Where possible, we encourage you to use the Forums!

Hey SciChart Users!

A few weeks ago, we asked the question Should we re-open the public forums as Community Q&A. Thanks to everyone who got in touch – we had an overwhelming response! 100% of respondents voted enthusiastically to see the forums re-opened as a Q&A site. However, since the Q&A site went live, the actual number of people using it has been quite low

We encourage you - if you have a Q&A style question ‘How do I do …’ that you believe will help contribute to our public knowledge base, please post it on the Forums. This will help us build the public knowledge base.

How to Ask a Good Question

Something else is that we get asked a lot of questions here at SciChart – literally hundreds per week. We want to help you to build applications using our software, but to do that we need you guys to ask excellent questions.

At SciChart we receive hundreds of questions per week! Help us to help you with Excellent, Clear and Consise Questions

Take a look at the StackOverflow guidelines for asking a good question.

1. Write a Title that summarises the specific problem.
2. What exactly is the problem or requirement you are trying to achieve? 
   • Imagine you are talking to a busy colleague and you need to sum up your question in one paragraph.
   • Include any screenshots of what you want to achieve / what the problem is. Please make sure these are clear and visible!
   • Tell us what version of SciChart you are using. You would not believe how many people tell us there is a bug, but don’t mention the version.
3. What have you tried so far? 
   • Include Code samples of what you have already tried
   • Attach a solution to reproduce if you wish to the forum post.
4. Help us to reproduce the situation
   • Sometimes a code sample helps
   • Sometimes you can reproduce using our own examples

These guidelines apply to both Forum questions and Ticket or email based questions. If you ask a question well, we will help you very quickly. In fact, we often prioritise answering based on how well people ask their questions.

We often prioritise speed of answering based on how clearly people ask their questions

Here is an Excellent Question:

Another example of an excellent question:

What these have in common is a clear description of the problem or requirement and screenshots explaining it. If you do this we can help straight away!

The Public Forum is Search-Indexed!

Hey guess what? We also built a custom search engine for SciChart. This can be viewed at http://search.scichart.com:9000/

If you ask us a question privately, it will not be indexed. If you ask a question publicly then others can benefit from it to. So we encourage public question asking where possible.

When should I ask Privately vs. Publicly?

Good question!

When to use Forums

If you have a simple case, like How do I do X, or I have a problem doing Y, then its probably better to ask this via the Forums. Especially if you believe your question can help others using SciChart.

When to use Tickets

If you have a complex case with large amounts of code / explanation to reproduce, or you have an urgent issue, or wish to keep your conversation private, its best to use Tickets / Email.

Voting on Forum Posts

Finally, don’t be afraid to vote up/down on the forum. In fact, we actively encourage it! This way the best answers will rise to the top.

Thanks!

[SciChart HQ]