Severity model
Support requests should be triaged by production impact, customer visibility, revenue risk, privacy exposure, data correctness, and whether workflow execution can be paused. A cosmetic admin issue should not follow the same path as a checkout-impacting workflow or privacy-sensitive support incident.
Escalation matrix
Map each severity level to the owner who can pause workflows, contact hosting, contact the provider, open CodeCanyon support, update customers, or approve rollback. Pair this with Contacting Support, Error Reports and Support Codes, and Incident Response Runbook.
Communication standard
Customer or client updates should explain impact, current workaround, owner, next update timing, and what evidence is safe to share. Do not include provider keys, raw logs, purchase codes, payment data, or unrelated customer records.
Quick reference
- Use this page when collecting diagnostics, reproducing errors, planning updates, routing support, or documenting incident recovery.
- Do not share raw logs, provider keys, server credentials, purchase codes, payment data, or unrelated customer records as support evidence.
- Key decision: whether the evidence is fresh, redacted, reproducible, routed to the right owner, and safe to share.
Scope limits
- Do not use this page to share raw logs, credentials, purchase codes, or unredacted customer records while trying to accelerate support.
- This page does not replace hosting, provider, CodeCanyon, or internal incident ownership.
- Use it to collect safe evidence and route the issue without exposing secrets or unrelated private records.
Owner and cadence
- Primary owner: support lead or site administrator responsible for triage and evidence handling.
- Review cadence: when an issue is reported, before support contact, and after recovery to improve the runbook.
- Escalate when severity, response owner, customer communication, or routing between host, provider, and plugin support is unclear.
Access and data boundary
- Support evidence should preserve exact error codes, timestamps, URLs, user agents, diagnostics, and reproduction paths while removing secrets and unrelated private data.
- Use support-safe diagnostics, exact timestamps, reproduction steps, version details, and affected-screen context instead of raw logs or broad database exports.
- Share provider keys, server credentials, purchase codes, payment data, customer records, and private logs only through approved secure channels when explicitly required.
Production checklist
- Define severity levels by production impact, customer visibility, revenue risk, privacy exposure, data correctness, and workflow state.
- Map each level to hosting owner, provider owner, CodeCanyon support owner, rollback owner, and customer communication owner.
- Capture exact timestamp, affected user, affected screen, SophMate version, WordPress version, PHP version, and reproduction steps.
- Redact provider keys, credentials, payment data, private customer details, and raw logs before support handoff.
Acceptance checks
- Support requests can be triaged without guessing who owns the next response.
- Customer-facing updates include impact, workaround, owner, next update timing, and safe evidence only.
- The support report lets another operator reproduce or triage the issue without receiving secrets.
- The team knows whether to escalate to hosting, provider support, CodeCanyon support, or internal operations.
Failure modes to test
- Test repeated errors, stale diagnostics, failed migration or reindexing, missing purchase context, untested rollback, wrong support route, and incomplete incident prevention notes.
- Test stale diagnostics, repeated error codes, missing reproduction steps, unredacted evidence, wrong escalation route, failed update, and incomplete rollback proof.
- Confirm support handoff preserves timestamps and codes while removing secrets and unrelated private data.
Evidence to capture
- Record exact timestamp, screen, URL, user role, SophMate version, environment details, error code, reproduction path, and diagnostics status.
- Capture what was redacted from logs, screenshots, support bundles, and customer-related evidence.
Decision record
- Decision field to include: exact error or release context, redaction status, rollback proof, support route, prevention owner, and restart criteria.
- Record the support decision, severity, affected screen, timestamp, environment details, reproduction path, owner, routing path, and redaction status.
- Include whether the issue belongs to hosting, provider support, CodeCanyon/plugin support, internal operations, or a post-incident prevention task.
Stop or rollback path
Stop retries, updates, or support handoffs when evidence is incomplete, secrets are exposed, ownership is unclear, or rollback is untested. Resume after diagnostics, redaction, support route, and prevention notes are complete.
Monitoring window
- Monitor repeat errors, unresolved diagnostics, support response state, redaction quality, and owner handoff until closure.
- Review prevention notes after the issue is resolved so the next request is easier to triage.
Expansion criteria
- Standardize the support path only after reproduction, diagnostics, redaction, routing, and prevention notes are complete.
- The next operator can use the same report format without exposing secrets or unrelated customer data.
Common mistakes
- Treating every support request the same instead of separating cosmetic, operational, revenue, privacy, and customer-visible severity.
- Retrying or changing settings repeatedly before preserving the exact error report, timestamp, and affected screen.
- Opening support requests with raw logs or vague descriptions instead of redacted diagnostics and reproduction steps.
Common questions
What makes support evidence useful?
Useful evidence is fresh, reproducible, timestamped, redacted, tied to a specific screen or failure, and routed to the right owner or support channel.
Who should own this decision?
The support lead or site administrator should own the report until it is routed to hosting, provider, CodeCanyon support, or internal operations.
What should stop the rollout?
Stop when evidence is stale, reproduction is missing, redaction is uncertain, or the support route is wrong.
Related operations
- Use Migration and Reindex Review before restarting workflows after updates.
- Use Post-Incident Review and Prevention before returning paused work to normal scope.
- Use Changelog and Release Note Review before release decisions.