Forum and Zendesk: Support System is not effective and not satisfying

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I’m a betatester for several addons and tools since many years now.

The support system here in the forum and the Zendesk system is not effective to track or trace bugs nor is it satisfying to us customers! Or, in other words: it is a mess!

The forum should have much more categorized sub-forums so that we could track down single bugs and should be well moderated, instead of having all together reporting it over and over again and couldn’t keep track if sth. is reported, worked on or solved already.

We need feedback from development if sth. is worked on.

Now, we have a voting system, and every day you get the same bugs reported again and again and every single thread does just get a few votes instead of having one thread for that specific issue which gets many votes!

And the ZenDesk System is simply said a joke, sorry. Reported some items, they get marked as “solved” (is not the case since months) or they tell me I should ask in the forums or the knowledge base. When I report a bug (clearly a bug) I do not have to ask anywhere.

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My zendesk requests have status “Awaiting your reply” from day 1, but there was never
any action/question by MS/Asobo. I don’t want to know how many requests are simply stalled because
they have wrong status.

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@guenseli Thanks for the comments.

For clarification the forums are not an official support platform for MSFS (as made clear in the forum Welcome Post) and there is no reliable bug tracking that takes place on the forums.

Your comments re. the voting in the bug reporting section is well made and largely this is the result of forum users creating multiple threads for the same issue. It is a tough one to solve without forum members’ cooperation. Any suggestions to possible solutions are, of course, most welcome.

(Just a small aside, as I am not sure all forum members appreciate this either, the forum moderators are normal forum members like everyone else, not employees of MS or Asobo, and have volunteered for the mod role.)

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same here,

did some reports at Zendesk, 15 days and counting “awaiting your reply” !

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thx for answering @tamalien!

too bad, the forum is not an official support platform! would be the most effective way to track down bugs for both sides. But ok …

What worries me then really is, that the only remaining “bug tracker” or support platform is ZenDesk, because this is nothing more than a joke. With this “platform” we will really need 10 years to get everything fixed.

thx to you and your colleagues for your work here!

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They did fix a keyboard control response issue I reported in the 1.7.14.0 patch,
but the Zendesk bug report still shows “awaiting your reply”.

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When starting a new post there is a suggestion window for similar topics based on what you are writing (on desktop at least, not sure about mobile), but as with most clever IT tools, many users ignore them. Same for the search function. Not much you can do except moderate every new thread I guess.

I accept we can’t have a completely open ticket system with the development team, but for me the biggest frustration is the lack of feedback FROM the team. Yes, we get the highly curated feedback snapshots but please put some meat on the bones…

The known issues list and planned fixes is still handled in the same way the pre-release build up was marketed and it feels completely inadequate.

I do not expect to see any direct involvement of Asobo employees here (they would get jumped on, poor people) but slightly more open & extensive feedback with the community would go a long way and help prevent repeat postings.

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Exactly!

The slightest hint that someone is working on this or that issue will prevent probably daily reposting.
If we have more subforums one could find easier if a problem is already mentioned and if it is already recognised by the devs.

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Good evening everyone…

I want to expand a little bit on what Tamalien covered.

We try to merge duplicate threads in #self-service:bugs-issues and #self-service:wishlist, but due to the number of new threads across the forums and the relatively small number of moderators there is only so much we can do without help. The best way users can help is to use the search function before creating a new topic.

Short of that, if you see a duplicate topic you can notify us so we can take a look and potentially merge the topic. Users who reach Trust Level 2 can use the report (:white_flag:) button, and send us a message including a link to the other post by selecting the ‘something else’ option. If you have not reached TL2 you can send a forum pm to @moderators with the relevant information.

We do look at adding new categories as/and when appropriate, however, it is a delicate balancing act, too many categories and the forums become difficult to navigate, and the moderators will spend more time moving posts than we already do.

Finally a note on Zendesk. Ticket status can be a bit misleading, here is a description of each status from the bug reporting FAQ.

Ticket Statuses Explained (Bug Reports)

  • Open: The bug report has been updated. Typically, this will happen when you send a reply or add additional information to the initial bug report.
  • Awaiting your reply: The ticket is pending review by our team. A bug report will remain pending until it’s updated or marked as solved.
  • Solved: The bug report has been handled. Our team has recorded the bug in our internal bug and issue tracker. Please note this does not mean you will see the bug fixed in the next update, but has been recorded and prioritized accordingly.

https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360014232420-Zendesk-Bug-Reporting-FAQ

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This nomenclature has been prooducing confusion from day one…

Regarding “bug tracking with Zendesk is a mess”, here another quote from the Zendesk FAQ @Nyx1819 already linked:

Are bugs and issues tracked in Zendesk?
No, unlike other software like Jira or Github, Zendesk is not designed as a bug and issue tracker.
Microsoft Flight Simulator bugs and issues are tracked in a separate software internally.

Using Zendesk for reporting bugs was fine during the beta phase, but now I see the following problem: Customers are encouraged to report bugs via Zendesk but it is also the paltform to get in touch with customer support in casse of individual problems with installation etc… Bug reports get handeled the way described above and there won’t be an individual answer to a report. This is totally fine but on the other hand, individual support request of course require an individual answer. It is not transparent to the customer, if one can expect and individual answer or not.

Edit: I think it is not difficult to solve this issue. My suggestion would be, to clearly state in Zendesk, if an indiviual answer will be given or not.

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Exactly what i got - waiting for your response ? I never got an email or notification, i even donnt know what kinda questions asobo forwarded to me …

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Hi all,

I’ve been reading this since the first post and the replies thereafter but didn’t have time to respond earlier on. I think this is an excellent point and I also acknowledge that @tamalien and @Nyx1819 have provided some insightful responses.

If I may, I’d like to offer some constructive feedback - and if deemed actually useful, have it passed up the chain of command to be considered moving forward.

Firstly, I do recognised that this forum is basically run by volunteers - I think there may be some merit in investigating the ratio of Forum Users, Active Posts/Threads vs Moderators (particularly with reference to multiple threads covering the same topic) and assess the requirement for additional moderators, or even having official MS Staff come onboard.

On this note, I have seen possibly 5 to 10 threads all covering the live weather issues. I’ve been involved in about 3 of them. DirectX 12, which is something I’m particularly interested in, has seen about 4 threads now. As it’s been mentioned, with constant new threads on the same topic, It does start to dilute the issue, if looking purely at votes.

Whilst I’m happy to see the issues acknowledged by the MS/Asobo team, I’m not sure having 5 topics just on the Live Weather/Wind not working, all with 300+ posts is a good use of resources. (As noted in the linked Dev Update)

ZenDesk, Known Issues, Forum Posts and Development updates (on the main page)
There is a duplication, or more specifically a triplication of information here.
As it stands, You can access known issues from 4 different locations (as per above)
This seems an unnecessary increase of workload when the information could be all contained in one location. This would also make updating the information easier (which I will come to) - The other side is the bug in the CDN (Content Delivery Network?) in which trying to load the main page doesn’t always bring you the latest data. This can be largely solved through implementing it on the forum.

Coming back to Known issues list - I think maybe a twice-a-week update for the net few months may be beneficial, particularly taking into note the major topics being submitted to ZenDesk. I know speaking first hand, if I know an issue has been submitted identical to that which I’m experiencing is already being addressed, I’m not going to add another ticket to create an additional unnecessary workload for the team actioning them.

There may be better or more suitable alternatives to the forum software currently used, ZenDesk or whatever other utilities are being used, but I’m sure if they can be found, MS and Asobo would be able to decide what works best.

I’m sure that if Asobo and Microsoft are indeed in this for the long haul, there are many customer-facing utilities and interfaces which could be vastly improved, along with more transparent communication, which would benefit Asobo, Microsoft and their customers alike.

I’m also happy to help out in anyway I can and for this information to be used if beneficial to the team as I’m also invested in seeing this platform mature and grow.

Thank you for your time,
Brendan.

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