RIM Support and Documentation

[dancle99]

The BES infrastructure was recently moved to our team. I spent some time the past 2 days trying to find documentation mentioned in these forums, and elsewhere to understand what one of our teammates was up against.

I've learned that RIM seems to have paltry documentation on many things, not the least of which is the SQL merge process, allegedly no longer supported in 4.1.5. To add to that gap, techs have now given our BB/BES guys at least 3 different, and conflicting, stories on how/if/why/what may happen or not happen (depending on the tech) if we try to merge these db's. No available written docs that I could find on any of that. A search for something more common, say "disaster recovery" found a scanty list of old docs that were revs long ago and far away. WTF? Spoke to couple booth guys from RIM at a recent conference and they seem to know little beyond sales, Ontario geography and which carrier has which device. They also seemed to know nothing about the dent in the device sales that occurred when the i-phhone was released, that has been in all the trade rags.

RIM as a company seems to be way too fat, completely interested in selling devices and server cals, but very disinterested in actually helping thier products work well in global messaging environments. Immature company selling lots of stuff who seem to care little about the adminstators strapped with supporting this as a "service".

Interested in your thoughts

Thanks

[d_fisher]

So instead of ranting why dont you post your problem(s) and see if anyone here can help. That is the whole reason this forum exists.

Moving thread to Rants and Raves.

[dancle99]

Doug;

I posted this in the admin forum becuse I believe the admin community is where this kind of issue needs to be defined then elevated, the community approach to solving issues is helpful, but unless the vendor (this vendor or any other) provides clear direction, documentation and consistent feedback from tech support, what's a global company to do to address this kind of issue? The reason for the post was to ask administrators for feedback on other's experiences with RIM, so that we may understand what others are up against, and so RIM may see that others have issues with the support and documentation efforts, I was not seeking help with the DBmerge conundrum. If it is just us, so be it. I'd ask this be moved back to the other forum for that reason.

Purchasing and deploying any software solution for a global enterprise from a vendor with underdeveloped documentation and inconsistent support arrangements is a difficult undertaking, and any admin with experience may have seen this first hand.

What are your experiences with RIM support and documentation been like, presuming you are not a RIM employee, that is? Ever get conflicting stories, insufficient documentation or other things?

Thanks

[juwaack68]

Since you are not asking a specific question about an issue you're having with your environment, this thread belongs here.

If you have a specific problem or question, you can post it in the BES Admin forum.

[dancle99]

So I took your feedback, and asked the root question I had wished to receive feedback from the admin forum, and NJblackberry (who will not accept messages nor emails from this site to explain his/her actions) saw fit to censor and close the other post under the guise that I was asking the same question, as you can see below, it is not the same question:

Dear BES admins;

Administrators know a ton about vendor performance, regarding issues, opportunities, and often, "where the bodies are buried". Looking for your real-world administrative feedback from the trenches on the ability of RIM support and documentation to truly assist you in deploying and maintaining this software in your BES environments.

1) Do you have BB/BES apps in addition to BES mail/pim sync? How mission critical is your BB/BES infrastructure?

2) Is the documentation sufficient? Is it helpful? Are there gaps in critical areas? Is it consistent? Do you find what you need there?

3) Is support consistent, that is do you get the same story from different techs? Are the techs able to help most of the time? How long is the average call to RIM and how long is your wait time? Which support T level do you have? How do you feel about having to go to tx4 or tx5 to be informed of RIM outages directly from RIM?

Any and all feedback you may have on this would be greatly appreciated as we evaluate expanding our RIM environment, T-support level or possibly changing to something else.

Thanks in advance for your feedback, it is truly appreciated.

[BBAdmin]

Here is what you're looking for:

***CLICK HERE***

[Sith_Apprentice]

Originally Posted by dancle99

So I took your feedback, and asked the root question I had wished to receive feedback from the admin forum, and NJblackberry (who will not accept messages nor emails from this site to explain his/her actions) saw fit to censor and close the other post under the guise that I was asking the same question, as you can see below, it is not the same question:

Dear BES admins;

Administrators know a ton about vendor performance, regarding issues, opportunities, and often, "where the bodies are buried". Looking for your real-world administrative feedback from the trenches on the ability of RIM support and documentation to truly assist you in deploying and maintaining this software in your BES environments.

1) Do you have BB/BES apps in addition to BES mail/pim sync? How mission critical is your BB/BES infrastructure?

2) Is the documentation sufficient? Is it helpful? Are there gaps in critical areas? Is it consistent? Do you find what you need there?

3) Is support consistent, that is do you get the same story from different techs? Are the techs able to help most of the time? How long is the average call to RIM and how long is your wait time? Which support T level do you have? How do you feel about having to go to tx4 or tx5 to be informed of RIM outages directly from RIM?

Any and all feedback you may have on this would be greatly appreciated as we evaluate expanding our RIM environment, T-support level or possibly changing to something else.

Thanks in advance for your feedback, it is truly appreciated.

To explain his actions? He really doesnt have to *explain* his actions to you. as Mods we have the ability to "censor" as you put it (i would use another word, perhaps [b]moderate[b]) the threads as we see fit. Follow asking questions rather than complaining and you will get the help you need.

[juwaack68]

I have found RIM's documentation either lacking or bloated (especially for BES stuff, not so much for handheld stuff).

This is my first place to come for support. Unless my BES crashes (knock on wood, none of them have), then my first call will be to T-Support. For the most part T-Support is very good, but like any support line, it really depends on who you get on the line.

[dancle99]

Wow, how helpful, ask a distinctly different question based on feedback from one moderator asking me to do that, that another forum moderator does not like that, so he closes it. Then try to do what a3rd moderator asks, get feedback here by different question here, so I can then get my comeuppance from you sharing your vast powers and need for me to not have anything explained to me in my little subservient role as a poster in "your" forum. You either work for RIM, the US Gov't or some other entity that cares little about serving the customer. Nice job.

Websters defines the word forum this way (below) with emphasis on "open discussion or expression of ideas". I think you may be using the Heinrich Himmler definition of "forum".

Pronunciation: \ˈfȯr-əm\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural forums also fo·ra \-ə\
Etymology: Latin; akin to Latin foris outside, fores door — more at door
Date: 15th century
1 a: the marketplace or public place of an ancient Roman city forming the center of judicial and public business b: a public meeting place for open discussion c: a medium (as a newspaper or online service) of open discussion or expression of ideas
2: a judicial body or assembly : court
3 a: a public meeting or lecture involving audience discussion b: a program (as on radio or television) involving discussion of a problem usually by several authorities

[Fled]

Originally Posted by dancle99

Wow, how helpful, ask a distinctly different question based on feedback from one moderator asking me to do that, that another forum moderator does not like that, so he closes it. Then try to do what a3rd moderator asks, get feedback here by different question here, so I can then get my comeuppance from you sharing your vast powers and need for me to not have anything explained to me in my little subservient role as a poster in "your" forum. You either work for RIM, the US Gov't or some other entity that cares little about serving the customer. Nice job.

Websters defines the word forum this way (below) with emphasis on "open discussion or expression of ideas". I think you may be using the Heinrich Himmler definition of "forum".

Pronunciation: \ˈfȯr-əm\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural forums also fo·ra \-ə\
Etymology: Latin; akin to Latin foris outside, fores door — more at door
Date: 15th century
1 a: the marketplace or public place of an ancient Roman city forming the center of judicial and public business b: a public meeting place for open discussion c: a medium (as a newspaper or online service) of open discussion or expression of ideas
2: a judicial body or assembly : court
3 a: a public meeting or lecture involving audience discussion b: a program (as on radio or television) involving discussion of a problem usually by several authorities

Yeah... welcome to BlackBerry Forums... ain't it grand? ;)

[JSanders]

dancle, Please don't be a putz. You are being childish now.

1. We are not RIM.
2. If I do work for a high-ranking secretive government agency, you are now on the list.
3. Start your own forum with your own rules and your own moderators and you (gasp!) set the ground rules and be the censor, yourself.

[JSanders]

Originally Posted by dancle99

I think you may be using the Heinrich Himmler definition of "forum".

Wow, it only took YOU six posts to make an inappropriate use of a nazi reference.

[Cory Scheuer]

ohhh $10 says he gets banned!!

[silver_2000]

My $0.02 on Rim documentation and support.

The documentation is very poor. It looks good on the surface. Especially if you print it. You will end up with an impressive pile of paper. But as you read through it you will notice that 85% or more is duplicated in every document. There is little or no real detailed information about how to do anything. if you download the 4 or 5 docs associated with any process or upgrade you will find that 85% of the content of docs are copied from the others you just downloaded.

The web server that you dload docs and software from is the slowest corporate support server I have ever paid to use. Its been dialup slow for years.

The service packs are the same size as the root application - which is great since that means that you will spend hours trying to dload the 300mb file at dialup speed or just a little faster.

If you want some fun look in the docs or ask Tsupport for the domino weekly required maintenance. TSupport will tell you that you should run maintenance weekly. The cool part is the maintenance that they blame many issues on requires the server to be shut down so it can be run. So they are telling you to take your server down weekly to run maintenance on the BES folder. Thats insane. Manual, weekly, mandatory down time... WOW ... Great enterprise application.

For more fun ask Tsupport what changed in the recent devices that enforces a more secure password than is defined in the IT policy. And ask them for the documentation of that change.

Try searching the support site for anything. The site is impossibly slow and the search is nearly unusable. Its also helpful that its not indexed in Google.

Call TSupport and ask to be notified of outages. They will tell you that to have them notify you you must pay for the highest level of support. Thats nuts, you wont tell all your paying customers when you are having a problem ? Just the top tier ?

Then finally try downloading a couple updates. You have to continually go thru an identification and approval process, agreeing to not export the software. Why don't they use cookies or sessions to see that you JUST went thru all that and now simply want to dload another file or more documentation. ?

We only have 150 users and luckily the server once setup is pretty stable, even though I dont take it down every week for maintenance.

<Rant off>

[NJBlackBerry]

Someone seems to think that this forum (Nazi like as it is) is owned or operated by RIM. It Isn't. No one is going to call you, or refresh the documentation, or help you achieve your agenda. This is a privately owned forum (and the mods don't even have a piece of the action) so we can moderate as we see fit.

I strongly urge you to contact Research In Motion. would be a good place for you to vent.