Support FAQ

	Free	Online	Phone
Public Discussion Boards	X	X	X
WebGUI Designers Guide (B&W)		X	X
WebGUI Administration Guide (B&W)		X	X
WebGUI Content Managers Guide (B&W)		X	X
Plain Black Staffed Message Board		X	X
Site Login			X
Server Login			X
WebGUI Installation			X
WebGUI Upgrades			X
Annual Performance Tuning Checkup			X
Priority Bug Fixes			X
Phone Support			9am - 5pm (GMT -0600)
Contract Length		1 year	1 year
Average Response Time		Within 24 hours*	Immediate*
Guaranteed Response Time		Within 48 hours*	8 hours*
Customer Contacts		1	1
Price	Free	$1000	$5,000 or $450/mo**

*Longer periods may elapse on weekends and holidays. Holiday schedule is provided to all support clients.

**Payment may be made monthly rather than in an up front lump sum; however, using this option does not change the contract duration.

***Server hosting packages that include Online Support do not include WebGUI guides. These are only available to customers who purchase the $1000 Online Support package.

Why buy support?

If you're like most people (including us a long time ago) you're thinking to yourself, "Why should I buy support for a piece of software I got for free?"

We'd like to turn that around on you. Ask instead, "Why should you pay for support when you paid thousands of dollars for commercial software?"

Truth be told we like the fact that people all around the world are using WebGUI for free. We take pride in that we've made something that people like and find useful. However, it costs us a lot of time and money to support all of you that are using WebGUI. That's why we charge for support and other services.

Help us support you by purchasing a support program.

Support F.A.Q.

How does the support board work?

The support board is a message board that is staffed by Plain Black employees. You post a question, and our staff will make sure you get a prompt response, either with more questions or with an answer.

Are there limits to the phone support?

Our contract states no more than 10 hours per month, but we usually don't place any limits on your phone calls. However, we do ask that trivial or non-emergency requests be posted to the support board first. This helps keep our technicians focused on urgent emergencies.

What kinds of questions are OK to ask?

Our technicians are prepared to answer just about any question related to WebGUI and its dependencies (Apache, MySQL, Linux, HTML, CSS, etc). We'll answer all your How do I? questions, as well as provide deployment and upgrade advice, performance tuning advice, and even some not-so-obvious tips and tricks.

I'm just a [fill in whoever you are]. Do I still have to pay for support?

If you want support from Plain Black you'll need to pay for it.

What do you mean by "site login"?

That means that Plain Black staff will log in to your site to fix a problem. If your support package does not have this, then PB staff are not authorized to log in to your site.

What do you mean by "server login"?

This is much like site login, except that Plain Black staff will log in to the machine to fix the problem. That is, if you give them access to do so.