Getting Defect Fixed in a Timely Manner

Articles and Tips: qna

01 Jan 2002

We have an incident open with Novell Technical Support (NTS) that has been submitted to Novell Engineering as a proven defect. Does anyone know of a way for us to find out when this is going to get fixed? The defect is in eDirectory and we have been holding off any large deployment of eDirectory until this defect is fixed. We would really like some indication of how long we should expect to wait. Our NTS Technician tells us we will just have to wait. I just can't believe that's the case.

Stressed in South Dakota

Dear Stressed: There are a couple of different routes that you can explore if you are frustrated with the Novell Technical Support story. Now, just to be fair, Novell Technical Support technicians are only doing what they have been told to do. They verify customer problems and submit them to Novell Engineering for a fix. This is where you may experience delays.

Novell Engineering typically creates a prioritized list of defects to fix in order of perceived importance. If your problem is not perceived as being very important, the time it takes to be fixed could potentially be months. Here are two other options you may want to consider:

Contact Novell's Critical Problem Resolution Group (CPR). Ask your NTS Technician to escalate your problem to Novell's CPR Group. Make sure you indicate that this is a very critical problem for your company and that Novell will lose an astronomical amount of money by not making this sale. Chances are the CPR will quickly fix your problem, if feasible, providing you with a patch or a re-compiled module.
Contact Novell Developer Support. If your problem is developer related they will assign an Engineer to take care of your problem. Novell Developer Support is known for their personal attention to every problem they work on. They will get your problem fixed.

* Originally published in Novell AppNotes

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