Support for DONATION Software
Getting Support for DONATION Software
Cooperstock Software recommends three ways to get support for DONATION:
- Read the Product Documentation: You can answer most questions by consulting the DONATION help file or manual (which have the same contents).
- After installing DONATION, you access the help by via the menu option Help ⇒ Contents and Index.
- You can search in the help using the Index or Search tabs.
- If you haven't installed DONATION, you can read the manual online from the Documentation page.
- Check the FAQs: Many common questions are answered on the
Frequently-Asked Questions page on this web site.
- Email Cooperstock Software: info@Software4Nonprofits.com. Please send as much detail about possible about your problem, with screenshots where appropriate.
Support Policy for DONATION Software
Email support is available to all DONATION users who:- Are still in their initial 60-day evaluation period for the paid version, or
- Have paid for the program within the last 12 months, or
- Are in their first month after registration of the free Lite version, or
- Are using the Lite version and have paid the small annual support fee for it.
When you inform us of problems or have questions, we have the following policies, in order to optimize the use of our resources and give you the most efficient and effective support:
- We reserve the right to first ask you to read a relevant Help topic or web page that we recommend, if you have not already done so, and try the instructions included in it. If that does not work, you can get back to us and let us know where you are stuck.
- We ask you to send us your problem or question by email, with appropriate screenshots where relevant, and we will normally respond by email, rather than doing support over the phone.
- If you do phone us, you will almost always have to leave a message, and we will generally answer you by email.
- If we decide that it would be more effective to answer you by phone, we will do so. We can also use remote control sessions to see what is happening on your computer, if we feel that would be a more effective way to resolve your problem than email.
Per-Incident Phone Support Option
Some users have not been satisfied with our policy of almost always doing support by email, and want an option of phone and/or remote control support, at your request.
To satisfy those users, as long as your paid support is up-to-date, you have the option of paying a per-incident fee of $25, in advance online, for phone support (or remote control support, if it seems to us that will be more helpful than phone). One incident means one issue or question. Such support will not include us reading extensive contents of Help pages or web pages to you, but can certainly include discussing aspects of such pages that you have read but still do not understand. Details of how to pay this fee online are on the Payment page.
Maximum One Day Response Time for DONATION Support
If you email us and receive no reply within a day, please phone us to follow up, at (416) 423-7722. Most emails will be answered much sooner.
Remote Control Support for DONATION
In rare cases, we may offer to solve complex problems by remote controlling your computer, with your permission and participation. In those cases, we use a program from Techinline to do so.
Bug Reports and Feature Requests about DONATION
Please report any bugs you find in DONATION, and feel free to request feature enhancements.
DONATION Support Exceptions
Your support subscription includes all normal "how to" questions, help with any problems you are having with the program, etc. However, it does not include custom data conversion from other systems. Fortunately, these are almost never necessary because of the flexible importing options in the program, and the built-in conversions from several other programs. It also does not include any work we do for you to develop custom mail-merge receipts or letters, because you are able to do that yourself in the built-in mail merge editor, or via Microsoft Word in unusual cases. If you do need us to perform custom data conversions or custom receipt or letter development for you, or the very unusual other situations that we do not consider to be part of standard support, we will negotiate an hourly charge for our time. (It is extremely rare that anyone needs this.)
How to Report Bugs Effectively
Check out software developer Simon Tatham's useful article on bug reporting at www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html. It indicates what sorts of details are helpful when reporting apparent software bugs. The article exhibits a bit of "attitude", but does give good advice overall.