Support FAQ

A legacy product is one that is no longer under active development but has yet to be fully retired. This is not an automatic designation, and when it happens, it will be publicly announced through all our major channels of communication. Legacy products are no longer available for purchase, and no software defects will be fixed (including new issues) with the exception of major security concerns and defects that result in data loss. Official support for legacy products is included with an ExpressionEngine Support plan.

Once a product is designated a legacy product, it will automatically become a retired product 1 year later. Retired products no longer receive updates of any kind, and are no longer eligible for support beyond help with upgrades. You can find a full list of major versions and their status here.

If you have an issue with a retired site and need expert help, reaching out to an ExpressionEngine Partner may be right for you.

Our standard support hours are Monday through Friday from 10:00am to 3:00pm EST. Extended support hours are 9:00 to 5:pm EST.

ExpressionEngine sales and support are not available for the following US holidays as our team will be enjoying their time with their families:

• New Year’s Day
• Memorial Day
• Independence Day
• Labor Day
• Thanksgiving Day
• Day After Thanksgiving
• Christmas Eve
• Christmas Day
• New Year’s Eve

When one of the above holidays falls on a weekend, its observance is shifted to Monday or Friday in keeping with common custom.

If you have a Basic support plan, you can expect to receive that guaranteed first response from us within 1 business day. Practically speaking, that means if you submit a new support ticket during or after business hours on Tuesday, you’ll get a response from us by the end of business on Wednesday. (And remember, ExpressionEngine standard support hours are Monday through Friday from 10:00am to 3:00pm Eastern Time.)

Similarly, if you have Pro, Premium or ViP support plan, you can expect a first response within 4 extended business hours. Pro plans are on a 10-3 support window. Premium and ViP plans are on a 9-5 window.

Basic plans come loaded with 1 Urgent ticket, and all Urgent tickets get a guaranteed first response within 4 business hours.

After the first response, we’ll work with you to resolve your ticket as quickly as possible, with priority given to based on plan level. Since your request stays in that same Customer Advocate’s active queue, it allows him or her to resolve it as quickly as possible!

Contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and we can help you figure out the best option for your customers.

There is a time limit of 30 minutes for a single ticket. If an issue needs extensive development time and expertise, your support agent will talk you through the options.

And while there is a limit on the size of a single project, there are no limits on the number of times you can ask for help or the number of sites the questions are regarding.

Sure! Support plans are available on a monthly (as well as yearly) cycle.  If you just need to ask a few questions every now and then, feel free to wait until those questions come up before subscribing. You can cancel a support subscription at any time from your purchases page.  Once cancelled, you won’t be billed for future months/years and you’ll still have access to support for the full paid subscription period.

For issues that support cannot reproduce, we may suggest a meeting where you can share your screen to demonstrate the problem and explore debugging options in real time. We support Slack, Google Meet, and Zoom for these sessions.

For some levels of paid support, we may move immediately to screen sharing as an option

Pull requests submitted to our GitHub repository can be expedited under certain support plans. A developer will review an expedited pull request within 2 business days. While simple pull requests may be released quickly, more complex changes may require additional time for thorough testing and implementation.

ExpressionEngine issues are managed on our GitHub repository. Bug reports are triaged by our team and security issues, problems that may result in data loss, and issues that have the greatest impact being addressed first.

Expediting a bug report moves it to the ‘front of the line,’ ensuring that it gets prioritized for review. This service is available under some support plans to help address critical issues quickly and efficiently.

Slack is the primary communication platform used for small group messaging both internally and by the ExpressionEngine community. A private slack channel is available for some levels of support, giving direct access to the staff most appropriate to a given issue. This line of direct communication, including direct messaging, video meetings and screen sharing, provides the highest level of integration between your team and ours.

Some support plans offer dedicated blocks of time devoted to code review.  Our developers will personally review and provide advice on your ExpressionEngine build.  This can include your custom add-ons, pull requests, optimizations, frontend templating and GitHub release management. Languages include PHP, JavaScript and MySQL.

Writing your own custom code or developing the architecture of your site and want an experienced hand to help guide you along the way? Code pairing gives you access to one of our developers in a shared environment, ensuring you have an experienced partner to help you execute your plan of attack. We’ll not only help you refine your approach but also ensure your code is optimized for performance, scalability, and best practices. Support hours specifically dedicated to code pairing are included in some support plans.

Our support team is happy to help walk you through any issues you run into, even in cases where we can’t access your site and/or the environment. However, that does limit the extent to which we can trouble shoot.

Setting up VPN access can be time-consuming for everyone involved, but sometimes it’s the only way to provide the hands-on support needed to resolve an issue. If your ExpressionEngine installations can only be accessed via VPN, it’s worth considering a support plan that includes VPN access!

Not all support is strictly technical. When it’s time to plan your big-picture strategy and determine how ExpressionEngine can best serve your business needs, a strategic call can make all the difference. Connect with the experts you need via call or video under some support tiers.

A Solution Architecture Review is a comprehensive evaluation of your technical setup, or approach to a problem, to ensure it aligns with your business goals, performance requirements, and best practices. This can include site builds, e-commerce implementations, integrations, add-ons, API usage, Coilpack, Laravel, and more.

We do! Check it out here.

A heads up is always nice, and in the top support levels we offer monthly calls to touch base and make sure we have our resources ready when you need them.  Using an API or an add-on we may not be expert at? A little lead time can be helpful so we’re ready to go out the gate.