A QuickStart Guide for Symantec Customers and Partners

Symantec’s online knowledge management system (SymWISE) offers customers and partners the opportunity to subscribe to individual knowledge base articles, common topics (How To, Troubleshooting, Downloads, etc.), and product-specific software alerts. Customers need a valid SymAccount to access Symantec’s online subscription services. To see what Symantec's business support knowledgebase has to offer, visit http://www.symantec.com/theme.jsp?themeid=support-knowledgebase.

Symantec's Subscription service allows you to subscribe via email (for an individual article) and/or RSS feeds (for a channel or category).  Select the subscription type below for additional information.
 

• Subscribing to Individual Articles
• Subscribing to Product Software Alerts
• Subscribing to Common Topics

Subscribing to Individual Articles

1. Navigate to Symantec’s Enterprise Support Home Page.
2. Search for or browse to an article that you would like to subscribe to.
3. If you are not already viewing the article, view it by clicking on the title.
4. Login using your SymAccount credentials by clicking on the Login link found on the upper right-hand side of the page.
5. Click on the Subscribe via email link found at the upper right of the page.
6. After clicking on the subscribe link, you will see a confirmation screen. Click on the Subscribe button.
7. To manage SymWISE article subscriptions, ensure you are logged in via SymAccount. Then click on the Manage Subscriptions link found on the right-hand side navigation menu under the MySymantec header.
    

Subscribing to Product-Specific Software Alerts

1. Navigate to Symantec’s Enterprise Support Home Page.
2. Choose one of the product families listed under the Top Products section or click on the Support Products A to Z link and navigate to the desired product landing page.
3. Login using your SymAccount credentials by clicking on the Login link found on the upper right-hand side of the page.
4. Click on the Product Alerts link, located on the right-hand side of the page.

5. Click on the Subscribe: Email link found on the upper right-hand side of the page.
6. After clicking on either of the subscribe links (SymWISE articles or Common Topics), you should see a confirmation screen. Click on the Subscribe button.
7. To manage product-specific Software Alerts subscriptions, ensure you are logged in via SymAccount. Then click on the Manage Subscriptions link found on the right-hand side navigation menu under the MySymantec header.

Subscribing to Common Topics

1. Navigate to Symantec’s Enterprise Support Home Page.
2. Choose one of the product families listed under the Top Products section, or click on the Support Products A to Z link and navigate to the desired product landing page.
3. Login using your SymAccount credentials by clicking on the Login link found on the upper right-hand side of the page.
4. Click a title of one of the Common Topics categories.

5. Click on the Email link found on the upper right-hand side of the page.
6. After clicking on the subscribe link, you will see a confirmation screen. Click on the Subscribe button.
7. To manage SymWISE product Common Topic subscriptions, ensure you are logged in via SymAccount. Then click on the Manage Subscriptions link found on the right-hand side navigation menu under the My Support header.

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NOTE: There is a known issue with the way subscriptions behave in SymWISE. If you create a subscription that includes two categories, notifications are sent for articles that are assigned to either category. For example, if you subscribe to the Downloads category for a product, notifications are sent for all articles associated with the product (because product assignments are category-based) and notifications for all articles associated with the Downloads category, regardless of product. This is because the vendor software uses an OR-based subscription model; that is, for a subscription associated with multiple categories, notifications are sent for articles assigned to <CATEGORY_1> OR <CATEGORY_2> OR ... OR <CATEGORY_N>.

There are a couple of ways to determine if your subscription is affected by this issue:

Before Subscribing
If you hover over the common topics (Documentation, Downloads, Known Issue, etc.) on a product landing page, items with the &basecat parameter in the target URL are affected by the issue. This includes, but is not necessarily limited to, the following common topics:

• Downloads
• Known Issue
• Release Notes

Common topics that are not affected by this issue include:

• Documentation
• How To
• Product Alerts
• Technical Solution, also known as "KB Articles"

After Subscribing
On the Manage Subscriptions page, any subscription that contains a category name after the product name in the Subscription Name column is affected by this issue. For example, a Subscription Name of Documentation [<PRODUCT>] is not affected by this issue, while a Subscription Name of Technical Solution [<PRODUCT> Downloads] is affected by this issue.

This issue has been reported to the vendor.
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