Home Forums Discussions Problems Is AC support dead or does it just smell funny?

After several years of excellent, prompt support from the Guardian Angel Service, the past 2m have been horrible: long waits, unhelpful help, and for the past 6 weeks, silence in spite of many requests for help with the crash-on-script-writing problem.
Is anyone getting any help/response from our $3000/y "Service"?

Thanks, I'll do that.

Other note, why are the time tags on these posts 6h ahead of reality?

Ah, needed to set my time zone in preferences.

Support for AC is atrocious. It used to be great (years ago?)! Now, chat is often unavailable even during regular business hours, and email / phone support is non existent. Also, I no longer trust what they say verbally. Do get everything in writing.

Agree.
So frustrating. Just wrote to the CEO.
Hopefully will get a favorable written response.

Very frustrating. I am sitting in front of my computer at home and AC Cloud just froze again, as it does about every 1-2 days. It would be so easy if I was hosting locally, just ctr-ALT-del, open task manager, close ac, and restart. Now I have to call and leave a message (as chat is closed being after hours) and hope someone takes pity on me. I know I will not get a call back. I miss the old days when Jonathan and I would be online for hours troubleshooting AC. Does anyone have any tricks to force the AC cloud version to reset?

We have 2 enhancements deploying over the next week or so related to performance/login on the new new cloud environment. One may address network latency issue for users located west of the Mississippi. We have altered the manner in which we route network traffic to shorten the length of travel. I say "may" as there are other factors in play here outside of our control but many should experience an increase in response times. The other change is related to what is perceived as "hanging/freezing" and "can't login" problems which sound like what you mention here. That fix is being tested and we expect to deploy in the next week or so. I know it may appear that we are not being responsive and recognize this can be very frustrating for those affected. This has been our top priority for some time now. I'll spare you the technical details, which I barely understand myself, but it's complicated and takes time to pin these things down and correct. We've made good progress in the past few weeks and remain are optimistic that these enhancements will provide you with an improved user experience very soon.

Hi Chris,

As always, thanks for your comments and concern.

We have a server for AC. I had considered cloud in the past, and at some point will reevaluate on site vs cloud. For us, lack of being able to reset the server/having to depend on AC support only during business hours would be an absolute deal breaker.

It sounds like you have been working hard on this, but this would be an absolutely intolerable situation.

Hope your planned fix works!

Gene

Adding to VTWilson's comment: The practice I support has an on-prem version of AC, we've been experiencing a couple minor / moderate issues since 12/29. (Charts merging & CDA translation failure). I've called and left two voicemails, sent multiple emails, and attempted to use the chat support (always offline when I try).

Granted it was a holiday week, but after 7 days it's a bit unreasonable to get 0 response. This hasn't been my experience before.

The issue in my opinion is a lack of dedicated AC support team members. This is only a guess, but I'd imagine Harris' support team provides Tech support for multiple product lines, and is probably short staffed / has had some turnover lately. Coupled with the holiday weeks, it's likely that no one has even looked at the queue or is prioritizing Tier 1 issues only. Poor management.

Please don't spare me. You would be surprised. I am well versed on network issues. As I said before, AC freezing is not an issue isolated to AC cloud. It is reproducible. This happened before when I was hosting AC locally. The problem now is one of complete lack of support by AC clouds after hours or weekends (by the way, no one called me last night. No phone call, no email, no text. Nothing), and spotty support during regular business hours. One of the things I requested from Paul before signing up to AC clouds was to talk to another practice that used AC clouds. Paul Lucia said that because of "privacy issues" this was not possible. I should have known why this was the case. So, if anyone wants to talk to me about how AC cloud runs, feel free to contact me. I use AC and my practice manage is AdvancedMD. I use Xlink as an interface. I use updox.

Chris Conrad: What about the crashing on script writer and orders. This is the biggest problem we are having with the chart system, and many of us are incredibly frustrated. Are you working on a fix for that or not?

I'll escalating the issue here at AC to see what we can do to get more visibility here and identify possible causes. I see the count of practices reporting this issue is now up to 5 just here on this board. I can imagine how frustrating this can be .....This is not an easy nut to crack but if we all put our heads together maybe we can figure this one out...We have never been able to replicate this in house and until we can identify it we can't fix it.There is another thread for this..can we please all comment over on the "AC crashing on Script writer" please Let's start by getting as many comments by those affected and look for similarities. If you impacted tag that thread so you get copies of everyone replies. We'll have the AC development team monitoring this as well. One thing to start with is the number of different workstations where this is occurring at your practices and what are the specs for those units? what release are you on, when did this start occurring for you? I've seen these reports for the past year or so..can anyone say it happened prior to version 10?

I have about 5 or 6 work stations, and they all have the problem which is occuring randomly, but 90% of the time on hitting the open script writer button and about 8% on Orders button ans 2% just randomly. These are all late model machines with the latest operating systems, AC version, and Intel Hardware with Windows 10 Pro. I'm on 10.2 because Tech 1's original solution was to upgrade to 10.2. Then it was to buy new hardware and re-install all the Windows users!

I've had a logon to this forum for 5 years, but this is my first time posting.

It feels as though AC support has disappeared. I have been trying to schedule a tech support appointment for nearly 2 weeks, and I'm not even getting an acknowledgement that my messages are being received. I've emailed support@amazingcharts.com, I've called the main number, and left a message, and I completed and submitted a request for an appointment via the online form on their website. The only response I've received was a voicemail last Friday evening at 6pm on our main office phone, which I returned at 6:15pm.

I'm actually considering joining one of their marketing webinars today, just so I can connect with *someone.*

Any other suggestions other than sending a letter via snail mail to the CEO? I'm not against doing that, but I need resolution a little sooner.

Thanks!
Dana
Clark Family Medicine

You tried reaching through the 'Chat With Us' Button on the support site https://amazingcharts.com/acsupport/ and got no response? Has always worked for me during regular business hours. Alternately I call the support number (866) 382-5932 and select “1” for Support I do this on the weekends, left a message and always have gotten a call back within an hour or so.
Of course haven't called in probably 6 months so ? maybe things have changed.

I have tried the Chat with Us during regular business hours. Every time I try, both support departments are Offline.

This lack of communication is relatively new. In the past, I have received timely callbacks, and I have always received acknowledgements to my emails. Even just a few weeks ago, I got email responses. Now, nothing. I got one voicemail at 6pm on a Friday, requesting a callback. I returned that call at 6:15pm. Nothing since.

Well, thanks for the reply. I guess I'll just keep trying. Not sure what else to do.

Post your problem here if you dare, many helpful folks.

Dana, just PM me and I will get you help from support that day, most likely.

Or just indicate you would like my assistance here on the board.

Wow, Bert! Thanks!

What I really need is help with transferring the database to a new computer. I completed AC's online appointment request form about a week and a half ago, hoping to do the transfer this Wed, 7/8.

Our main computer has been randomly rebooting over the last several months, sometimes in the middle of the workday. I've researched and researched, but I just can't find the cause. Given that it's several years old, we felt a new main computer would be the best idea.

Thanks for your help,
Dana

I have also been emailing support for the last week with no response. I have left a voicemail and the chat option is never available. I'm trying to get help with starting the interface with the state vaccine registry.

Yes, it is frustrating that we need AC's help to move to a new computer. It used to be install on a new computer, make a backup of the database and import it. I guess it is a security thing.

I forgot to add this to my forum watch thing. I will take care of it right now unless it has already been done. They should at least send you the seven-day activation key to get you started. I will mention serene as well.

I put out a bat alert. We will see.

Fyi, Jen at AC called me today about a different question I had sent that was unrelated to my db transfer request.

While I had her on the phone, I asked her about the status of my tech support appointment request. She mentioned that her administrative assistant was "new," and she may have "gotten behind." Jen found my request and told me it was "entered" on 7/1/20 (though I had submitted it on 6/26/20). Jen plans to touch base with her administrative assistant to determine the status. Jen also offered to check with her manager to see if she could schedule the tech appointment herself. That call was about 1.5 hours ago.
So, we will see. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks,
Dana

Another update: I received an email with my appointment date/time. It is this Wed at 9am. I would have preferred a little more advance notice, but I guess I'll take what I can get at this point.

Thank you for your help.

This scares me.

I've had no better service than when I posted back in January. AC support is ALWAYS offline when i check the chat feature.

We have had a recurring issue when clinical summaries randomly will all fail upon sending to the portal (Updox). A prompt to sign in to SSO would pop up, and my username and password which are tested to work on the AC Client portal would simply not work. Previously Dustin would respond and do some magic on his end, ask me to change my password in the portal and login. Voila. During the downtime, there's no way to re-send those portal messages, but 1 week or so manually re-sending wouldn't kill us...

It's 'broken' 3 times now, the last being in May. Multiple messages to AC support and zero response. Now we have gone 2 months without any summaries sent which will impact our performance in MIPS. I have very frustrated doctors and a Portal Transaction log full of red.

How much $ do we need to pull together for AC to hire another support person? $50k annual salary for a remote employee divided by the number of active licenses can't be more than $100 per practice...

Unfortunately, I don't think that would fix the problem. I like the way Dell and some other companies do it. With a contact support person being assigned to you.

I agree Bert if you are assigned to a team and they don't get back to you then its an easy way for AC management to correct the issue. It sucks that the support is so poor at this time.

I'm paying thousands for GA support, but the chat online is off and no one is in the office by phone. It says available 8 AM to 8 PM EST. I feel that this is a contractual issue to be available since we are paying for support. Very frustrated. I'm seeing service fall off drastically this year. I'm wondering if the parent company will abandon AC.

The only thing that goes against this is their website just gets better and better. The only way the support can be fixed is to have hundreds of us refuse to pay for annual support, but you would need quite a few people.

This is NOT a defense of AC support, but to say "we are paying thousands for GA support" is a bit of an exaggeration.

What seems odd to me is that just a couple hours before your post, another user posted ("ERx adding to sig line") and seemingly got good support in just a few minutes.
Something is not right, but I am not sure what it is....

It's thousands for me and my other providers. Every time you add a provider, you pay thousands more even though your system support needs are about the same.

That’s why I have never changed self hosted version