Have you tried VMware’s new Google powered KB search tool?

Recently, VMware revamped the ‘File an SR’ page on their site. This is the webpage you need to visit when you wish to open a Support Request online.

What you may not have noticed is that there is a search facility on that page to help you find self-help resources, after all, most of us know the answer to our problem is probably already documented, we just need the answer – and we need it now!

What’s interesting about this search is that it’s completely new, and independent from the old Knowledgebase search, which many will agree, has been poorly lacking in returning the most relevant results. Well, as I said in my opening sentence, this search is Google powered! They have one of those neat blue colored rack-mount Google appliances indexing the Knowledgebase and serving up the most relevant content using Google’s proprietary algorithms.

Try it!

URL: http://www.vmware.com/srfile/

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Search the VMware KB

Some new VMware Fusion Resolution Path KBs are being queued up for release over on the official Knowledgebase. Remember ResPaths?

Simply put, a Resolution Path takes a common issue (e.g., “I can’t get an internet connection in my VM!” or “My VM won’t turn on!”), and lists of all the steps that might be necessary to fix the problem. Some of the steps will be written out in the article (or direct the reader to the Fusion Help!), some of the steps may be links to Microsoft or Apple KB articles, and most of the steps will be links to other of our KB articles that detail a specific issue or action.

We hope that these ResPaths will give users a sense of direction, and keep them from asking, “Okay, that didn’t work, now what?”. We think the paths can also be valuable to us, as a guide for what else we can suggest to a customer – especially on an initial phone call, when they need some direction.

If the paths don’t work, we encourage the customers to open support tickets. If you find the paths don’t work, please provide feedback (at the bottom of each KB) to let us know what else to include!

We have 28 Resolution Paths, in 8 areas. (The areas are: Installation, Startup Issues, Virtual Disks, Peripherals, Networking, Performance, Tools Issues, and Boot Camp & Activation.) There are about 260 steps between those 28 documents (but most steps are used several times; there aren’t that many different articles in play).

Some of the steps are actions for the reader to take, and some of the steps are articles that just give the customer background information (if they’re following a path about a slow network connection, we assume they’ve already followed or don’t need the path for no network connection!), related information (if they’re following a path about the VM using 100% of the Guest’s CPU, they might want to see the path about a VM using 100% of the Host’s CPU), or specific situational advice (if they’re troubleshooting a problem with Unity, they might want to read the article about Unity and UAC – but that won’t be relevant to everyone).

There’s an on-going blog series talking about specific paths.

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Fusion Resolution Paths

Right now the top 2 problems confronting users of VMware Fusion are the following:

• No network connection after upgrading Fusion 2 and Windows XP (1016466)
• Troubleshooting Fusion 3 network issues in a Windows 7 virtual machine (1017565)

The second one is specific to problems with a Windows 7 VMs, the first deals with changes in the network connection handling between Fusion 2 and Fusion 3 and changes in network drivers between Windows XP and later versions.

If you are running into networking issues with Fusion lately, definitely check out these two articles, they can save you a lot of time and frustration.

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Top 2 Issues for Fusion Users

One of the things I am tasked with in my role role at VMware is to find ways to increase the visibility of our self-help resources on the VMware website. In particular, I am looking at optimizing our Knowledge Base so that customers searching for information on some problem they have encountered shows up near the top in Google.

It used to be that the Knowledgebase wasn’t indexed at all by Google and other search engines. There were some critical road blocks up that prevented this.  We have that fixed now and much if not all of our KBs are in the index.

Do you know of any search strings you have typed into Google, only to find no KB article listed? Especially when you KNOW one exists! If so, let me know and I will fix it (or at least try).

I have years of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) under my belt as I run about a dozen other websites apart from this one. All pet projects. These skills are coming in very handy now.

Again, if you know of a particular KB article that ranks poorly I sure would like to know about it.

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SEO for the Knowledgebase

As I wrap up my stint on the Knowledge Base Team at VMware (I’ll tell you what I’m up to next in another post) I came across a handy index, or table of contents for the whole knowledgebase, available on one page!

Click here to see the KB Index.

Sure makes it easy to search!

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Index of Knowledge Base Articles

I got such positive feedback from my series on resolution paths that many more (all of them) have now been published on the official VMware website. I had a little to do with this as I work on the Knowledge base team (and actually wrote the post on the KB blog).

As a reminder, Resolution Paths are collections of modular steps that can be used to solve tech support issues. Check them out.  These are very good and cover many common issues with VMware products.

The VMware Knowledgebase blog post about resolution paths can be found at Resolution Paths Published.

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More Resolution Path KB articles

The new Knowledgebase blog has just posted a table of brand new (or recently updated) timekeeping articles for VMware products.  A nice one-stop shop for all the time related KB articles. Worth a visit.

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All about Time in VMware

I have a breaking news announcement!

A while back I made a post asking all of you for direct feedback on, or comments to, the VMware Knowledgebase Team, of which I am a member at VMware.

First, be assured that I have taken every single comment and forwarded it onto my management, who are very interested in this type of interaction.  So much so, that I have gotten the go-ahead to create a brand new official VMware blog, called VMware Knowledgebase Blog here. Bookmark this page now and watch for our welcome message soon.  (That’s how fresh this news is, we don’t have a welcome message yet!)

The whole Knowledgebase Team looks forward to getting our word out there and hearing what you have to say.

See you there!!

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New official Knowledgebase blog

Here’s a post in which you can help VMware. As you may know I am currently working in the Knowledge Management team at VMware. We are responsible for all content in kb.vmware.com We are constantly looking for ways to improve the value and usability of the knowledgebase for customers. Being searchable in Google is one thing already being worked on.

I’d like to ask each of you, “How can VMware best improve its Knowledgbase?”

Drop a comment in the box below.  I’ll make sure all good ideas are presented to the team for discussion.

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Help the Knowledgebase Team

Tomorrow is a special day for me.  I start a six month long rotation out of tech support into our knowledge management team as a Knowledge Champion here at VMware. The role is rotated through different members of the tech support teams globally, giving front line folks a chance to spread valuable knowledge both internally and externally.

A large part of the job is scrubbing rough notes that support engineers have jotted down in the haste of solving a customers crisis, and turning these diamonds in the rough consumable and re-usable.  I think I have something more to offer as well.  Running this blog and several others has taught me a few things about web sites and search.  For instance do a Google search for the phrase “vmotion fails“.  How is it that the number one result of this search is this blog, while VMware’s own Knowledgebase article Diagnosing VMware VMotion failure at 10% (1003734) is nowhere to be found? Another example is a search for “ESX logs“.

I know why.

No SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

I won’t go into the details of why here but the is that no one has made these important web pages search engine friendly. Microsoft has no trouble making their knowledgebase search able. Well, I’m really hoping I’m given a chance to help with that. Readers such as yourself will be able to find resolutions to your problems more easily and support staff will enjoy fewer repeat calls for the same problem over and over.  It’s win-win.

If you start seeing VMware knowledgebase articles in your search results over the next few months remember the VMwarwolf sent ya.

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VMware Knowledge needs to be made Findable