How to Report a Problem with FamilySearch in this Forum
LegacyUser
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robertkehrer said: How to Report a Problem with FamilySearch in this Forum
Things to Know:
1) We Read Your Posts
Product mangers and quality assurance engineers read the posts on this forum daily. our main goals are to answer questions as authoritatively and completely as possible and to identify problems with the site early.
2) Site Outages
The FamilySearch website is fully monitored for performance. Planned outages of the entire website or product areas (Search, Memories, Family Tree, Indexing, etc) are messaged to users with banners preceding the outage. When unplanned outages, or even degraded service, occur engineers are almost instantly notified by the software via multiple methods and will almost certainly be working on resolving the problem within minutes. Sometimes actually resolving the issue may take more than minutes depending on it's cause.
3) Broken Features
In spite of all the safeguards, automated tests and code rollback mechanisms, occasionally a bug fix or code release will compromise an existing feature. Our goal is to identify and resolve such issues as quickly as possible. With your help, there have been many instances where such problems were also resolved in minutes.
4) Report A Problem
When you see a problem with the designed function of an existing feature on the website reporting it with the following information will maximize the ability of FamilySearch staff to quickly replicate, diagnose and resolve the issue.
a) Page URL:
It is essential that we know very specifically what part of the website (Search, Indexing, Memories, Family Tree, etc) and what data you are looking at. Please go to the page where the problem is manifest, copy the URL from the top of your browser window (usually started with http:// or something similar) and paste it in your post here in the forum. Ex. https://familysearch.org/search/recor...~
b) The Step by Step:
Describe what you did in a step by step flow, specifying the page elements you used, so we can replicate your actions and make the problem happen in our labs. Where did you click? What data did you enter? What were specifically trying to make happen? Ex. 1) I conducted a search for Howard Allor from the main search form entering just his name in the first and last name fields. 2) On the resulting search results page I desired to filter the 2,598 search results to just those from Michigan so I clicked on the "Restrict records by: Location" link. 3) I entered United States into the country field and Michigan into the State or Province field.
c) Expected Vs Actual:
Describe what you expected to happen compared to what you actually saw happen. Be very specific and provide URLs where necessary to eliminate ambiguity. Ex. I expected all the results would be from Michigan but several of the results, including the following URL (https://familysearch.org/ark:/BLAH) appear to be from places other than Michigan and should not have been shown.
d) Time:
Knowing when a feature was last working properly and, as specifically as possible, the time it began behaving badly is often key to diagnosing the cause of the problem. If, as an active user of the site, you can provide any info about the timing of the problem it will be helpful. Ex. "When I did the searches at 9am PST this morning all the results were from Michigan, but when I returned and did similar searches at 3pm PST the same day it appears the Restrict records by location feature is not working.
When users provide specific detailed and clear feedback in this manner is greatly empowers FamilySearch teams to replicate the problem, diagnose and resolve the cause...and to maintain a great website
As a product manager at FamilySearch I am very grateful to the many users on this forum who help us quickly identify when problems occur and who support new users with excellent guidance and tutorials when they have questions.
Things to Know:
1) We Read Your Posts
Product mangers and quality assurance engineers read the posts on this forum daily. our main goals are to answer questions as authoritatively and completely as possible and to identify problems with the site early.
2) Site Outages
The FamilySearch website is fully monitored for performance. Planned outages of the entire website or product areas (Search, Memories, Family Tree, Indexing, etc) are messaged to users with banners preceding the outage. When unplanned outages, or even degraded service, occur engineers are almost instantly notified by the software via multiple methods and will almost certainly be working on resolving the problem within minutes. Sometimes actually resolving the issue may take more than minutes depending on it's cause.
3) Broken Features
In spite of all the safeguards, automated tests and code rollback mechanisms, occasionally a bug fix or code release will compromise an existing feature. Our goal is to identify and resolve such issues as quickly as possible. With your help, there have been many instances where such problems were also resolved in minutes.
4) Report A Problem
When you see a problem with the designed function of an existing feature on the website reporting it with the following information will maximize the ability of FamilySearch staff to quickly replicate, diagnose and resolve the issue.
a) Page URL:
It is essential that we know very specifically what part of the website (Search, Indexing, Memories, Family Tree, etc) and what data you are looking at. Please go to the page where the problem is manifest, copy the URL from the top of your browser window (usually started with http:// or something similar) and paste it in your post here in the forum. Ex. https://familysearch.org/search/recor...~
b) The Step by Step:
Describe what you did in a step by step flow, specifying the page elements you used, so we can replicate your actions and make the problem happen in our labs. Where did you click? What data did you enter? What were specifically trying to make happen? Ex. 1) I conducted a search for Howard Allor from the main search form entering just his name in the first and last name fields. 2) On the resulting search results page I desired to filter the 2,598 search results to just those from Michigan so I clicked on the "Restrict records by: Location" link. 3) I entered United States into the country field and Michigan into the State or Province field.
c) Expected Vs Actual:
Describe what you expected to happen compared to what you actually saw happen. Be very specific and provide URLs where necessary to eliminate ambiguity. Ex. I expected all the results would be from Michigan but several of the results, including the following URL (https://familysearch.org/ark:/BLAH) appear to be from places other than Michigan and should not have been shown.
d) Time:
Knowing when a feature was last working properly and, as specifically as possible, the time it began behaving badly is often key to diagnosing the cause of the problem. If, as an active user of the site, you can provide any info about the timing of the problem it will be helpful. Ex. "When I did the searches at 9am PST this morning all the results were from Michigan, but when I returned and did similar searches at 3pm PST the same day it appears the Restrict records by location feature is not working.
When users provide specific detailed and clear feedback in this manner is greatly empowers FamilySearch teams to replicate the problem, diagnose and resolve the cause...and to maintain a great website
As a product manager at FamilySearch I am very grateful to the many users on this forum who help us quickly identify when problems occur and who support new users with excellent guidance and tutorials when they have questions.
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Comments
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Gordon Collett said: Thanks for the instructions. Is there any way getsatisfaction can make this stay as the first post on the first page? Or will one of us need to post a reply every few days to keep it there?0
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S. said: thanks, for the info, some times it is just better to use the phone instead of the Message boards.0
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robertkehrer said: Gordon, I'll look into what might be possible. It would sure facilitate speedier resolution of issues and more meaningful community help if this was more widely followed.0
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David Roderick McLean said: I think it would be great to promote this thread to here under "highlights-ideas under consideration":
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysearch
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Paul said: Robert
Please look at the post at https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea.... There seem to be an increasing number of these, where people seem convinced that their reports are coming across with information that indicates who / what they are talking about. Also, a number of help-seekers seem surprised their queries have ended up on a public forum.
There needs to be a message, not here, but further back in the process - making it clear exactly how problems should be reported. If you feel this is already clear enough, how come so many people are not understanding the Help link does not identify the page they were working on when they clicked on it?0 -
Woody Brison said: One thing I noticed about this forum: It's HUGE. There are threads and threads and threads, about all sorts of stuff. A lot of ideas are located in a thread about something else. I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of this info is just passing into archive and will next be seen when the books are examined on Judgement Day.
And a lot of it is obsolete. Someone complains about the way FS handles sources or something, the engineers roll out a new Source display feature, and thus the complaint no longer has any meaning.
Is there any process whereby old bits can be ground up and turned into funding or something like that?0 -
joe martel said: All posts are read by various employees. But not all teams read them, so depending on the feature you'll get different response. Most stuff dealing with FamilyTree, Sources, Historical Records Search, and Memories are read and contemplated.0
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robertkehrer said: The person who invents a way to turn outdated internet bits into funding fertilizer will be our first trillionaire! The only one who will be wealthier will be the guy who invents a way to keep everyone always on topic.0
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S. said: Robert, I hate to say this, did you know their is already people richer than what Forbes says, many of them control how the planet is ran. I hope Secret Societies don't wack me for saying that, but because what I know I don't think Heavenly Father will let that Happen.0
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Gordon Collett said: Just moving this from page 4 back to page 1.0
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Gordon Collett said: Moving this topic from page 6 to page 1 again.0
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Tom Huber said: And moving it from page 8 to page 10
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Tom Huber said: Moving to first page.0
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Gordon Collett said: With the new updates, it seems a good time to move this back to the front page of topics.0
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Gordon Collett said: It's been a while since this was moved back to the first page.0
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Gordon Collett said: This hasn't been moved back to the first page for a long time. Hate to see it get lost.0
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S. said: Many of us hate forms, and feel the things don't work.0
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Gordon Collett said: It's been a few months so time to move this back to the front page so people new to this board will see it.0
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Gordon Collett said: It's been several months, so it is time to get this moved to the front page again.0
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Gordon Collett said: This really needs to get back on the front page.0
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Tom Huber said: Time to bounce this to the top of the Get Sat list (thanks, Tyler Peterson, for the link)0
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Robert Leroy Price said: When trying to use Indexing, I get the following message on the screen;
"An error has occurred that may affect your ability to use this page."
How do I correct this problem?0 -
joe martel said: Bob, I updated your post above to remove your credentials. You may want to try it again and see if it works now. Also, what browser and OS and machine are you using?0
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George Riley Jennings Jr. said: hey - are problems not to be reported to FamilySearch Support and not to getsatisfaction, which takes "suggestions"? Or is this a change of policy?0
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JT said: The Feedback link is broke from the home (landing) page.
It's on the bottom of all FamilySearch pages which links to: https://www.familysearch.org/feedback
which results in: "File Not Found".
But if I use it from a Person's Details page, it works, but indirectly:
1) It first goes to https://www.familysearch.org/ask/gets... which says
"You will be taken to the Feedback page automatically.
Problems getting to the feedback page? Please use this direct link (https://getsatisfaction.com/familysearch)
2) But it never automatically goes there, so you have to click the "link".
I bring this up, because I have not received any emails all day from GetSatisfaction for any new "Idea" - I'm only getting "New reply" emails.0 -
Brett said: Jon
In do not understand, when you say that ...
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The Feedback link is broke from the home (landing) page.
It's on the bottom of all FamilySearch pages which links to: https://www.familysearch.org/feedback
which results in: "File Not Found".
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The access from the 'Feedback' link (address of https://www.familysearch.org/feedback), towards the Bottom, of the "Home" (ie. Landing) page/screen, to the "FamilySearch" ("GetSatisfaction") 'Feedback' Forum is working fine for me - it is not "Broke".
I select the "Feedback" link.
Then, when the 'Pop-Up' for "Feedback" appears, with the "Suggestion or Compliment" point marked/selected, I select "Share your idea' = No problems!?
It might take a few moments to access the Forum
But, usually no problems.
I wonder if it is "Clearing" the "Cache" and "History" - again.
By the way, I am using the latest version of "Chrome" with "Windows 10".
Sorry, I did not subscribe in the "FamilySearch" ("GetSatisfaction") 'Feedback' Forum, in my profile, to:
(1) Notify me of all new topics in FamilySearch; and/or
(2) Notify me of every new topic and every new reply in FamilySearch,
so I cannot comment on that.
Brett
ps: I tried with both, (1) 'Microsoft' "Edge"; and, (2) "FireFox" (latest versions) - no problems there either.0 -
Gordon Collett said: It's been too long since this has been put back on the first page of the forum.0
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Gordon Collett said: Time to move this back up to the top of the forum.0
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Jeff Wiseman said: Gordon, I agree that this is a GREAT IDEA. It is certainly necessary to do this since the forum itself does not have a "Sticky Thread" type capability normally used to handle this type of situation (most technical forums do).
Also, posts with questions to FS frequently go without any responses from FS to them. I totally understand how this sometimes happens, but you just don't know whether it has just fallen through the cracks, or is being ignored. It is totally natural for anyone to repeat their question (especially if it has had no answers provided by FS for many months).
That being said, it's ironic that in the Community Code of Conduct which Ron just posted in another thread, you find the following statement regarding unpermitted behaviors:
So in spite of the great good that can come from such an action as yours, it seems that you have apparently violated the Community Code of Conduct...
Thanks for your efforts!0 -
George Riley Jennings Jr. said: HOWEVER - having said that - it is important to remember that following the rules is not always the right and/or best thing to do, and from time to time it's even the wrong thing to do. The default, of course, IS "follow the rules" unless there's a right and compelling reason not to.0
