Extreme Portal Feedback Wanted

[SamPirok]

We'd like your feedback on the Extreme Portal (https://extreme-networks.my.site.com). At Extreme Networks, we're constantly advancing to better serve our customers, and part of that journey involves reimagining our support portal experience.

If you have ideas on what you'd like to see in a future Extreme Portal page, please reach out here or directly to community@extremenetworks.com, and we will schedule a half hour long interview for the week of 11/17-11/21 with Service Delivery leadership. Hope to hear from you!

[Yoann_Jonard]

Hello @SamPirok ,

Thank you for asking ! Here is my feedback as a partner.

1. The portal is still slow despite your recent changes.
2. Customers are definitely lost between all the URL they have to go through to get some information. I know it's just a matter of bookmarking URL when we are used to it, but customers who are not familiar find it complex to navigate through all of them. Here are the lists of URL I use daily. 
   1. https://extreme-networks.my.site.com/
   2. https://supportdocs.extremenetworks.com/support/documentation/ (but docs are uploaded to https://documentation.extremenetworks.com/)
   3. https://www.extremenetworks.com/support/compatibility-matrices/
   4. https://community.extremenetworks.com/
   5. https://training.extremenetworks.com/
   6. https://extremecloudiq.com/login#/devices
   7. https://extremenetworks.webinfinity.com/
   8. https://emc.extremenetworks.com/content/home.htm
3. The display of Cloud licences could be improved. There is no easy way to determine if an active entitlement is currently being used and by what, without opening it.
4. Some product page are empty (https://extreme-networks.my.site.com/ExtrProductLanding -> Automation)
5. Software and download should be simplified. For XIQ-SE there are 13 download options per products (Analytics, XIQ-SE, Control) and per version. I receive frequent request from customers "which one should I take ?" 
6. There is inconsistence in the information requested when downloading an image (XIQ-SE, Control...). If you click on the name of the file, then on the download button, you only have to accept the EULA. But if you click on the download button in the main page, you have to fill all customer information and accept the EULA before downloading. It looks like a detail, and it is, but again the customer has a mixed feeling when faced to this inconsistency.

Overall, instead of adding new features, new links or anything, I would focus on simplifying the current portal to make it more attractive and more friendly to navigate through for everyone. There is currently a lot of very useful information, all dispersed between too many webpages. We (partners and customers) would benefit from a simpler solution (IMHO).

Best regards,

[Ansley_Barnes]

Hi @SamPirok,

I'd love to see filters implemented in the download portal - for example, filter on download type (Switch Engine, VOSS, etc), version, patch level, etc. 

One annoyance I experience while using the download portal is that when I download an item - let's say, for example, an EXOS image - the portal immediately takes me back to the front page afterward. This isn't ideal, especially because I often need to download other items to support that image: supporting .xmod files, checksum files, that sort of thing. Combined with the slowness of the download portal, it makes what should be a quick task an annoying one. Multiply that by however many classes of product you're maintaining, and it can be a significant point of friction.

Thanks!

[Raul_Carbonari]

Yes, I have some ideas.

All KB articles have the last update date, but sometimes the first publication date would be very useful. This week I saw some "Best Practice Fabric..." articles being replaced by others, when they could have just been updated. I didn't understand the logic behind it.

I have suggested several times to the GTAC staff and the SEs the implementation of an improved suggestion system instead of always saying to submit a "Feature Request," for example, a solution similar to what Hamina has, where someone publishes an idea or suggestion and the community votes on whether they find that need interesting (https://feedback.hamina.com/), the Product Manager evaluates the possibility/effort and puts it on the roadmap or discards it if it is unfeasible or inappropriate.

I agree with the people who say that the download site could be improved; besides being "slow," it can be quite intimidating for those who are not used to it.

I have also reported several times that it is useless to include links to open CFDs in Jira in the KB texts if neither users nor partners have access. Worse still, they only provide the CFD number without any informative description, unlike what often appears in the Release Notes. The correct approach would be to provide an anonymized summary of the case to assess whether they actually share common ground that also applies to the problem we are looking for, or to have the courtesy to remove the hyperlink.

Another interesting point in the recent cases I have opened is the estimated date of the fix when a KB for a bug/error is published. Since I "demand" this information in my cases, it's generally included when a KB is released, but I have often encountered problems that only state that it will be solved in version X.y, without an estimated publication date.

I hope this has been helpful.

Raúl Carbonari