sort of a solution.  Either blame Microsoft for a bug they don't want to fix.  Or a known issue with Firefox that has a work around.

I'm patiently waiting to hear the results of your investigation on the last 3 bugs.  Will be interesting to hear your feedback.  Specifically, about the button click event not firing, the popup text not setting on chrome and the permission denied errors on IE.

Keep up the amazing work.

Generally pleased with the support. As has already been mentioned, the time lag when you are in Europe is frustrating though.

DX Support is generally fantastic. And, as Support Center claims, they truely are my extended development team. (Dennis, especially has helped me through several jams. I feel like I owe this kid a bottle of wine at christmas time)

The following are area's I've said out loud to myself or others that would be nice. I have no expectation of these being implemented, because some are unrealisting, just sharing my "wish list" so to speak.

1) Weekend support. I honestly don't want that to happen to your team. They work hard enough during the week, but there have been a few issues I've found late in the day on Friday/Saturday that I've needed a resolution to.

2) "Reach out" phone support. This would help the "cannot reproduce" issues. If I submit something your team can't reproduce, have the guy call me and ask for specific steps instead of waiting for me to respond with more detailed stuff. Don't let customers call in, only have support call out. Only attempt once, if they don't answer, move on.

3) Show how many people are tracking an issue!!!

Kudo to other comment on great support team!

My working hours are from 8am-10pm EST and with your location in Europe sometime it take a little longer to resolve a question.  If it is possible to extend coverage it will definitely speed up the respond time.

Keep up the good work!

The Support is a big plus. I'm happy with the speed and the quality of the support.

Perhaps a for-fee support alternative using a desktop sharing tool.  I think it is appropriate for those tough situations where just previewing the behavior could be useful for your support team and save us the hassle of creating a running example of a problem.

The upload of sample programs showing problem also has an appropriate place in development but not always.

Charge by the minute which will get rid of chitchat.

Support has been excellent.  I am pleased with a response within 24 hours.  Although there is a lot of documentation for the VCL, I wish it were better written so I could more easily understand how to use all of the features.

i've been with you for 5 years and echo what most everyone has said.  i used to have to send you a request about every week but now with all of the diverse support you offer, i go months without having to.

great job!

dale

Developmer support is one of the best I've encountered.  It's a hard job trying to keep customers happy within the timescales they expect.  Some developers seeking help also need to understand support staff do not always have the full picture of the problem, they've not been working on your project 24/7, so we need to expect that in some cases you might provide the wrong answer or miss-understand the problem.  

Do the guys in support update the help guides? Is the developer asking the question simply because it's not clear in the help documentation.  Could more be done in providing more complicated examples.    For me, I beleive XPO is one area that needs improved help and more examples.   Better help and more examples reduces the need for support.

And yes I agree with some people, time lag can be frustrating (Eurpoe) and could your developers be a bit more open to accepting some of the requested changes/suggestions.

Support (aka Dennis) is fantastic, way above expectations however a couple of small niggles:-

Other SC specialists often do not read the submission carefully enough and respond with rather superficial comments. An extra few seconds to properly read the request/report would save everyone time.

Please index the help system better, it is often so hard to find something even if you know what you are looking for. There is plenty of content and it improves all the time, it's just finding it is the problem.

Great stuff.

I mentioned above about the terrific support.

I think that improvements in the search functions in the site, and better organization of past answers and help topics, will reduce the amount of questions that are asked (in my opinion - allot of the questions that are asked were already asked before, and asking it again is a result of not easily finding the same or similar question that was posted in the past).

Other than that - great work!

Developer support is incredible good. I really really thanks for the help. The response time is excellent. I wish you guys to keep this behaviour in the future. SUPER WORK.

Great job!