Support cases

Support cases are how you reach AINOW's engineering team about your deployment. You open and follow them at support.ainowsolutions.ca, signing in with the same Microsoft work account you use for the portal. Administrators see the cases belonging to their organization; if you administer more than one, you are asked to Choose an organization first.

Opening a case

1. Go to Cases and select Open a new case.
2. In Subject, write a one-line summary of the issue.
3. Choose a Priority — Low, Normal, High, or Critical.
4. In Description, explain what is happening, including steps to reproduce, error messages, and what you have already tried. The description accepts Markdown, so bold, italics, code blocks, lists, and links all render.
5. Select the submit button. You land on the new case, and AINOW is notified.

Code blocks are worth the extra keystrokes for error text and configuration snippets — they keep formatting intact for whoever picks the case up.

Case statuses

The list view can be filtered by status with the pills across the top: All, Open, In progress, Waiting on you, Resolved, Closed.

• Open — the case has been submitted and is waiting for AINOW to pick it up.
• In progress — AINOW staff are actively working on it.
• Waiting on you — AINOW has asked you for something and cannot continue until you reply.
• Resolved — AINOW believes the issue is fixed. You can still reply if it is not.
• Closed — the case is finished and read-only. Closed is final; there is no reopen.

Replying

Open the case and use the reply box at the bottom of the thread. Your reply is added to the conversation in order, alongside the original description and every public reply from AINOW.

Replying does more than add a message: a reply on a case that is Waiting on you or Resolved moves it back to In progress, so you never need to chase a status change separately. Replying to a case already in Open or In progress leaves its status alone.

What AINOW staff can do

From their side of the desk, AINOW staff can:

• Post public replies, which appear in your thread and are what you should respond to.
• Write internal notes, which are never shown to you and never emailed.
• Change the status as work progresses.
• Change the priority if triage puts the case somewhere other than where it started.
• Assign the case to a specific person at AINOW.

You set the priority when you open a case; after that, status, priority and assignment are AINOW's to manage. Everything else about the case is driven by the conversation.

Closed cases are read-only

Once a case is Closed, the reply box is replaced by a short banner saying so, and the case can no longer be changed by either side. If the same problem comes back or you have a follow-up, use Open a new case — the banner links straight to it. Referencing the old case's subject in the new description helps AINOW pick up the history.

Email notifications

You receive an email at the address on your account whenever AINOW posts a public reply to one of your cases. Internal notes never generate email.

In the other direction, AINOW's shared support address is notified when you open a case and when you reply to one, so activity is never sitting unseen. Notifications are a convenience — the case itself is the record, so if an email goes astray the thread in the portal is still complete and correct.

If you cannot sign in to open a case at all, see Troubleshooting.