Obtaining assistance - Service level

johnwhelan

Well-known member
I regret the necessity of this post but it's the result of a recent request that was made to me via email.

First understand very few people in the forum are Auran employees, I certainly am not one. When you make a request for help it is a request to some one who is not paid to respond to you within a certain period of time.

Please check the wikibook Trainz for solutions and do a forum search. Yes this is not as easy as just sending an email but you do have a responsibility to check these first.

Please post your problem in the forum rather than PM or email an individual. From your point of view you are one person making one request. Unfortunately I see many, many requests for assistance made via PM or email as do other individuals on the forum. Placing the request in the forum spreads the load on an specific individual, they can choose to answer or not.

I have areas of expertise but others also have expertise both in my specialist areas and in other areas.

I consider my time of value and I do have a life besides answering your private request.

If I feel you are abusive you will be put on my spam list. No if, buts or anything else.

If I'm working with you and I request that you work through one or more specific tutorials please do so. This is both to ensure that the tutorial covers the point, if it doesn't it can be amended and to save my time repeating things. Tutorials take time to put together, please use them.

As a rule I do not do one on one tutorials, I am not the only person with this rule and it's based on previous experience.

If you'd like something made do the homework and do the research first. This part is can be something like 50% of the effort of creating something and takes the load off the content creator.

If there is a reasonable payware version available there is less chance that a freeware content creator will be willing to spend many hours making you a free version to save you $5.

At the end of the day Trainz is a hobby. Hobbies are meant to be enjoyable, if they aren't then they cease to be a hobby.

Note to the mods if this isn't covered somewhere perhaps it could be made a sticky.

Thanks

Cheerio John
 
Hi John

I would like to add a couple of notes here.

As part of the helpdesk we have a knowledgebase which is gradually being added to. This is purely to assist people with troubleshooting. We would welcome any assistance with articles for this, which can also be directly linked to on the forums.

Where possible, I attempt to provide assistance here. However, it can be difficult if the helpdesk is busy (as it has been the past 1-2 weeks).

If you want quick assistance, please post a ticket to the helpdesk as well as a thread on the forums. This will allow me to run you through some things, as well as allow the community to run you through things as well (remember, the helpdesk is based in Australia, and as such it can take up to a day for your ticket to be replied too, longer if we are extremely busy, although we do attempt to make it as short a wait as possible).

The point of my post here though is about the knowledgebase. We do want to expand on this, but being a FAQ type of setup, we would prefer to have it contributed too by the community.

Thank you
 
Zec, I thought long and hard before replying, but you have hit a nerve with me and I just have to address it.
I have submitted four help desk tickets this year and I have not received a response from the help desk on any of them. The last ticket was a few days ago.
Not a peep, not a go to hell, nothing.

My latest one is about a DLS upload that is still waiting for processing after 10 days (second try).
The others were about approved uploads not showing on the DLS.

If you can't fix it, or don't want to, at least do me the courtesy of responding.

I love Trainz and the people associated with it, I don't want to alianate anyone, but I'm very frustrated with this situation, I'd appreciate any help you can provide.

Thanks
 
Zec, I thought long and hard before replying, but you have hit a nerve with me and I just have to address it.
I have submitted four help desk tickets this year and I have not received a response from the help desk on any of them. The last ticket was a few days ago.
Not a peep, not a go to hell, nothing.

My latest one is about a DLS upload that is still waiting for processing after 10 days (second try).
The others were about approved uploads not showing on the DLS.

If you can't fix it, or don't want to, at least do me the courtesy of responding.

I love Trainz and the people associated with it, I don't want to alianate anyone, but I'm very frustrated with this situation, I'd appreciate any help you can provide.

Thanks

I think the main issue here is self serve using the knowledgebase, forum search and wikibook Trainz first then ask the question in the forum rather than to an individual via email. Most questions / problems can be addressed in this way first and this reduces the load on Helpdesk and individuals.

Separate issue service level from helpdesk and that I think is a question of resources available and priorities assigned. The upload thread usually has the latest state of the uploading process in it. Currently I understand some uploads get lost, I generally give it a week then retry with an updated version number.

Cheerio John
 
Apologies to ZEC

Zec, please except my humble apologies.

Here I am accusing Auran of not responding to my help desk tickets and all the time you were answering them on the help desk site.

I was expecting an e-mail and never thought to look at the HD site. Sorry. I'm so embarrassed.

It was John Whelan who suggested to me that I should look in the help desk site. Thanks John.

I've just broken my game computer, but when it is up and running again, I'll re upload my TRS2009 Queen Street route with a whole new number.

Keep up the good work, Zec. With idiots like me to contend with I don't envy your task.

Cheers
 
John,
Excellent post, under the circumstances.

This really covers an issue that sadly has not been cover and has been lacking from this forum for sometime.

If I may, I would like to help stress the importance of using the "search forums' feature located at the top of the page.
This prevents the uncalled for usage of forum space that could be better used and that many of us have no interest in seeing.

Questions in general are over running this forum, many of which are not in their proper locations.


Good Points there John.

Cheers,
Woody
 
Zec, please except my humble apologies.

Here I am accusing Auran of not responding to my help desk tickets and all the time you were answering them on the help desk site.

I was expecting an e-mail and never thought to look at the HD site. Sorry. I'm so embarrassed.

It was John Whelan who suggested to me that I should look in the help desk site. Thanks John.

I've just broken my game computer, but when it is up and running again, I'll re upload my TRS2009 Queen Street route with a whole new number.

Keep up the good work, Zec. With idiots like me to contend with I don't envy your task.

Cheers


I find your posts rather interesting. I have only submitted one helpdesk ticket and it was answered not only on the help desk site, but I also received and e-mail within 48 hours of posting. Do you have a valid e-mail address on file? My suggestion as to why you haven't gotten a response as you expected would be to check the e-mail address on file. I suspect they may have tried e-mailing and it did not go through, or there is a problem with the e-mail address (Spam filter?)
 
I find your posts rather interesting. I have only submitted one helpdesk ticket and it was answered not only on the help desk site, but I also received and e-mail within 48 hours of posting. Do you have a valid e-mail address on file? My suggestion as to why you haven't gotten a response as you expected would be to check the e-mail address on file. I suspect they may have tried e-mailing and it did not go through, or there is a problem with the e-mail address (Spam filter?)

I would like to point out evey one of my tickets have been answered but only on the helpdesk site and I have never recived an e-mail from helpdesk

I have to check on the helpdesk site each time I post a ticket
 
My experience with the Help Desk has been spotty at best. Out of maybe 10 requests over the years, 1 or 2 have actually been addressed. I am still awaiting 3 now...of those 10.

I am suspecting Zec is the only one on the Help Desk... could this be true?
 
What is a "wikibook"?

A Wikibook or Wiki is, (respectfully re Auran), the new age equivalent of precise and complete user documentation.

It is common these days for companies to use these, mostly user created, help resources.
I find this method to be incomplete, imprecise and a total pain in the tender :( ouch
 
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