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Response Times to Questions RRS feed

  • Question

  • Is there someone from Microsoft monitoring these forums and assigned to answer questions?

    I have rarely got satisfactory response here and end up having to try to get answers through our Partner agreement.  But through the Partner agreement I cannot get answers to SharePoint programming questions.

    The response times here are not good to say the least.
    Thursday, November 13, 2008 3:34 PM

All replies

  • Firstly which are "these forums" ?   Can we assume from your later statements that you mean the SharePoint forums?

    Secondly are you complaining about bad response times or answers that don't solve your problems ? You seem to be complaining about both which is difficult because if you are complaining about poor answers you obviously are getting answers.

    -----------------

    Comments: 

    a) yes there are people working by Microsoft who support the SharePoint forums

    b) the SP forums are also supported by some SharePoint MVPs and other people with extensive SharePoint experience who are all "working" on their time.

    c) If you have Partner agreements you should be using those rather than the forums. 

    You have paid for those and can expect prompt and good answers. You have paid nothing for the support via the forums and there - as these are forums - is never any guarantee when you post to the forums of either fast or accurate answers.

    Leave the forums to people who don't have Partner agreements.

    d) People who show attitude when posting questions to a forum typically get worse support than people who are polite and accurate in their questions; post their questions to the correct forum and do not get publicly irritated if 24 hours go by and still their problem hasn't been solved.

    (I'm not suggesting this necessarily applies to your threads in the SP forums, but from the general tone of this message here, it's I suppose a possibility)



    P.S. I have just checked. You have posted a grand total of THREE starter posts to the SharePoint forums. Two on the same day in July and one in the past day or so. It's hardly a massive amount of personal experience and certainly does not justify statements like "I have rarely got satisfactory response here".
     


    • Edited by Mike Walsh FIN Thursday, November 13, 2008 4:02 PM P.S. added
    Thursday, November 13, 2008 3:58 PM
  • Hi wexford,

    Good question. The answer is that it depends on the forum. For most forums, where the purpose is supporting problems or questions, you can generally tell how well a forum is doing by looking at the ratio of answered to unanswered questions. You can also see who's answering questions in a forum or group of forums in the right nav. My team is actively working to share best practices for how teams at Microsoft can use forums more effectively, and looking for ways we can drive answer rates across the board.

    If you'd like to discuss this in more detail or if you have specific feedback on forums where the response time isn't good, feel free to email me (address in my signiture).

    Thanks,
    -Andrew
    Forums Product Planner, Andrew.Brenner at Microsoft.com
    Thursday, November 13, 2008 4:07 PM
  • Mike, thanks for the prompt response - though I sense it is defensive which there is no need for.

    Specifically I should have said the SharePoint forums as I was directed here from a response on the SharePoint Partner site forums as my question there was a Programming question which they do not support or answer.  This is not the first time have been redirected here from there - but every time it seems  to take a long time to get a response here and my post quickly gets over-run by subsequent posts (this is my question about menu items not appearing on the DVWP  (data view web part) - http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepointdevelopment/thread/e2c74a95-7e1c-474c-94c0-daccef79299d) and then doesn't get answered.  Most of the time I only come here after exhaustive googling.

    I appreciate all the valued efforts of MVP's - My comments are directed towards Microsoft - I feel they should provide a response to all posts - even just to say "we are looking into your query" - same as they do on the Partner site.  OR they should provide answers through the Partner offering - we often need responses to programming questions in a reasonable time frame but only Administration type queries are answered through the Partner offering.

    My intention was not to give-out about contributions by MVP's or any other person contributing on their time.
    Thursday, November 13, 2008 4:14 PM
  • Mike Walsh MVP said:

    P.S. I have just checked. You have posted a grand total of THREE starter posts to the SharePoint forums. Two on the same day in July and one in the past day or so. It's hardly a massive amount of personal experience and certainly does not justify statements like "I have rarely got satisfactory response here".
     



    Fair enough ... I have posted under different names also.  But I have obviously now marked-my-cards here with you Mike.
    I have posted a reasonable question above ... my tone came across incorrectly for which I apologise unreservedly for ... but there is no need for this "attitude" from yourself.
    Thursday, November 13, 2008 4:25 PM
  • Andrew,

    Thanks for your reply. 
    I have given feedback before through Microsoft in Ireland to our account manager there in regard to SharePoint and easy access to support.
    On the Administration side support is great and improving all the time.  When I have a question about some quirkieness that happens sometimes in SharePoint - e.g. the post I am referring to - support seems to not be as readily available.

    I appreciate that SharePoint is such a wide ranging product that it's difficult to cover all areas of it well -and we are all doing our best because it is a great product.

    apologies again if I ruffled some feathers because my tone was misinterpreted.

    Kind Regards


    Thursday, November 13, 2008 4:36 PM