Testers needed! We're trying out a new way to submit support issues

Early Access
1

While doing support on Community comes with many benefits, it also comes with a few tactical hurdles for our customers and support team.

Firstly, posting in #support for the first time can be confusing for those who aren’t familiar with Discourse. Secondly, the lack of standardization in #Support posts makes it difficult to sort through issues, especially when they’re missing critical details or have a misleading title. Finally, some folks strongly prefer email support. As a result, we have to split our attention between multiple support queues, which can be difficult to manage.

What We’re Testing: Web Form Integration With Community

With these challenges in mind, we’re testing a new web form integration with the following goals:

  • Reduce the friction of making a new post in #support
  • Bring some structure to posts to make them more descriptive and effective
  • Give customers the option to communicate strictly over email
  • Improve searchability of #support issues

How it Works

The new mechanism is driven by a simple web form integrated with our Community site. The form will take you through the process step-by-step and ask you for all the relevant details we need to help you.

Once you’ve submitted the form, we’ll automatically create a new topic in #early-access using the answers provided. And when someone replies to your topic, you now have the option to respond via email!

Click Here to see an example of a topic that was automatically generated from a form submission.

How You Can Help

We’d love to see some real-world examples of customers using the web form to solve their technical support issues. So, as you come across problems in the early access builds, we encourage you to use this form instead of directly creating a new topic here in #early-access.

We’re particularly interested in your feedback on the form itself, replying by email, and the end-to-end user experience. Your input will be invaluable in refining this before the public release.

Use the Early Access technical support form here → account.roon.app/early-access-ts

:warning: NOTE: Making a form submission creates a new topic on your behalf in #early-access, so please ensure you are only submitting genuine issues through the form.

As always, thank you for your continued support. We look forward to hearing your feedback!

5 Likes
3

Why not put a button in Roon which creates a file (‘form’) with system information, let the user describe the problem and sends this ‘automagically’ to Roon support?

Why let the users manually do all the work (fill out a form), leaving lots of room for mistakes and omissions while an app like Roon itself can create all the system information needed in a concise and precise way?

14 Likes
4

It’s a great idea, one that the team has talked about a lot! We’ve even started down that path with ARC (see “diagnostics data for Roon Support” in Settings), and I’m sure we’ll do more of it.

For now, there are two reasons we’re using a web form instead of an in-app form:

  1. Flexibility: We can easily change fields or add more as needed without needing to release a software update or take an engineer off of product work. This is especially important during a test phase like this.

  2. Reliability: Customers can report problems even when having trouble accessing or using Roon. Auto-magic systems can’t do their magic if the machine is offline or Roon isn’t working!

Ultimately, the best experience will probably be some combination of automated in-app diagnostics and a web form. But for v1, we just needed a flexible solution that allows for quick changes as we refine the UX.

3 Likes
5

This is a huge step forward, so thank you for getting this started. Hopefully this will help the entire support process. Question: Is this for all support or Early Access only.

Thanks

Ron

2 Likes
6

Early Access only! We’ll do a public release after we gather feedback and refine the process.

1 Like
7

Are you guys going to commit to some level of response time based on severity level and will you be able to track how you are performing against those commitments? For the tech industry, this is pretty much standard operating procedure. At least in 21st century.

3 Likes
8

The form needs to be stickied at the top of the Early Access category for now. Later, of course, it needs to be stickied in a very prominent place in this forum. Having it buried in a thread that sinks lower and lower is no good.

9

Hi @kevin and Team Roon

Super idea BTW!

Reminds me of the Google Forms route I took at work a few years ago with our clients.

The client would save a link for the form(s) on their computer desktops/phones/tablets etc.

You could also pop a link on Roon (Windows/Mac), Roon Remote & Arc apps.

As soon as you click the support link, it automatically creates a log file which is sent upon submission.

Ideas which have possibly already be thought of, but still worth a mention.

:innocent:

10

We have something similar but with JIRA Service Desk. Issues can be created either through a portal, with predetermined selections, to describe the issues and ensure information is provided to triage or via an Email. The submission creates a Ticket which is managed with a flow (Open, Waiting for Support, Waiting for customer, Pending, Escalated, Resolved etc.) depending on state of the handling.
The presence & progress of a ticket causes Email and Google chat alerts, and if not picked up and assigned, auto escalation with a phone call/text message “push” notification to the ‘on rota’ individual to ensure it gets attention.
More importantly there are timers on the ticket to ensure adherence to SLA, so ‘time to respond’, ‘time to resolve’ is measured and are metrics.
The Support/Ops team now have measured KPIs for their function.

As such, with weekly reviews on submitted, outstanding & resolved tickets we have a groomed ticket backlog with the majority dealt with and closed well within SLA requirements.

Will Roon be moving up to “enterprise software” practices and managing their support process & tickets more effectively, instead of the ‘best efforts’ approach currently in place?

1 Like
11

#support

Did you receive my report? It disappeared just as I completed what was probably the final page. There was no obvious way to get back in without starting from scratch.

12

Excellent point! We may be audiophiles, but not all of us are computer software savvy and the details that Roon support tends to request of the end user can be a little difficult for some. There should be a way for Roon to capture the details they need from your computer while you’re accessing their music player with some form of permissions by the customers.

1 Like
13

But a huge number of the support requests are from people who can’t reach their roon system. So a manual form is needed whatever other paths are put in place.

14

The option to auto fill fields where the core or remote is operable should be a mere button click.

1 Like
15

Yep, as @kevin said.
“Ultimately, the best experience will probably be some combination of automated in-app diagnostics and a web form. But for v1, we just needed a flexible solution that allows for quick changes as we refine the UX.”

16

Hmm, I’m not seeing your submission. Do you remember if you saw this thank you screen?

Screenshot 2023-07-10 at 12.13.20 PM
Screenshot 2023-07-10 at 12.13.20 PM714×358 21.7 KB

17

Kevin

I didn’t see the thank you screen and have now attempted to repeat the process. This time the message arrived so you should have my query. There may have been a bug first time around?

18

Hi @kevin,

I followed the submission process and have an observation …

It does not specifically capture:

  1. Roon build number(s)
  2. Operating systems version(s)

How do you feel about having distinct fields for these or are they not so important to you now?

1 Like
19

It would be helpful if the form was associated with your Roon forum ID. I want to submit another issue and have to go through the whole system description process.
I know at the moment I can retrospectively go and paste in the previous lot but many people won’t know that; or the resulting thread may be more locked down.

1 Like
20
  1. Library size (from the current template)?
  • Possibility to add an optional screenshot to the mandatory Home Network Details (some users might appreciate it)?
  • I would like to see formatting options for large text fields (bold, slant, links as a bare minimum).
  • Would dynamic form steps be possible? For example: If a users selects his Roon Core Platform, hide the unused ones and show a sub-selection for the version (name, number, what ever is appropriate) in the same step.
  • Would dynamically adding/omitting steps, based on previous selections, be an option/needed?
  • Could the knowledge base article or external resources be linked to the explanatory text where possible? Maybe create one? For example: An article that explains where a user can find the requested operating system version (number?) for supported systems. How to find out how much RAM is installed? And so on? References to external resources might be only practical if there is a possibility to adapt to previous step selections I guess (link resources based on Roon Core Platform selected previously for example).

Usability & navigation on the web form

I used it on an FHD (1920*1080 pixel) display with Firefox on Linux (no scaling). Feels like there is a lot of need for vertical scrolling. Does it have to be that way? Below the step with probably the least content:

grafik
grafik1920×1092 80.6 KB

Even in full screen mode there are still some pixels (12) to scroll (at least all elements of the website are visible though). On many steps, not even the navigational up/down arrows for the form are visible.

Summary: The form is a PIA to navigate and text entry feels restricted because of the lack of formatting options.

PS: If I mark for example the text shown below on the form

grafik

and paste it, I get: Home Network DetailsThis question is required.*

  • An awkward way to figure out the meaning of the asterisk.
  • Is it the question or the answer that is required?
2 Likes