IBM Support

Call Home Contacts: Guideline and Best Practices Documentation for Clients

How To


Summary

IBM migrated to a new Support platform to bring added functions and security. To help ensure timely response from IBM, follow these instructions to verify that your computer provides valid contact information when it calls home.

Steps

What: Review and update the call home contact data sent to IBM.
Contact information (name, phone number, email) associated with each system is populated into the “Call Home” event that is sent to IBM support. This contact information is vital for the handling of your Call Home event. IBM uses this information to contact you regarding the reported event. IBM compares this system information with other records in the IBM Support Platform as an added security measure. Having an electronic match of your Call Home contact data speeds service to you.    Alternatively, you can choose to configure a Call Home backup contact. More information can be found in the News section dated 14 November 2022 at: https://www.ibm.com/mysupport/s/article/Specifiying-Default-Call-Home-Contacts?language=en_US
When: Start immediately.
Make updates now by following this two-step guidance.
We also encourage all clients to continuously maintain quality, up to date, information – including for your newly installed systems.
Why: IBM’s new Support platform brings added functions and security.
The new platform provides significant improvements in maintaining customer data to help IBM resolve problems faster and to ensure only the contacts you authorized can report issues for your computers.
When a computer calls home with a problem, IBM Support automation looks for a contact in its registry that matches the contact information provided by the Call Home event. This ensures IBM knows who to contact and contacts only authorized teams or individuals.
If a registered contact is not found, the Call Home contact information is not lost, but recorded in the Case opened. However, IBM support agents must verify the contact and either select an existing contact record in its registry, or create a new one before a Case can proceed. Ultimately, this can delay IBM’s response back to you.  (To prevent issues due to missing contact registrations, consider configuring a backup Call Home contact.  See: https://www.ibm.com/mysupport/s/article/Specifiying-Default-Call-Home-Contacts?language=en_US
Recommendations for contact information for all clients:
Step 1: System updates
Contact Name:
  • Contact name must be longer than 6 characters.  IBM recommends it uniquely identify your company and team or contact name.
  • Create a contact name that becomes a single string of words connected with one of these special characters: “-" or “_” or “&” or “~” between each word.
  • Avoid use of a contact name that includes information tied to racks, ports, IP addresses (or something similar) as those details often change.
  • Avoid use of a unique contact name for each system.
Contact Phone Number:
  • Include Country, City, and area codes
  • If you expect 24x7 response from IBM, ensure the phone number is answered at all times. Consider use of a notification service to reach designated on-call person.
  • Use a comma instead of “x” for extension. Example: 800-111-1212,5,2,1 to direct IBM to use prompts 5, then 2, then 1 in your automated system OR +33-2-47-11-11- 11,728 to direct IBM to enter “728” as an extension.
Contact Email Address:
  • Use a distribution email whenever possible instead of an individual’s email – ensure at least one person is always monitoring this email.
Examples of good Name/phone/email:
  • ABC-Help-Desk, phone: +55 12 3456 7890, email: abc_unix_team_helpdesk@example.com
  • Insurance~company~McAllenTX, phone: 234 987 6543, email: datacenter1@example.com
  • Acme_mainframe, phone: 800-111-1212,5,2,1 email: acme_mainframe_rotation@example.com
Backup Contacts:
Details about specific products
Updating the Call Home contact configuration varies from product to product. In many cases, the update can be done by using one Hardware Management Console (HMC) that can be connected to many systems. In other cases, a configuration must be set directly on that system.
For details on updating the contact information on your IBM systems, consult the IBM HMC documentation for your products.
POWER processor-based systems: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/666319
IBM Storage:
Storage Area Network - Broadcom: SAN b-type: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6491577
Storage Area Network - Cisco: SAN c-type: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/6491939
Step 2: IBM Support Platform updates
For each unique system contact name (as defined in Step 1) a corresponding exact contact entry, must be updated or newly created and REGISTERED in the IBM Support Platform. Where a contact match does not occur, IBM support personnel can create a contact profile on your behalf in the IBM Support Platform, based on data available to IBM from your Call Home configuration.  Such profiles enable timely updates for your Call Home cases.

To complete REGISTRATION, using the contact name, sign into https://www.ibm.com/mysupport.

To access the IBM Support site, an IBMid is needed – if the contact name used in Step 1 is a distribution email, the distribution email must also have an IBMid. If you need to obtain an IBMid for yourself or the distribution email, follow the prompts at the log-in for the IBM Support site: https://www.ibm.com/mysupport.
When you can access the IBM Support site,
  • Review the profile for the distribution email ensuring the information is an exact match to the Call Home entry from Step 1. More instructions can be found here: https://www.ibm.com/mysupport/s/article/Changes-to-Profile?language=en_US
  • Review the distribution email access permissions. Request corrections as necessary. More instructions can be found here: https://www.ibm.com/mysupport/s/article/User-Administration?language=en_US
  • Review your personal profile ensuring accurate information such as name and email. Update as necessary.
  • Review your personal access permissions. Request corrections as necessary.
  • Ensure each of your team members that manage cases also review and update their personal profile and access permissions.
  • Determine whether a backup contact is required for Call Home.
Your IBM Support administrator needs to authorize each person’s access. If you do not know who your administrator is, use the "Get help" link in the "Popular Resources" section of the new IBM Support site or email: mysphelp@us.ibm.com.
If you have questions or need assistance regarding anything outlined in this document, contact IBM Support.

Document Location

Worldwide

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Document Information

Modified date:
09 April 2024

UID

ibm16492597

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