At the top of SAS Technical Support’s Policy page you’ll find the department’s mission statement: "help our customers make the best use of our software products through effective and responsive support, active advocacy, and a broad and flexible range of self-help resources."
We deliver on that promise with outstanding support, both through self-help and assisted-help services. Self-help resources can be found on the Technical Support homepage. A valuable resource is our extensive Knowledge Base, where you can find the latest information about SAS software, SAS product documentation, SAS Technical Papers, samples, SAS notes, and more.
Though we are committed to providing you with exceptional resources to help you solve problems on your own, we know there are times where you need to resolve immediate or more in-depth issues by engaging SAS Technical Support in real-time.
Here are four things to remember when opening at track with SAS Technical Support. They will make your assisted-help experience run smoothly, and help us help you as quickly and efficiently as possible. (You can open a track by clicking on the link provided above, sending an email to support.sas.com, or calling 800-727-0025. If you’re outside the U.S., visit our contact page to find your local office contact information.)
Tip #1: Always describe your environment
All inquiries to Technical Support should include basic information to help us understand your environment. Please include the following:
- The SAS products that you use.
- The versions of the products that you use.
- The operating system of your computer.
- The operating system of your SAS server computer (if applicable).
- The site number that is associated with your software.
- The order that was used to install your software (if known).
Tip #2: Be as detailed as possible when you describe your issue
Technical Support defines a "problem" as a "situation in which an expected level of performance is not being achieved." If you have a problem, start by answering the question "What is wrong with what?" This is a good statement to use as the subject of your submission. Here’s are a couple of examples: "New user cannot login to Enterprise Guide" or "PROC SQL generates error message xxxx”.
Then, provide details that help us understand the specifics of the problem. Consider providing answers to these questions:
- What do you see that indicates there is a problem?
- What were you expecting to happen?
- When does it happen (what do you do to create the problem)?
- Did it ever work as expected?
- How often does it happen? Frequency?
- Who is it happening to?
- When did it begin happening?
Tip #3: Attach supporting documentation
- If you are presented with an error, please send the ENTIRE log that includes the error.
- If you are presented with an error box that directs you to a log file for further details, please send the referenced log. This is very common during installations.
- If you are encountering a problem with the behavior of a software product, create a screen capture of the condition.
Tip #4: Describe any steps that you have taken to solve the problem yourself
If you have taken steps already to solve your own problem, please let us know the results. It is often very beneficial to know what testing you have already performed so that we can compare your results to the problem as well as avoid asking you to repeat steps. Let us know if you have tested on other machines, tested with other code or data, applied hotfixes, or followed instructions from a SAS Note, for example.
We hope everything runs smoothly and you rarely need technical support. But for those times when you do need to submit a request to SAS Technical Support, be sure to use the above guidelines to help us serve you better.
