TRADOS Support Agreement
Thread poster: Sarah Jamieson
Sarah Jamieson
Sarah Jamieson  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:17
Member (2019)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Apr 25, 2020

Hello!

I would really appreciate what other people might think about this. I am just about to buy TRADOS Studio.

Should I purchase the support and maintenance agreement? What do people think?

I do not buy it, I assume that I may not contact technical support at all, even if I change computer?

Many thanks community.

Sarah


 
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RWS Community
RWS Community
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:17
English
Trados Support Apr 25, 2020

Sarah Jamieson wrote:

Should I purchase the support and maintenance agreement? What do people think?



This should be your choice. If you do you can contact support about anything you like whenever you like as often as you like. You also get major upgrades included in the price.

Sarah Jamieson wrote:

I do not buy it, I assume that I may not contact technical support at all, even if I change computer?



If you have problems with licensing or installation you can always get help from support. For anything else we have a fairly active community that is very helpful here - http://community.sdl.com


Sarah Jamieson
 
RobinB
RobinB  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 13:17
German to English
Worth buying Apr 27, 2020

Hi Sarah,

Even if you only use it once a year, that will be the time when nothing else works. Funny thing is, several times I've had to use SDL Support, the problem has actually been a Windows issue, not Studio. But they helped me anyway.

What you're actually buying is peace of mind.

Robin


Sarah Jamieson
 
Joakim Braun
Joakim Braun  Identity Verified
Sweden
Local time: 19:17
German to Swedish
+ ...
Hm Apr 28, 2020

If a support agreement looks attractive I'd consider looking into some other software.

Sarah Jamieson
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 19:17
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Sarah Apr 29, 2020

Sarah Jamieson wrote:
Should I purchase the support and maintenance agreement? I do not buy it, I assume that I may not contact technical support at all, even if I change computer?


If you have a Support and Maintenance contract, you get responses within 1 business hour.

I'm not sure what a "business hour" is, but if I understand the contract correctly, the three support centres cover the entire world (except for 23:30 to 00:00 GMT, from when the US office closes to when the Japan office opens, so you may have to wait 1.5 hours if you get your problem in the half hour before midnight GMT), and it may exclude public holidays where the support centres are located.

If you do not have a Support and Maintenance contract, you can contact support at any time, but they may not respond within 1 business hour. In my experience, as someone who does not have this contract, the live chat person usually responds reasonably quickly anyway. It is my understanding that you get the same support whether you have a paid support contract or not, and the only difference is that paid support is guaranteed to be within 1 business hour.

Also, you can always ask for user support (i.e. asking other users), e.g. here at ProZ.com, on the Yahoo/Groups.io mailing list (with 3900 members, including 700 receiving messages immediately and 500 receiving daily summaries), or on the official forums.

If you change computer, there is a certain process you must follow to deregister the product on the one computer (also called "returning the license") and reregister it on the other computer, but the process is usually automatic if done from within Trados, via the internet, with no interaction required from Trados support. However, this may be a good reason to get the Plus package, because then you may have a spare activation available in case you failed or forgot to deregister, but then you must remember contact Trados support manually later to reset the license count for future usage.

Cost-wise, you can get:
- 3-month contract ("introductory"): USD 74.00
- 12-month contract: USD 205.00 per year
I'm not sure how often you can get the 3-month contract, or how long after you bought Trados.

The 12-month contract includes an upgrade to the next major version (if the next major version is released in the year that you have a contract). There is a major upgrade roughly every 2 years, and the usual full price of the upgrade is about USD 200 (and there may be discounted prices, such as currently).


[Edited at 2020-04-29 09:20 GMT]


Sarah Jamieson
 
RWS Community
RWS Community
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:17
English
Live chat versus support Apr 29, 2020

Samuel Murray wrote:

If you do not have a Support and Maintenance contract, you can contact support at any time, but they may not respond within 1 business hour. In my experience, as someone who does not have this contract, the live chat person usually responds reasonably quickly anyway. It is my understanding that you get the same support whether you have a paid support contract or not, and the only difference is that paid support is guaranteed to be within 1 business hour.



This is completely wrong I'm afraid. The live chat is not technical support at all. They will try to help if they can, but if they can't they send you to the SDL Community forums. They are there to help answer questions about the product to help people make their purchase decisions. Over time they have become quite technical and will do their best to assist, but they are not a technical support team at all.

If you don't have a support contract the proper place to go for help is not the live chat, it's the SDL Community, or if you prefer the ProZ community. Quick link to the SDL Community is this:

http://xl8.one

Samuel Murray wrote:

If you change computer, there is a certain process you must follow to deregister the product on the one computer (also called "returning the license") and reregister it on the other computer, but the process is usually automatic if done from within Trados, via the internet, with no interaction required from Trados support. However, this may be a good reason to get the Plus package, because then you may have a spare activation available in case you failed or forgot to deregister, but then you must remember contact Trados support manually later to reset the license count for future usage.



You can also reset the licence yourself if you have a Freelance licence, unless you make a habit of it and then you'll end up having to contact support.

For SDL Trados 2007 and SDL Trados Studio 2009 use this KB article ( https://gateway.sdl.com/apex/communityknowledge?articleName=000001393 ) and follow the instructions.

For SDL Trados 2011 and SDL Trados Studio 2014 use this KB article ( https://gateway.sdl.com/apex/communityknowledge?articleName=000001379 ) and follow the instructions.

For SDL Trados 2015, SDL Trados Studio 2017 and SDL Trados Studio 2019 use this KB article ( https://gateway.sdl.com/apex/communityknowledge?articleName=000001616 ) and follow the instructions.

Samuel Murray wrote:

Cost-wise, you can get:
- 3-month contract ("introductory"): USD 74.00
- 12-month contract: USD 205.00 per year
I'm not sure how often you can get the 3-month contract, or how long after you bought Trados.

The 12-month contract includes an upgrade to the next major version (if the next major version is released in the year that you have a contract). There is a major upgrade roughly every 2 years, and the usual full price of the upgrade is about USD 200 (and there may be discounted prices, such as currently).


Correct enough to get the idea. On the 3-month contract... Freelance users can purchase a 3 month contract at any point after buying Trados - there is no time limit. They can also buy this as many times as they want. Obviously it's more cost effective to buy a full years support contract rather than repeat the 3 month contract - but this is entirely your choice.


Sarah Jamieson
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 19:17
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@SDL Apr 29, 2020

SDL Community wrote:
The live chat is not technical support at all.


So, but, can a user who does not have a support contract contact support at all? And if so, what kind of support can they expect?


Sarah Jamieson
 
RWS Community
RWS Community
United Kingdom
Local time: 19:17
English
Licensing & Installation Apr 29, 2020

Samuel Murray wrote:

SDL Community wrote:
The live chat is not technical support at all.


So, but, can a user who does not have a support contract contact support at all? And if so, what kind of support can they expect?



If you can't install the product, or can't return/activate your licences then support will always help and we have links for this:

https://gateway.sdl.com/webtocase

But for anything else we provide help for free via the SDL Community:

http://xl8.one

If you want guaranteed, one to one support, for anything at all then you need to purchase a support contract. And as you mentioned this also includes the upgrades. So if you are a regular Trados user and always upgrade anyway, I think it makes sense to be able to seek help whenever you need it, dedicated to you and in sensible timescales. The cost above the upgrade price over the period in-between upgrades starts to become very reasonable and is something you can budget for over the course of a year.

The community is helpful, but works on the basis of sharing knowledge and users can also help each other. So for some this is a great solution and people (SDL staff as well as users) are very friendly, often going out of their way to help. But a support contract is guaranteed 1:2:1 assistance whenever you need it.


Sarah Jamieson
 
Leighton Jacobs
Leighton Jacobs  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:17
Member (2019)
German to English
+ ...
@Sarah Apr 29, 2020

I've never personally needed a support agreement because whenever I've had a problem (very rarely), I've just searched it and the SDL community has most often had some great advice and tips on how to solve it or at very least some pointers for what might work, etc. As mentioned though, this does depend on people sharing knowledge and sometimes a degree of 'tech-savviness' but I've always found it very helpful.

On the other hand, direct and speedy contact with support would, of cours
... See more
I've never personally needed a support agreement because whenever I've had a problem (very rarely), I've just searched it and the SDL community has most often had some great advice and tips on how to solve it or at very least some pointers for what might work, etc. As mentioned though, this does depend on people sharing knowledge and sometimes a degree of 'tech-savviness' but I've always found it very helpful.

On the other hand, direct and speedy contact with support would, of course, help solve any issues quicker and leave you less stressed if you happen to be under time pressure when a problem occurs.
So, if you regularly have work with particularly short turnaround times, I would certainly consider it for the peace of mind.

Hope this helps!
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Sarah Jamieson
 


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