Our Chargeable and Non-Chargeable Policies

I am frequently asked while working through various Dynamics NAV incidents ‘Will you charge me for this case or How do you determine if my case is chargeable or not chargeable? ’. Basically, it's the engineer who makes the determination if the case is going to be chargeable or non-chargeable depending on the nature of the issue. We adhere to certain Chargeable and non-Chargeable policies, most prominent of which I have listed below.

You can, however, avoid a chargeable support incident by familiarising yourself with our chargeable and non-chargeable policies and then checking for the solution yourself in one of the many self-help areas of PartnerSoure. Most noted is the Knowledge Base and Hot Topics. The chargeable and non-chargeable policies are for all products across Microsoft and not just Dynamics NAV.

Chargeable Incidents

The following are some examples of chargeable incidents.

How-to and operational questions—General how-to and operational questions about a product and the underlying system on which the product is implemented are chargeable. Typical how-to incidents include assistance in bypassing a specific error message and accomplishing certain steps in a report or other specific inquiries, such as where a certain field is stored or what a field will do if it is marked versus unmarked.

The scope of a how-to question is limited to a specific step within an end-to-end process. A general question on how to perform the entire end-to-end process would not be in scope. For example, the support professional will answer a specific question on how to modify an existing report, how to run month-end or year-end procedures, how to upgrade to the next version of the software or how to change their sort order, but the support professional won't cover the entire process in any of those situations.

In many cases, the difference between a specific how-to question and a question that encompasses the entire end-to-end process comes down to the support professional's discretion. The support professional will assist with the end-to-end process by referring to online manuals or relevant Knowledge Base documents and/or by recommending that you work with your local Partner or that the Partner engage Advisory Services.

Troubleshooting assistance—you will be charged for troubleshooting assistance. An example of troubleshooting assistance may include a situation where accounts are not in balance or do not match. Occasionally, a customer initiates a support incident, and later discovers the solution by himself/herself. These situations are still chargeable unless the Microsoft support professional has made no effort to assist the customer.

Business Critical help—you will be charged for emergency support. A Severity-A support issue involves a business critical operation that is halted. Business-critical operations include system-down situations as well as situations where an operation vital to the customer's success cannot be performed, resulting in potential threats to the financial or legal obligations of the customer. An example of business-critical help includes recovering your system after a hardware or power failure, or you are wondering what to do if your computer crashes while posting a batch.

Compatibility questions—If you inquire about compatibility with existing products, you will be charged if the information is already available PartnerSource. Examples of compatibility questions include asking if your new printer is compatible with your solution or if it is compatible with Windows Vista™.

System or implementation problems—you will be charged to help overcome system or implementation problems. Examples of these types of problems include asking what is wrong if you are unable to launch your solution from one of your workstations when you are installing your solution. Or after installing on a new workstation you just added to your network, you are unable to launch your solution from the new workstation and are wondering what could be wrong.

Non-Chargeable Incidents

The following are some examples of non-chargeable incidents:

Ongoing incidents—Additional calls or e-mails needed to solve an ongoing issue are not considered chargeable. Ongoing incidents are assigned a case number. You can avoid additional charges by entering your case number to bypass the credit card request at the beginning of the call. You can also review the status of an ongoing incident that's being researched by a support professional by reviewing your support history in PartnerSource >> Support >> Existing Support Requests). If you have more information about a support incident, you can locate your case number in your support history, choose update, and add additional details at no charge.

Incidents related to software problems—Incidents caused by a confirmed software problem in a Microsoft product are not charged. This includes reporting software problems to us and obtaining assistance in determining if there is a possible workaround or temporary solution to the issue. There are no charges for obtaining any available service packs to correct the problem, as long as you are enrolled in a Service Plan. After additional research, if an incident that was previously charged is determined to be a result of a software problem, the original charge will be reversed. A call or e-mail requesting that a customer's name be added to an existing problem report is also not charged.

Microsoft Documentation Error— Incidents caused by errors in Microsoft documentation are not charged.

You can view the complete list on PartnerSource: https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/resources/support/supportinformation/support_incidents_defined.htm?printpage=false

Best Regards,

Zeeshan Mehdi

Microsoft Dynamics NAV Support Engineer