AB Technical Support

Hi,

Might find this information useful for the future.

Here's the link for the AB's Support Center (Live Chat)

http://www.rockwellautomation.com/support/americas/chat_en.html

If ever you have immediate queries

I love the "available 24/7 Monday through Friday". I'd like to know exactly what 24/7 means!

OG

The Live Chat pilot program is available to customers located in the Americas for the products listed above, 8:00am to 5:00pm ET Monday-Friday.

But this is not just for American customers. They have lots of agents that answers queries from any part of the world.

Like what I've already experienced today. Although there's one agent that ****ed me off. Instead of answering my question she/he just made me read another non-informative (because it still doesn't answers my query) website.

But out of three agents that I chatted with, two of them helped me a lot. They both answered my queries the way I needed to know.

BS. Not working in Middle East. I says i need a tech connect support

No one said it was free to all. It says right on the site:

Rockwell Automation is piloting Live Chat as an alternative for customers with TechConnect Support to obtain live technical assistance — without picking up the phone!

The emphasis is mine.

OG

Try to create an account first even without the TechConnect Support Contract. After it navigates to this website http://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app/chat/chat_launch (after filling-up the form and clicked the Create Account button)

That's what I've done to register and use this service. And so far I am enjoying what I got.

I agree most of the stuff on ab site is free just by signing up you only have to have a tech support contract to get the really good info. thats when it pops up and says you dont have acess to this tech. doc. even though its the only revelant info you need about a bug in thier software or documentation or simply somthing that was left out of the manual. I was once shiped a micrologix {from my ab vendor}that some un***** person had had previous download a password on and returned with un broken seal {opened the bottom of box}. had to hot shot a new processor in in the middle of a shutdown cause ab tech support would not give me a passcode to just wipe the plc clean cause i had no tech contract,however after searching thier site and signing in i was allowed to search for a hour to find the info i needed. ofcorse my vendor got back with me on monday with the same info. if it were not for a site like this around i think i would would just pay the RANSOM sorry for the rant!

Operaghost said:

I love the "available 24/7 Monday through Friday". I'd like to know exactly what 24/7 means!

OG

Click to expand...

Ok, I'm embarassed! Thanks for pointing it out.

It used to be 24 hours a day Monday thru Friday ... then we added weekend support for 24/7 customers ... and somehow the text didn't get properly fixed.

Is it ok if I blame the marketing team? They are in charge of coming up with the copy ...

I'll get that fixed later today! Thanks for the heads up!

Joshua Hutchinson
Rockwell Automation Support Center Admin (and Chat guru)

christine, tried it this is what i got:
Dan: Hi, my name is Dan, I'll be with you in a moment. In the meantime, go ahead and enter your question in the Chat window.

steve butler: factorytalk locking up failed to load data server

Dan: That sounds like a factory talk issue.. do you have an athorization number handy? I'm not seeing your contract here, or what is the company name I can search on?

steve butler: no dont have one cant get one today either any tech notes to suggest links enterprise seems to not be working have been trying for days to get this software set up on my laptop getting really frustrated have reloaded windows xp service pac 3 and factory talk view me about ready to stop using ab rockwell products this stuff sould not be this hard why are all the good tech notes locked in the safe for ransom? LOL

Dan: well, we can help you with that however on the weekend you need to have a 24x7 contract or pay a $500 one time cost for tech support... if you do want to do this just give us a call at 440-646-3434 and we can set it up. then you can either call or chat in whatever is easier.
Dan has disconnected.

searched ab site for: Failed to connect to browse service for OPC server
got this:
21454 - Failed to connect to browse service for OPC server
tried link got this:
'Locked' answer-You may not have a TechConnect contract



$500.00 seems a bit much for a tech. note. considering I have spent more than $250.000.00 on ab products this year alone.any other vendor i have would jumping through hoops to help

bce123 said:

$500.00 seems a bit much for a tech. note. considering I have spent more than $250.000.00 on ab products this year alone.any other vendor i have would jumping through hoops to help

Click to expand...

Well, I agree that $500 for a technote is a lot ... but that isn't what you are buying here.

You are buying weekend support. (The technotes are available around the clock ... the warm body on the other end of a call or chat is not.)

The vast majority of our support contracts are 8-5 weekday support. This works just fine for most situations. However, we do offer 24/7 support for those needing it. We don't give it away for free, though. It costs us money to staff engineers around the clock.

Dan (who is a great engineer, by the way, I've worked with him for years) can give a one-time $500 support option, as he said. One thing he didn't say was that $500 charge can be put toward a 24/7 contract extension if you decide that 24/7 is something you need on a regular basis. If you don't, the one time support option is there in emergencies.

To be honest, getting a new install to work doesn't typically qualify as an emergency for most people (though I can imagine with a customer/boss breathing down your neck, it can feel like one!) and most folks are perfectly fine waiting until Monday morning to get help. The weekend option is there for those who just can't wait, for whatever reason.

Joshua Hutchinson
Rockwell Automation Support Center Admin

To be honest, getting a new install to work doesn't typically qualify as an emergency

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emergencies are not typical hence the use of the word emergency. That said I dont mind paying for what I get. However when I pay for a prouduct I expect it to work, many times on this fourm I have seen the acronym RTFM or did you see the tech note?.
IMHO this info should free to those who have paid for the product. I did my searches found the link to the tech note on this error and could not access it. shoud I assume you can only use AB proudcts 8 to 5 five days a week. other vendors i have only offer tech support at this time but they have no restrictions to reading the info you need 24/7. I have never had any problem with the quality of ab tech support or there response time and have had on more than one ocaison recived a comp service ticket. My vendor is very good at helping also. It just ip sets me to pay twice for somthing. the correct documention should come with the proudct. I know its not the support centers fault.
I think the bottom line here is I could save time and money paying for 24/7 tech support on all the rockwell and ab proudcts I own and resell that I have to support 24/7. but I simply like to read and understand things for myself.
I do have a library card but for the life of me I cant remember having to pay for it. LOL

bce123 said:

I do have a library card but for the life of me I cant remember having to pay for it. LOL

Click to expand...

You did. It's called taxes.

We pay about $10,000-$12,000 per year for techconnect support. We cannot operate without it since we still have our main systems running on FTView, and it is so full of bugs that running with no support is a virtual guarantee of extra downtime.

When we get switched over to Ignition and drop our FTView support, I think the price will drop by at least 30%, and we may do away with it altogether since we rarely find drive or PLC issues with $ecret answer$ that can't be found elsewhere.

Buggy software is money in the bank if you've got the big name to hang it from...just look at Microsoft. Charging for access to the knowledgebase is not good for the company name, no matter how much revenue it generates. This is especially true when many of those notes are things that should be in the manuals in the first place.

I can understand charging for application specific help in which an engineer spent lots of hours working out a solution for an unusual problem or hardware combination.

We can botch and groan all we want but the only way to really make a difference is through your purchasing agents. Every time I complain about a particular tech-note being locked up, the a/b folks get that little grin and twinkle in their eyes (probably thinking about that 401-k and climbing stock price) as they express their sympathy and promise to forward my complaint...