Fishbowl introduced our Enterprise Support program during the summer of 2014, and since then we have helped numerous customers keep their WebCenter environments running smoothly. Enterprise Support Engineer John Lundgren often talks with WebCenter users who are interested in Fishbowl’s support program. He recently created a list of FAQ’s for those who are considering Fishbowl’s product support or in supplementing their Oracle maintenance agreement with Fishbowl’s enterprise support.
Q: What kinds of support does Fishbowl offer?
A: Fishbowl offers four different kinds of support.
- Product support deals directly with Fishbowl products, and is included with an active maintenance agreement.
- Basic enterprise support supplements an Oracle maintenance agreement by providing personalized service and proprietary knowledge of your WebCenter environment.
- Premium enterprise support includes all features of basic support, as well as an added level of care and attention to ensure fast resolution of issues.
- Administrative support provides assistance with day-to-day tasks like administering security and user access or creating schema rules and profiles to meet business needs.
Product Support
Q: What does product support provide me?
A: Product support provides break/fix support for the out of the box products. This includes configuration assistance, installation problems, and bug fixes to the product.
Q: My maintenance has lapsed for my Fishbowl products. How do I renew my maintenance?
A: There are a few different ways that this could be done. The easiest would be to reach out to support to begin the process. You can also reach out to your sales representative and ask them as well.
Q: How do I obtain new versions of the Fishbowl products?
A: To get new versions of any of the Fishbowl products, contact Fishbowl support and request them. Fishbowl support can be reached at support@fishbowlsolutions.com or 952-465-3407.
Q: Can I get new versions of the Fishbowl products or licenses without being current on my maintenance?
A: No. Being current on maintenance is required in order to obtain new versions of products and obtaining licenses.
Q: I am moving the Fishbowl products to a new environment on a new system. Will I need a new license for the Fishbowl products?
A: The licenses for Fishbowl products are based off of the host name of the environment. This is the “HTTP Server Address” of the environment when viewed in the WebCenter Content configuration. If this value changes at all, then a new license will need to be generated for the new system.
Q: I’d like to see a feature added to a Fishbowl product. How would I go about requesting that feature?
A: Simply contact Fishbowl support and we will first ensure that the functionality does not exist or cannot be obtained with the current product. Provided that it cannot be done we will file an “Enhancement Request” (a.k.a. ER) to development. This ER will be evaluated by Fishbowl development and project management to determine if it is feasible during the planning of the next MAJOR release of the product. Fishbowl does not guarantee that all ERs will be implemented.
A customization could also be created to bring that functionality into the product. This customization would have to be created by either Fishbowl’s consulting services or another 3rd party and would not be supported by Fishbowl.
Basic and Premium Enterprise Support
Q: How do I know if Enterprise Support is a good investment?
A: Fishbowl’s enterprise support is aimed at companies whose WebCenter admin is new or even non-existent. If you have someone at your company that knows the products very well then enterprise support may not be the best option for your company.
Q: Does Fishbowl’s enterprise support replace Oracle support?
A: No. Fishbowl is a supplement to Oracle support. You must maintain an Oracle support contract during the duration of the Fishbowl enterprise support contract. You can think of enterprise support as being the system administrator of the WebCenter environment.
Q: Does enterprise support cover the Fishbowl products as well?
A: Yes. However, you must be current on the maintenance for those products in order for them to be supported.
Q: What are the differences between “basic” support and “premium” support?
A: The main difference between the two options is that you can think of premium support being more proactive support and basic is more reactive. The premium provides additional reports sent quarterly about the SR history and a quarter “health check” of the environment where we ensure that there are no underlying issues with the environment.
We provided an extensive overview of the various support offerings we provide for Oracle WebCenter in this webinar. If you would like to hear directly from another WebCenter customer about the benefits they have seen with Fishbowl enterprise support, jump to minute 34. Judy Headrick with Cascade Corporation describes their experience as going from putting out small fires with WebCenter every day, to now blazing a new trail as she has more time to focus on building out value-add business applications.
