Contacting IBM Software Support

IBM® Software Support provides assistance with product defects, answering FAQs, and performing rediscovery.

1. Determine if a technote already exists regarding your issue. For additional information on viewing technotes.
2. Determine whether a peer or your internal support team can provide assistance.
3. Define the problem, gather background information, and determine the severity of the problem. For help, see the "Before contacting IBM Software Support" in the Software Support Handbook.

   Required background information

   • All configuration settings and information.
   • The expected behavior versus what the current behavior is.
   • All changes or modification that you have recently implemented.
   • Determine if the issue can be recreated.
   • Define the steps that lead to the issues you are experiencing.

4. Gather your diagnostic information:
   • You can also use the IBM Support Assistant basic data collection feature to collect your critical log and configuration files, see www.ibm.com/software/support/isa/ for additional information.
   • Create your own IBM Support Assistant Lite collector tool through the workbench.
     1. Download the product add-on in the IBM Support Assistant workbench.
     2. Click Collect and Send Data. Three options display on the left.
     3. Choose ...Using IBM Support Assistant Lite.
     4. Create the generated collector by completing each of the collector options:
        • Select a collector (if the installed product add-on does not display, it does not have a Must Gather document and cannot create an IBM Support Assistant Lite collector)
        • Specify the target directory
        • Specify the filename
        • Click the Export button
     5. Transfer the exported IBM Support Assistant Lite collector to a remote system using ftp or any other available file transfer protocol.
     6. Unzip the exported IBM Support Assistant Lite collector to your target location.
     7. Setup JAVA_HOME or ensure that Java™ is in your path statement.
     8. Run the runISALite.bat command for Windows or the runISALite.sh script for UNIX and LINUX from the tools IBM Support Assistant Lite directory on the remote system.
     9. Provide the appropriate responses to any collection prompts.
     10. Review the collected files or send them to IBM support.
5. Submit your problem to IBM Software Support in one of the following ways:
   • Online: (Recommended)
     1. Click Open service request given under the Choose your task section on the left-side navigation bar of the IBM InfoSphere® Master Data Management Collaboration Server Support site.
     2. Click ESR / SR and follow the instructions provided on the ESR website.
        Use the following guidelines and tips for using ESR and submitting PMRs:

        • Attach documents directly to the PMR to make them available to IBM Support Services.
        • ESR manages a list of all PMRs that you have viewed so that you have immediate access to them to check on their status.
        • Use ESR to set up automatic PMR notifications.
        • Send updates for PMR's that you open to IBM Support Services directly from ESR.
        • When submitting a PMR you must indicate a severity level in order to help us prioritize our resources with respect to other PMRs you open:

          Severity 1

          Critical business impact: This indicates that you are unable to use the program resulting in a critical impact on operations. This condition requires an immediate solution.

          Note: Critical business impact typically means that your production system is down and in order for IBM Software Support to work outside of your business working hours, you must ensure that you have a contact available by phone 24x7 to facilitate inquiries by the investigating engineer, run tests in your production instance, etc.

          Severity 2

          Significant business impact: This indicates the program is usable but severely limited.

          Severity 3

          Some business impact: This indicates the program is usable with less significant features (not critical to operations) unavailable.

          Severity 4

          Minimal business impact: This indicates the problem causes little impact on operations or that a reasonable circumvention to the problem has been implemented.

        • To open an Enhancement Request (a request for new general product functionality and is not related to a specific customization):
          • Open a PMR with severity 2, 3, or 4, (depending of the potential business gain of the request) and the request is sent to IBM Product Management for review. You will receive an Enhancement Request number for tracking purposes, which replaces the PMR number. Typically, your approval is required to close the PMR.
   • By phone: For the phone number to call in your country, go to the Contacts page of the Software Support Handbook.