All about the New EMC Online Support

This Ask the Expert discussion event is now open questions. We look forward to the conversation.

Regards,

Mark

Hello everyone, thank you for joining the Ask the Expert discussion on the new Online Support experience. We officially launched this experience on May 7th 2012. We had several objectives in designing this new experience which are:

• Simplify and improve the navigation of the site and make it more product and task centric
• Incorporate communities into the experiece more
• Enhance personbalization
• Improve the overall user experience

Based on feedback to date, we feel that we have achived many of these. However as with anything new, I am sure there are lot's of quesitons or feedback on the new experience. So please ask away, and Amy and I will be more tha nhappy to respond to any questions and feedback.

Sincerely,

Jay Leclerc

1. Yes, there is already! You'll find the same on Powerlink Homepage under spotlights. Moreover, if any particular document or information is moved to EMC Online Support, there will be a note on powerlink stating it has been moved to __________ with the link.

2. Have you tried the below link and tried searching using our advanced options?

• Online Support FAQ

(Refer Page Number 10)

Moreover, you can also check Search Tips located on top right hand in the Search Page. https://support.emc.com/search/

If you are still facing an issue while searching for a specific issue/document etc. , let us know!

BRSGRL,

Besides the informaiton alreayd provided on the search tips, can you provide some sepcific examples as to what you were searching for? We can then take a look.

We have spent alot of time buildng a new search backend to greatly improve the search results. We have also created a team of people who manage the searchinterface to constantly tune and enhance, so providing some specifics we can look into this for you.

Regards

Jay

BRSGRL,

I think this may have been a timing issue with the publication of the release notes for Networker 8.0. I just tried your search and the document came back #1 in the list.

Was this this only search issue or are there others?

Jay

The main reason for the difference in results is that the search engine treats 8.0 as a word and 8 as a word and they do not match. This is common across all versions users enter. Our search team is looking at ways to possibly get around this, but we need to be careful becasue there are times where 8 should not equal 8.0.

So when Networker 8.0 is mathced, this has a greater strngeht which is why the better results. Becasue 8 is not matched, the terms networked, release and notes are fairly common which is why the difference.

Regards

Jay

Jay,

on the new support website i don't see any options to subscribe to RSS feeds. For example under "My Products" i have selected VNX. Now i would like to get notified when anything that has to do VNX becomes available, including release notes, white papers, ETAs ..etc

great, honestly as a long time PowerLink user i find the new support.emc.com website very frustrating to use. Especially the Documentation section. Like yesterday i was looking for "Hardware information guide for VNX 5700", for the life of me i tried every combination (Content type, support task) and could not find what i needed. Finally i just gave up and search for string "VNX hardware configuration" and it came up in the result. On PowerLink i am used to clearly defined sections (administration, configuration, release notes ..etc) and they would actually contain appropriate content, now on the new website it's hit and miss. Argg ..frustrating.

Totally agree with Dynamox, i think the mission here was to make the site more organised but for me its really very hard to adapt it. Though its high time now for me using this iste. Its really very frustating to see so many duplicates in the search for the same heading and also i am not having a pretty good time searching for exactly what i am looking for.. Would again urge to make it pretty simpler by making it a keyword serach engine and with not so many options which is making it a bit more confusing and keeping you there for much more time than required.

Thanks

Rupal Rajwar

thank you, that's very important ..i want information to come to me.

i was trying to use the navigation bar one the left hand side and my experience was not good. Maybe i need to give it more type but as a first time user as i was stomped.

i meant "give it more time"  ...hmm..can't edit my own post on this forum ?

We also are envisioing an improvement to the homepage called a notificaiton River. The intent with this functionality is that based on a users My product list, we will present new changes to those products on the home page. It would similar to the product notification I described above, but it would be a point in time presentaiton to provide a flow of information about the products you are intersted in. We are looking at this as a 2013 delvierable after we complete the notifications work.

Regards

Jay

That is correct, as of right now we do not yet have the subscriptions and notifications piece implemented. It is the last major piece of functionality we are working on. We are in process of building it out (along with all of the service request notificaiton capabilities). We expect to have this in our November release.

We are improving the overall experience for subscribing. As you know in Powerlink today you can subscribe to indivudal pieces of content. We are changing this to a product centric notification. So using your example, you would select a product like VNX, a time period (weely or monthly) and a method (email initially, but will add other channels later). You will then recevie a report which shows all new content for that product, documntation, downloads etc. It will also include ETA/ESA information as well as service life informaiton. As a next phase we also want to include new KB articles. The goal is within this one report, you will be able to keep track of all new content on a product by product basis.

Regards

Jay

It is indeed but the statement as a whole is the fact.