Defect and Support Policy Summary
Your IT is critical to your business—and it's critical to us. Our support team is dedicated to keeping your system running smoothly. We offer several support plans and a variety of wasy to assist, including 24-hour support and on-site consultation.
The formal definition of The Alchemy Solutions policy for resolving software defects or documentation discrepancies are described in the Alchemy Solutions Inc. Maintenance Agreement. The paragraphs below describe the policy in less formal terms.
A software defect, commonly referred to as a "bug", or a documentation discrepancy, is defined as our software's features or functions not working as documented. If something is not working as you expect, it is often worth checking the documentation, as the software may be behaving as intended. Sometimes the error is in the documentation. If there is an error in our documentation, we will correct the documentation. However, usually, software defects are of greater concern, so the following focuses on these.
Our general policy is that defect repairs are only applied to the current release of our product and not to any previous releases. For example, if you are using V1 of our product and report a defect that requires a patch (i.e. an update to one or more modules for which there is no other acceptable work around) and the Alchemy Solutions has released V2, then we will apply the fix to the V2 product (if the defect is still present in that release) and ask you to upgrade to that newer version to resolve the problem. This policy applies to both full releases and point releases; for example if you have V2 and we have released V3, or if you have V2.0 and we have released V2.1.
The following points are noteworthy:
- The incidence of defects in our production code is extremely low. Generally, we do not need to release patches for our products.
- NetCOBOL run-time versions support execution of code compiled with previous versions. This is a feature that is tested as exhaustively as the support for code compiled with the current version. For example, if you have an application compiled with V5, you can execute that code with the V6, or even V7, run-time. Thus, receiving a patch to the V7 run-time, as a fix to a problem you encountered in the V6 run-time, does not require you to recompile your V6-compiled programs.
- To receive this type of patch you must be current with your Annual Support. Upgrades to the next release are provided at no cost to customers with current Annual Support, so there is no upgrade cost to you for receiving fixes in the current release
- If you report a defect on a release that is earlier than the current release,we will test the behavior on the current release. If the defect is not present in the current release, our defect-repair solution will be to advise you to upgrade to the current release.
- It is up to you when you upgrade your production code to the new release. The maintenance agreement states that you should install and use the new release within 30 days of receiving it, but that does not mean that we are suggesting you must switch all your production code within 30 days! Installing and using the code of the new release within 30 days ensures two things:
- Verification that your upgrade installs and works satisfactorily within a reasonable timeframe.
- The ability to test and work with the latest version of the software and check the behavior of your software, possibly eliminating the need to contact our support team. For reference, the Alchemy Solutions Support Team will be using and supporting from the latest version, so you will be seeing the same interfaces and behavior as they do.
