I’m not sure how this went, but it’s too much coincidence if it weren’t all related. This is what happened: I’m working on an Oracle Field Service implementation and apparently a lot has changed under the hood in FS and Scheduler. Bit by bit we’re uncovering some bugs and every now and then a feature that’s supposed work but actually has been eliminated entirely. For one of these bugs I raised an SR through Oracle Support. Things weren’t going fast enough so I thought I’d try to find somebody who might expedite things.
Through a contractor, with whom I worked before, I came in contact with someone from Oracle, who does Field Service related stuff. I actually met him at Open World 07 and my contractor friend allready said to contact him if I needed any help with FS. So I explained some of my worries to him and he immediately forwarded my email to a product manager for Field Service in India.
Two days later, the guy working on my SR at Oracle Support contacts me that somebody from product management India wants to speak to me: if it’s okay to send him my contact details. Ofcourse it is! 5 Minutes later I’m explaining the whole business case to a very cooperative product manager. I explained why my bugs were important, how it relates to daily business and how it impacts the roll-out to the rest of the organization. He on the other hand could give me some insight on how far the product development was, which bugs were allready fixed (SR still says: assigned to dev) and what features, which I needed badly, were in what current or future release.
He wants to stay in touch so he can follow up on the implementation, which major issues we face, how well the product is received by the business, etc, etc. I’ve never had such contact with Oracle before, but I like it very much!
Looking back I have to conclude all things are related. Having sent that email got the attention of the right people and connected me to them a short while later. Knowing the right people pays off. Thanks guys.
Tags: bugs, feature, field service, networking, oracle, scheduler, support