Contacting IBM Support

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IBM® Support assists with product defects, answers FAQs, and helps users resolve problems with the product.

Before you begin

After you try to find your answer or solution by using other self-help options such as technotes, you can contact IBM Support. Before you contact IBM Support, your company or organization must have an active IBM software subscription and support contract, and you must be authorized to submit problems to IBM. For information about the types of available support, see the IBM Support Guide.
Draft comment:
Insert all of the instructions that are relevant for your product. For hardware products, the support process depends on the product offering. The following procedure is based on IBM Software Support details.

Procedure

To contact IBM Support about a problem:
  1. Define the problem, gather background information, and determine the severity of the problem.
    For more information, see the IBM Support Guide.
  2. Gather diagnostic information.
    Draft comment:
    If your product has enabled the automatic data collection feature in ISA, describe how to use that feature. If you have created Collecting data troubleshooting topics, refer to them here.
  3. Submit the problem to IBM Support in one of the following ways:
    • Using IBM Support Assistant (ISA):
      Draft comment:
      Describe how to submit a problem with ISA, if your product has enabled the Service Request feature. Here is some sample text (which should be reviewed by your Support team before you use it):

      Any data that has been collected can be attached to the service request. Using ISA in this way can expedite the analysis and reduce the time to resolution.

    • Online through the IBM Support Community: You can open, update, and view all of your Support Cases on the IBM Support Community.
    • By telephone for critical, system down, or severity 1 issues: For the phone number to call in your region, see the Directory of worldwide contacts web page.

Results

If the problem that you submit is for a software defect or for missing or inaccurate documentation, IBM Support creates an Authorized Program Analysis Report (APAR). The APAR describes the problem in detail. Whenever possible, IBM Support provides a workaround that you can implement until the APAR is resolved and a fix is delivered. IBM publishes resolved APARs on the IBM Support website daily, so that other users who experience the same problem can benefit from the same resolution.

What to do next

Draft comment:
Suggest including related links to the Contacting IBM Support and Exchanging information with IBM topics.