Helpful hints for Stimulsoft users. How to solve a problem quickly.

Author: Andrew Savin

How to solve a problem quickly

When working with the Stimulsoft products, users from time to time face various issues regarding using components and creating reports. As a rule, such problems need to be solved as quickly as possible. In this case, you can:
  1. Solve out a problem by your own;
  2. Contact the Stimulsoft technical support.
Of course, each way has its advantages and disadvantages.

We value the time of our clients and their resources, so in this article, we would like to talk about how to optimize the time of solving out occurring situations. Firstly, let's consider the path of self-solving a problem as the simplest one.

Simple question

Fairly often, we receive questions about how to do something in a report or a dashboard. Even if it's a very simple question, we are always intelligent about it. However, there are situations when Stimulsoft already has a solution to a problem - we have video lessons and documentation. In other words, the solution to such a user`s question is in the runoff, and it takes a couple of minutes. At the same time, our technical specialists can get to this question only in a couple of hours due to their workload.

The most illustrative example is disabling components conditionally.

We answer this question several times a day. Although there is a video lesson here, here is the documentation about conditional formatting, and here is the example of a report with the component disabling conditionally.

Just look at how conditional formatting works


Similar issues

We will always respond to you as soon as possible, but a solution can be so simple that a response time will be longer than the solution time. This is why we recommend you watch our video lessons, read documentation, and check samples. Most questions about creating reports and dashboards have already been answered. Also, you can search for similar issues of our users in the forum. For more global questions, we write articles on the blog.

What's next?

OK, you spent 5 minutes on our channel, documentation, forum, blog and did not find an answer. Your problem is not being solved. What's next? Next, you should contact our technical support or ask a question in the forum. In addition, it's important to understand one moment – you should properly prepare your question to get a correct answer.«You should understand the following moment – specialists of our technical support work 24 hours, 7 days a week. In addition, the time of processing a question depends on many factors. As a rule, a question is processed within a few minutes. However, sometimes it takes several hours.»Next, a funny situation happens - several hours passed, a question was received, but it contains a verbal description only. Our specialist will need some time to reproduce the problem. Unfortunately, it's not always possible. Then, the specialist sends a request to detail a user's problem. As a result, at least, the time of the question processing waiting is missed. Furthermore, in this case, the time is missed twice.

Optimize the time

It's easy to optimize the time of a problem solution when contacting technical support. To do it, just follow our recommendations.
  1. Specify the product you use. It's vital for us, as we support full functionality in all our components. However, it can be implemented in various ways for a specific platform. As a result, for example, the HTML5 viewer can have events for the ASP.NET platform or have actions if it comes to the .NET Core.

  2. Be sure to include the version of your product and the date of its release. This is the second important criteria, which will allow you to confirm your problem in real time. Since this may be an error, which occurred only on this specific version of the build. This information will allow you to identify time and find the reason for the problem.

  3. Describe your problem. The best way is to describe it step-by-step. Obligatorily specify the result you want and what you cannot solve out. Quite often, it is a particular sequence of actions that leads to an error and rather not to the result you expect. So, sometimes it takes several hours and maybe days to find this certain sequence of steps. If there is a transparent algorithm of "what-I-do-to-reproduce-the-issue", it's a matter of several minutes to reproduce and confirm the problem.

  4. You should attach a project if it comes to software development. Sometimes we are faced with the fact that there seems to be an exact algorithm of actions, the product version is known as well as the build number, but we can't reproduce an error. As a rule, it's connected with the fact that various settings are set in the user project or, for example, third-party libraries are used. In this case, the conflict with Stimulsoft components occurs. All of that is clarified during the work of our technical support, but, as a rule, not immediately, which causes time costs. That's why we included this point in the recommendations.

  5. You should attach a report if your problem is in a specific one. The situation is approximately the same as with projects. Each report of our client is a unique combination of components, their properties, and interactions. Furthermore, the connection between this and the occurring error is not always clear and understandable, especially from the point of view of a novice user. As a result, if our specialists are unable to reproduce an error, clarifying questions will be required, which will lead to increased time of solving a question.

  6. If it's possible, you should add several screenshots, if possible, with a short description. It was proven a long time ago that the visualization of information reduces the time of its perception and analysis. Therefore, several screenshots with explanations greatly simplify the perception of a described problem.
Here is the small list of recommendations, which will significantly simplify communication between a user and our technical specialist. It will greatly reduce the time of solving a problem. This article is not a guide to action but a recommendation.

In any case, we will process all your questions and solve them as soon as possible.
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