OFF2000: Getting Support for Microsoft Office Solutions
ID: Q234322
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The information in this article applies to:
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Microsoft Office 2000
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Microsoft Office 2000 Developer
IMPORTANT: This article also applies to all previous versions of Office, including all individual programs that offer developer-related features.
SUMMARY
Microsoft provides a variety of support offerings to meet the needs of customers developing solutions with Office. This article summarizes these support offerings and describes how Microsoft Support Professionals can assist you with problems or issues you may encounter.
Additional information regarding Office support offerings can be found at the following Microsoft Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/support/supportnet/overview/overview.asp
This article discusses the following topics:
What Products are Eligible for Office Developer Support?
Microsoft Support Options for Office-related Solutions
Suggested Resources to Check Before Calling Support
Office Developer Support
Advisory Services
Microsoft Developer Support
Support Phone Numbers
MORE INFORMATION
What Products are Eligible for Office Developer Support?
The following Office programs are eligible for Microsoft Office Developer Support: Microsoft Access, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft FrontPage, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Office Developer.
Other programs included with various editions of Office are not eligible since they do not contain object models, or are not designed to be customized or programmed as part of a solution.
Microsoft Support Options for Office-related Solutions
The following is a summary of the support Microsoft provides for solutions involving Office.
Microsoft Office Support (Personal Support)
Provides support for installing, deploying, configuring and using an Office program. Provides assistance with recording macros, accessing the developer-related features, and suggesting appropriate resources for you to get started.
Microsoft Office Developer Support (Professional Support)
Provides primary support for Office-related solutions within the guidelines specified in this article. While Microsoft Support Professionals can assist you with a wide variety of potential issues, they cannot provide ongoing training or perform a consulting role where they assist you in creating your solution.
Advisory Services
Provides consulting-level support that directly involves your solution, including writing code that can be used in your solution.
NOTE: If you are not a developer and wish to have a solution created for you, Microsoft generally recommends that you contact an independent solution provider. A solution provider can provide ongoing assistance and support for a solution that is suited to your needs.
For information about Solution Providers in your local area, contact the Microsoft Solution Provider Sales and Information line at (800)765-7768 in
the US or (800)563-9048 in Canada. For information about support in other locations, contact a local Microsoft subsidiary.
Suggested Resources to Check Before Calling Support
Microsoft Knowledge Base
http://support.microsoft.com/support/search/c.asp?
Microsoft Support Web site
http://support.microsoft.com/support
Microsoft Office Developer Support Web site
http://support.microsoft.com/support/officedev
Microsoft Office Developer Web site
http://msdn.microsoft.com/officedev
Microsoft Developer Network
http://msdn.microsoft.com/
Microsoft Press
http://mspress.microsoft.com
Public Internet newsgroups
http://support.microsoft.com/support/news
Office Developer Support
Office Developer Support assists Office customers and solution developers in creating solutions involving an Office product. The following areas are some of the more typical scenarios that Office Developer support can help with.
Typical Office Developer Support Scenarios
- Recording of macros (where applicable) within the various Office programs.
- Using the program object model from within a program's own programming environment. For example, this would include writing a Visual Basic for Applications macro in Word or a Visual Basic Scripting Edition (VBScript) solution in an Outlook form.
- Automating any of the Office programs from another program or programming environment. For example, this would include an Access database that automates Outlook to send a fax, or an Excel worksheet that automates Word to perform a mail merge.
- Using ActiveX controls (*.ocx) within Office-based forms or other Office control "containers," such as a Word document.
- Using the Office development tools, such as the Visual Basic Editor and Script Debugger.
- Deploying Office solutions.
What Office Developer Support Does Support
- Recording of macros (where applicable) within the various Office programs.
- Programming with an Office program's object model from within that same program.
- Automating an Office program from other programming environments that support automation. This includes, but is not limited to, other Microsoft programs such as, Visual Basic for Applications, Visual C++, Visual Basic, Visual J++, VBScript, WordBasic, and any other third-party products or components. Office Developer Support provides assistance with the various Office object models.
NOTE: Support Professionals cannot provide full support if your question or problem is directly related to programming languages, environments, or components that are not included as part of Office. In those cases, you will receive an Office-based example of how to achieve what you are trying to do, and you can use this to apply to your solution. For further support you may need to contact the vendor, or support group of the programming environment you are working with.
- The use of Active X controls (*.ocx) within Office-based forms or other control containers. Controls that are installed by Office or Office Developer are fully supported.
NOTE: If you are having a problem with a custom or third-party control on an Office-based form, you should try using the control on a Visual Basic form or other container. Oftentimes issues related to controls occur in various control containers and this indicates an issue with the control, not Office. Office Developer Support can only assist you if the problem is specific to using the control on an Office-based form.
- Using the Office Visual Basic Editor, the Script Editor, the Script Debugger, and other developer-related tools that are included with Office and Office Developer.
- Questions related to deploying Office solutions using technologies included with Office and Office Developer, such as the Package and Deployment Wizard.
- Accounting for and documenting bugs in Office programs.
- Data Access Pages in Access. Support provided will be specific to the Office object models and DHTML object models.
- Office-related programming involving XML, HTML, DHTML, VBScript,and JScript. Office Developer Support supports these languages and the controls available within the Script Editor and the Visual Basic Editor. Code examples provided in these languages will be specific to an Office program object model.
- HTML tags when used with FrontPage. Support for HTML is limited to assistance with inserting HTML, modifying existing HTML, and the correct syntax of HTML tags within the following guidelines:
- HTML tags supported and explained must be part of the current W3C Recommendation on HTML, which can be found at http://www.w3.org. Creating or troubleshooting tags which are at the "Proposed Recommendation" or "Working Draft" stage is not supported.
- Guidance in determining which browser-specific tags are supported by the most current browsers available to the general public.
NOTE: These guidelines for HTML also apply to Cascading Style Sheets, as defined at http://www.w3c.org/style.
What Office Developer Support Does Not Support
- The object models of third-party products.
- Questions specific to the use of non-Office programming environments.
- Troubleshooting programming language syntax errors unless the language is included within current or previous versions of Office or Office Developer.
- The creation of ActiveX controls.
- Modifying in any way the HTML, XML, or DHTML in files that have been saved by an Office program (excluding FrontPage). Once the HTML file is modified by another program, such as a text editor or FrontPage 2000, it is no longer in an Office 2000 program native file format and cannot be supported by Office Support or Office Developer Support.
- Editing or in any way modifying .htt files. .htt files are critical to the operation of Microsoft Windows when using Active Desktop.
- Writing code that will add functionality to your existing solution. This level of service is provided by Microsoft Advisory Services.
- Actively debugging your solution. Instead, Support Professionals will offer advice on how you can use debugging tools and methods. If you need direct assistance with debugging your solution, this level of service is provided by Microsoft Advisory Services.
- Implementing custom FrontPage WebBots or editing the HTML within a FrontPage WebBot is supported by Developer Support as part of the FrontPage SDK.
- Support for the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications SDK, which allows Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to license Visual Basic for Applications for use within their own application. Support for this SDK is provided through Developer Support.
What Is an Office Developer Support Incident?
An incident is defined as a single support issue and the reasonable effort needed to resolve it. A single support issue is a problem that cannot be broken down into subordinate problems. If a problem consists of subordinate problems, each shall be considered a separate incident. Before Microsoft provides support for an incident, you and Microsoft's designated Support Professional must agree on what the problem is and the parameters for an acceptable solution. An incident may require multiple phone calls and off-line research to resolve it. A Microsoft product bug is not considered a fee-based incident.
Problems should be broken down to the smallest scope possible. Because developers are most familiar with solutions they've created, you are in the best position to quickly narrow down the scope of a problem. This will typically reduce the total time needed to resolve issues.
If a Support Professional needs to view the code you are using, the code should be as short as possible while still reproducing the problem you are having. The code should be able to be run independently of the solution you are creating.
Office Developer Support Professionals will only provide example code that you can implement into your own solution. The Support Professional cannot help you design your solution or business rules, or provide code that can be directly used in your solution.
Advisory Services
Advisory Services provides consulting-level services if you require specific development for a solution, or set of solution using the Office products.
The minimum charge is $195 for the first hour of support. Prior to providing support, the Support Professional will review what it is you are trying to accomplish and estimate the time required to provide assistance. If the estimate is greater than one hour, a proposal contract will be faxed for your approval. If the initial estimate is not satisfactory, you will receive a refund of the initial $195.
NOTE: Support Professionals can spend a maximum of 20 hours per solution.
Microsoft Developer Support
Developer Support provides a wide variety of support for professional developers. In certain circumstances, Developer Support may provide primary support for some Office-related technologies, including:
- Visual Basic for Applications SDK
- Enterprise-level, Microsoft Exchange-based messaging and collaborative solutions that involve technologies that are beyond the scope of Outlook.
- Automating Office programs using Visual C++, where the issue is directly related to the C++ programming language or constructs.
- Creating ActiveX controls for use in Office, where the issue is not directly related to Office.
- Working with Microsoft Internet Information Server, Microsoft Site Server, or other server-based Web development projects.
Support Phone Numbers
(425)635-7050 Office Developer Support for Microsoft Access
(425)462-9673 Office Developer Support for Microsoft Word
(425)635-7070 Office Developer Support for Microsoft Excel
(425)635-7031 Office Developer Support for Microsoft Outlook
(425)635-7088 Office Developer Support for Microsoft FrontPage
(425)635-7145 Office Developer Support for Microsoft Powerpoint
(425)635-7118 Office Developer Support for Microsoft Office Developer
(800)936-5200 Advisory Services
(800)936-5800 Developer Support
REFERENCES
For additional information about getting support for Microsoft Outlook solutions, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q198354 OL2000: Getting Support for Developing Outlook-Related Solutions
Q185243 OL98: Getting Support for Developing Outlook-related Solutions
Additional query words:
OL2K OutSol OutSol2000 OFF2000 VBA VB MSE VBE
Keywords : kbdta
Version : WINDOWS:2000; :
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type :
Last Reviewed: August 3, 1999
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1999
Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use.
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