This is kind of an odd blog post but something that I thought would benefit new comers to the Xamarin eco-system. Learning Xamarin’s support processes takes time and even after 1.5 yrs I still get surprised at how to reach the correct people when the need arises.
Dedicated Account Manager
Only available to Enterprise level customers, you will see details of an account manager when logged into your dashboard. They can be your single point of contact if needed, but sometimes communication does get lost internally in their teams.
Email Support
Available to Business and Enterprise customers, you can contact either an Android or iOS support person to help you out. No Windows dedicated support though because while you could be using forms, there is no Windows license to buy. The email details are available when you log in to the dashboard.
General Email Support
There is a general support email but I never received any response from it. There is also hello@xamarin.com but that is mainly a sales channel. If you need help in choosing a subscription level or something in regards to purchasing a subscription, this is where you should send emails to.
Community Support
This is where I have personally received some of the best support from other members of the community.
Forums
Xamarin Forums are a community based forum where anyone can come in and post. The community is welcoming and always eager to help out a fellow Xamarin developer. Xamarin staff will occassionally come on to help out as well but realize this isn’t a dedicated Xamarin support channel. I spend quite a bit of time on here answering Xamarin Forms questions.
Documentation
Xamarin have been putting a lot of effort into their documentation lately. You can find the documentation at their Developer Center.
StackOverflow
The well known in the programmer community, you can also post questions about Xamarin here. Use the Xamarin or Xamarin.Forms or other Xamarin or Mono related tags. I monitor the Xamarin.Forms tag and hop in when I can. Not as active as the Forums but could get some help, especially if its more related to Android or iOS native rather than Xamarin.
Slack
There is a XamarinChat Slack channel. Where you may get some quicker support. This is generally just for chatting or solving simple issues. Its normally hard to solve a larger problem in this form. You can get yourself an invite here: https://xamarinchat.herokuapp.com/
UserVoice
This was used to log feature requests but it has steadily grown quieter over time. It seems rather non-maintained now and I am not sure if Xamarin staff still pay any attention to it. https://xamarin.uservoice.com
Bugzilla
This is where you file bug reports. Xamarin’s Bugzilla is the place where all teams in Xamarin (excluding Insights) records their bugs. Lodge a bug here for someone to look at it. Be sure to include a small sample project that includes a reproduction of your bug so it can be confirmed and solved quicker.
Tip #1: If your bug ever gets changed to NEEDINFO, when you add more info, change the status back to NEW, otherwise no one will look at it again.
Tip #2: Expected time from lodgement to a fix being produced can be a few days to over a year. The best bet is to always try to develop a workaround in your code unless a Xamarin Team member says a fix is in progress or coming up in a near release.
Tip #3: An experimental site called All Xamarin Bug Annotations shows some more information and a different view of bugs. As per the warning at the top, its experimental, no warranties for anything on that site.
Insights
The Insights Team don’t use Bugzilla. You need to login to your account http://insights.xamarin.com and contact support from there. However I have had limited success via this method. Making noise in the Insights forum tends to be the way to do it.
Also I tend to see a little activity in the UserVoice Group from the Insights Team.
Social Media
You might see Xamarin team members around on Twitter or somewhere similar. Normally they are happy to respond to quick questions but I would more use this as a channel to engage on a more social level with them, rather than pester them for support. They are normally online after work hours putting in some incredible effort to keep Xamarin moving forward. Use these channels to help support them, not get support yourself. Use the above support methods for that.
GitHub may be the exception here as Xamarin Staff want feedback via these channels for their open source examples and initiatives. James Montemagno certainly comes to mind here. But again, this is more about giving back and helping improve the open source projects.
If anyone else knows of more places for support, please let me know. Contact me via details on my Contact Page.
Cross platform mobile developer who loves delving deep into frameworks and solving problems.