AlumDeck
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Support

Email support from the people who build it.

Write through the contact form and a person replies within one working day, Monday to Friday. Support is included while your licence is current, and the documentation is free to everyone, always.

Contact supportRead the docs
Support at a glance
QuestionAnswer
HowEmail, through the contact form
ReplyWithin one working day, Monday to Friday
IncludedWhile your licence is current
Phone or chatNone, on purpose
DocumentationFree to everyone, always

The line

What support covers, and what it does not.

If you cannot tell which side of the line a problem falls on, write anyway. We would rather sort it out than bounce you.

Support covers

  • Installing on a host that meets the requirements
  • Bugs in AlumDeck, with a fix or a workaround
  • How a feature is meant to work
  • Applying an update while your licence is current
  • Whether a release changes the database
  • Licence key and download problems
  • A plain answer when AlumDeck cannot do what you need

Support does not cover

  • Custom development, new features or design work to order
  • Your host's own faults: downtime, mail delivery, expired certificates
  • Teaching PHP, Laravel, MySQL or cPanel
  • Writing your content or planning your alumni programme
  • Moving records in from another alumni platform Planned: release 1.5
  • Problems caused by changes you or a developer made to the code

How it goes

From your message to an answer.

  1. Write it through the contact form

    Pick Technical for anything about installing or running the site, or Licensing and invoices for keys, renewals and refunds.

  2. A person reads it

    The same small team that builds AlumDeck. No ticket robot, no chatbot and no outsourced first line.

  3. A reply within one working day

    Monday to Friday. A live site that is down goes first; say so in the first line.

  4. A fix, a workaround, or a straight no

    If it is a bug, the fix goes into a release and the changelog says so. If AlumDeck cannot do what you need, you hear that plainly, with the roadmap entry if there is one.

What to send

What to put in your message.

The first reply depends on it

Six lines that save three days

Include these and the first reply can usually solve it, instead of three days of us asking questions back.

  • Your site address
  • Your PHP version, and who your host is
  • Your AlumDeck version, from alumdeck-build.json
  • What you expected to happen, and what actually happened
  • The exact error text, or a screenshot of it
  • Whether the cron line is in place, if anything scheduled is involved

Before you write

Two minutes here might save you a day.

Questions

Questions about support

How quickly will you reply?

Within one working day, Monday to Friday, and usually sooner. If your live site is down, say so in the first line and it goes to the front of the queue. If four days pass with no answer, assume a mail server lost it and send it again.

Is there phone support or live chat?

No, and that is a deliberate limit rather than a gap we are hiding. A written thread with your error message and PHP version in it solves problems faster than a call neither of us remembers accurately. If your institution needs a named account manager and a phone number, a hosted platform is a fair reason to spend more.

What happens to support if the licence lapses?

Support and new downloads stop until you renew; the documentation stays free to everyone. Your public site keeps serving either way.

Can I pay you to install it or build a customisation?

Not today. We do not sell installation as a service or take custom development, because a small product that takes on client projects stops shipping product. The install is designed for anyone who can upload a zip, and anything deeper is familiar ground for a Laravel developer.

Will you sign in to our server to look?

No. Support is by email, with instructions you carry out. Handing hosting logins to a software vendor is a habit worth not starting, and never sending them is the simplest way to protect you.

Can I ask questions before I buy?

Yes. Pick Before I buy in the contact form. A person answers, and asking does not put you on a mailing list.

Write to a person. One working day.

Support is included while your licence is current. Questions before you buy are welcome too.

Contact supportOpen the live demo

Sign-in details on the demo pageResets every night