Support is available 24/7 via our global team of multilingual support specialists.
For some customers or products, the service times may differ based on your individual support contract. Please refer to your contract for further information.

You have full access to our extensive product knowledge base via our protel Customer Service Desk. In protel Air or protel SPE/MPE, you can also access the online help via the software. Have you also taken a look at the ever-growing number of product related videos on our YouTube channel?

You can check the status of your cloud applications on our protel Cloud Status page.

We strongly recommend you register for status updates on our products. Simply follow the above link, click on “subscribe to updates”, and you will immediately receive a short message or an email if there are problems with any of our centrally hosted applications.

Anyone from a customer site with a level 1 support contract can open a service request with our support center. However, we recommend that one or more property experts be identified – these are usually senior or tenured staff who are knowledgeable about the protel products installed and the overall IT environment. Initiating the support contact through these team members will assist protel with troubleshooting actions and help implement the recommended solutions.

To report an issue, you can contact us via our protel Customer Service Desk, by email, or by phone. In order to efficiently resolve your problem, it is important that there be clear and effective communication between you and our support representative. 

For the most efficient use of our services, we recommend that you open priority 2-4 tickets via the protel Customer Service Desk or via email. Priority 1 cases should always be opened by telephone. 

When logged into our protel Customer Service Desk, you have the opportunity to open a new ticket, review the status of your ticket(s), and update or close a ticket. To obtain a login for the system, please speak to your support or account representative OR send an email to ten.letorp@troppus.

Sending an email to ten.letorp@troppus automatically generates a new ticket. You will immediately receive a response with the corresponding ticket number. Any replies to this email will be automatically posted into the ticket for you. When responding, please do not make any changes to the subject line. 

We respond to all support queries as quickly as possible. Please note that email requests are only handled, Monday to Friday, from 8 am to 6 pm CET. To contact us by phone, you can find the appropriate phone number on the interactive map above.

• If you are supported directly by protel, we would gladly communicate with you in either German or English.
• If you are supported by one of our partners, they can communicate with you in your local language or dialect since they are generally located in your country.

Tip: Before opening a support ticket, you should first check that you do not have a problem with your internet connection, network, power-source, third party software, or interfaces! You would not believe how often these simple issues are the root cause of many of the problems that get reported to us.

• Attempt to reproduce the problem to ensure that this wasn’t a once-off issue.
• Check obvious items like cables, login information etc. Often, the solution lies in the process, not the software.
• Review all relevant documentation, knowledge base articles, or the online product help.
• Where the problem is reproducible, please check if any changes have been recently made to your IT environment or operating system.

When opening a ticket, it’s important that you accurately report your problem. We recommend that you provide us with at least the following information:

• Hotel name and customer contact details (also, when you are best available and perhaps an alternate or mobile phone number)
• Preliminary assessment of the scope and severity of the problem
• Product version and other details
• What is the problem that you are experiencing?
• How many users are affected?
• What are the operational and business implications?
• Can the problem be reproduced, and if so how? Step by step details would be great!
• Log files or screenshots, where available
• Where you are referring to an existing or previous case, it would be very beneficial if you could provide the associated ticket numbers for reference.

Providing this level of detail from the outset can considerably reduce the amount of time we need to resolve your issue.

All service requests opened by our customers are assigned a priority level by the support agent after the initial triage. In the event that the case cannot be resolved during the first call, this priority level helps determine the appropriate response from our support team, e. g. how quickly we reply.

Priority 1 – Critical impact: System down or non-operational, data loss

• protel Front Office, Banquetting/MICE, or another key protel system is fully non-operational. No users are able to access the system. 
• Any loss of data seriously affecting reservations, invoices, or profiles
• Any incident which may lead to financial loss if not resolved in a timely manner, including incorrect rates or availability
• Any critical security related incidents

Priority 2 – Significant impact: Partial system failure, failure of key functionality, no workaround available

• Malfunction during EOD so that EOD can not be completed
• Malfunction affecting check-in, check-out, guest billing, or finance
• Incidents relating to interfaces, WBE, IDS or protel.I/O connections, which might impact the reservation process

Priority 3 – Medium impact: Partial system failure where a reasonable workaround is available

• Problems with Front Office, were the reservations process is not affected
• Problems with MICE/Banqueting, where the booking process is not affected
• Reporting or statistical errors

Priority 4 – Non-Critical Issues

• Any incidents or queries with no significant operational impact

Priority 1 – Critical impact

Note: Please make sure to log any priority 1 incidents via the phone to make sure that we are immediately aware of your critical incident and can begin to work on it without delay. 

• Response Goal: We aim to respond to a priority 1 issue and have the appropriate resources assigned to work on the incident within 1 hour.
• Update Goal: We aim to provide you with an update via email or phone every two hours. In the case of cloud related incidents (major outage or disruption) which impact all customers, updates will be provided via our protel Cloud Status page.
• Resolution Goal: We aim to resolve 99% of all priority 1 issues within 6 hours.

Priority 2 – Significant impact

• Response Goal: We aim to respond to a priority 2 issue and have the appropriate resources assigned to work on the incident within 2 hours.
• Update Goal: We aim to provide you with an update via email or phone every four hours. In the case of cloud related incidents (degraded performance) which impact all customers, updates will be provided via our protel Cloud Status page.
• Resolution Goal: We aim to resolve 95% of all priority 2 issues within 12 hours.

Priority 3 – Medium impact

• Response Goal: We aim to respond to a priority 3 issue within 1 business day of the ticket being opened.
• Update Goal: Updates to priority 3 issues are available 24/7 via our protel Customer Service Desk.
• Resolution Goal: We aim to resolve 90% of all priority 3 issues within 72 hours during standard business hours (Monday to Friday).

Priority 4 – Non-critical issues

• Response Goal: We aim to respond to a priority 4 issue within 1 business day of the ticket being opened.
• Update Goal: Updates to priority 4 issues are available 24/7 via our protel Customer Service Desk.
• Resolution Goal: We aim to resolve 90% of all priority 4 issues within 7 days.

For the purposes of understanding our resolution goals, incident resolution refers to either the solution of the underlying issue as reported by you (the customer) or the provision of a suitable workaround. 

A number of items will result in the suspension of incident resolution tracking time. During your contracted support hours, this includes (but is not limited to) 

• the time where protel Support is waiting for access to the system or application; 
• waiting time for the customer or any third parties to respond or provide further clarification, information, log files, approvals, backups or any other such assistance which may be required to resolve the incident; 
• the time after our confirmation that the incident has already been resolved in a subsequent version of the application;
• the period of time after the provision of the resolution where protel awaits your final confirmation of acceptance. 

protel Support will close your case when:

• you have been provided with the solution and have acknowledged that the underlying issue has been resolved.
• protel Support has provided you with a suitable workaround and you have accepted this workaround as a viable solution.
• protel Support has confirmed that an incident will be fixed in a future release or version.
• you have not responded after at least 3 attempts by protel Support to reach you throughout the course of 7 days

You can reopen a ticket during a period of 7 days after the incident has been resolved by Support. Just contact Support or reopen the Ticket directly via the protel Customer Service Desk. If you need to revisit a case after more than 7 days, please open a new ticket and refer to the original ticket for information.

• Customers should be available to assist with the resolution of all incidents. In particular for priority 1 incidents, a customer must nominate a point of contact at the property that can assist protel support while the ticket is being worked on – depending on your support contract, this may be 24/7. This is necessary to ensure that we can help you quickly and when you need it – also during nights and at the weekend.
• Where relevant, ensure that your protel version is up to date and running a version where the release date is no older than 6 months from the date that your incident is being logged. 
• Ensure that support has the ability to connect to your site at all times using PCI compliant and secure remote connectivity technology. Make sure to train your night shift, late shift and weekend teams appropriately on how to successfully contact and connect with support.
• For on-premise product customers, maintain appropriate backups and test these to ensure that your backup sets are complete and up to date.
• For priority 1 and 2 cases, ensure that you phone the support centre, even if you have already opened a ticket via the web or per email.
• If at any time you do not understand a request being made by a protel support agent, be sure to ask for clarification or more detailed explanation. We will be happy to do this.

We are committed to solving every case in a timely manner. However, we recognize that at times, customers may experience problems that require a higher level of communication or interaction. If you are not satisfied with the current plan of action for an active issue, simply send an email to ten.letorp@tnemeganam-troppus and our management team will pick this up. Outside of office hours and on bank holidays, please call our hotline. Don’t forget to quote your ticket number.

Affecting

The term “affecting” means the business process cannot be performed using one of the functions which were designed to handle the process or the process speed seriously affects the operation.

Case

A unique issue that is submitted to protel Support for our attention and/or resolution. This may also be referred to as a service request. After initial triage by the service desk, a case will be translated into either being an incident, a problem or a change request.

Change (Request)

The addition, modification or removal of anything that could have an effect on IT Services. The scope should include all IT services, configuration and process items, documentation, etc.

Development

Issues that are beyond the scope of the support service desk (application related issues or “bugs”) will be escalated by support to the development teams.

EOD

The End of Day or Night Audit process

Incident

An unplanned interruption to an IT service or a reduction in the quality of an IT service. Failure of a configuration item that has not yet impacted a service is also an incident.

Problem

A problem is the cause of one or more incidents.

Resolution Goal

The mean time it takes to resolve a service request. Expected resolution time will differ depending on the type of service request being opened and cannot be determined until the appropriate support specialist has reviewed the incident and selected the appropriate priority assignment.

Response Time

This is the time in which protel Support will acknowledge receipt of the issue.

Seriously Affecting

The term “seriously affecting” means the business process cannot be performed using any available system function (i.e. “workaround”) and therefore cannot be performed at all.

Service Request

See “Case”

Ticket

See “Case”

Update Time

This is the estimated time in which a status (information) update will be provided to the hotel and where relevant, the intervals during which successive updates will be provided.