AP9630 in older SUA UPS's

Anonymous user · ‎2021-07-01

FYI.

I am really confused. We have 20 SUA UPS devices of varying sizes and ages. All but 5 have 9617 NMC's. They work very well.

We are going to add NMC's to the last 5 SUA supplies. I e-mailed APC "technical support" yesterday and asked if the 9630 cards could be used in our SUA devices. I was e-mailed, uncategorically, without, question, NO! Obviously, based on many threads in this forum that is 100% wrong.

How can APC support get something so basic (and important) so wrong? It made no sense that APC would have left us high and dry with no options but to buy new UPS just to get network management. Is this what happens when T/S gets "off shored" and/or outsourced? Am I missing something?

Will there be any firmware updates for the discontinued 9617? Just need to see the year 2014.......

Thanks for listening 🙂

Anonymous user · ‎2021-07-01

All good points, thanks Charlie. Sometimes as a leader it is easy to get caught up in the numbers and not really understand the true customer experience. Feedback and interactions like this help keep me grounded. Please feel free to post feedback like this on our forums any time and we in turn will continue to work hard on making the customer experience better in every way possible.

See Answer In Context

BillP · ‎2021-07-01

Can you send me the case number or reference number so I can look at it and address this with the rep and the manager? Maybe the person was not qualified to answer but chose to. I am sorry for the troubles here. It pains me when someone gives out wrong information.

You're right - AP9630/31 work with anything AP9617/18/19 used to work with and is backwards compatible with SU, SUA models of Smart UPS.

Anyway, AP9617/18/19 will not have any more firmware updates as they've been discontinued for almost four years now. AP9630/31 will be the cards receiving updates.

Anonymous user · ‎2021-07-01

Here is the whole ball of wax! Let me apologize in advance for taking them to task, but I feel very strongly about inferior off shore (I assume Indian support) support. The APC support in Rhode Island was always SECOND TO NONE. The best. If the request got answered in RI, you were always speaking with someone who REALLY knew the answer. Schneider should be very concerned about messing with what was some of the best support in the industry. In this case, had I not found the answer very much unlike the "old" APC, it could have cost the company a ton of money unnecessarily. I have a very hard time understanding how something so basic to NMC's isn't comprehended by everyone in T/S.

How many hundreds of thousands of 9617's are in service today? All working perfectly! How hard could it be to update the firmware to include new dates? My SUA UPS's are discontinued too.

Don't get me wrong, I think APC is still the best choice in the industry! I just have more important issues to tackle in our server room these days.

Thank you for listening! I will get off my soapbox now.

Charlie

__________________________________________________________________________________

(last reply by me to TS)

OMG.
Outsourced tech support or what? Do you read your OWN APC forums?

The AP9630 IS COMPATIBLE WITH SUA DEVICES!!!

You can't use a 9617 in SMT devices, but you can use a 9630 in older devices.

APC should ashamed that such basic and important information is conveyed so incorrectly!

Charlie

Sent
from Charlie's iPad4 via Exchange 2010

On Jul 15, 2013, at 10:06 AM, "APC by Schneider Electric" <IS7955_53989@is.instantservice.com>
wrote:

Recently
you requested personal assistance from the Schneider Electric Customer Care
Center through our on-line support center supporting APC products. Below is a
summary of your request and our response.

We
will assume your issue has been resolved if we do not hear from you within 21
days.

Thank
you for allowing us to be of service to you.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Charles,

Thank you for
your update.

Charles, AP9630
is only replacement/upgrade for AP9617 but it is not compatible with older
models. This card is compatible with all the new UPS.

Looking forward
to hear from you.

Thank you and
have a nice day!

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Ravishankar Mishra | Schneider
Electric

Site:
www.schneider-electric.com

-----Original Message-----

From: Charles Ojserkis (COjserkis@hemlockhome.com)

Sent: Jul 15,
2013 6:53:26 PM

Subject: RE: Ask
APC: Repalcement for AP9617 (#2788-370376670-0335)

Is there a
replacement for the #9617 that DOES work with SUA devices?

Charlie Ojserkis

From: APC by Schneider Electric [mailto:IS7955_53989@is.instantservice.com]

Sent: Monday,
July 15, 2013 9:10 AM

To: cojserkis@techworksco.com

Subject: RE: Ask
APC: Repalcement for AP9617 (#2788-370376670-0335)

Recently you
requested personal assistance from the Schneider Electric Customer Care Center
through our on-line support center supporting APC products. Below is a summary
of your request and our response.

We will assume
your issue has been resolved if we do not hear from you within 21 days.

Thank you for
allowing us to be of service to you.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Charles,

Thank you for
contacting Schneider Electric. You have reached APC's customer care center
email support. I would be happy to assist you.

AP9630 is
compatible with only SMT and SMX series Smart UPS. They are not compatible with
older versions of Smart UPS i.e SU or SUA.

If you have any
further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me by responding to this
incident. It would be my pleasure to ensure that your issue is quickly
resolved!

Solutions to most
common customer problems can be found in our APC Knowledge Base which can be
found at:

http://www.apc.com/support/answers.cfm

Thank you for
choosing Schneider Electric!

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Ravishankar
Mishra | Schneider Electric

Site: www.schneider-electric.com<http://www.schneider-electric.com>

-----Original
Message-----

From: cojserkis@techworksco.com<mailto:cojserkis@techworksco.com>

Sent: Jul 15,
2013 6:46:28 AM

Subject: Ask APC:
Repalcement for AP9617

First Name:
Charles

Last Name:
Ojserkis

Email Address: cojserkis@techworksco.com<mailto:cojserkis@techworksco.com>

Phone Number:
609-412-1800

Category:
Technical Assistance

Country: us

Product Family:
Smart-UPS

Model: SU2200RM

Serial Number
(*note: Please fill in the serial number for post sales inquiry):

----------------------------------------------------------------

Subject:
Repalcement for AP9617

Question: We have
15 SU units of varying sizes and ages. NONE have the LCD and are approximately
7 years old. They all have AP9617 cards.

Can we replace
the AP9617's with AP9630 cards? In other words, is the AP9630 compatible with
none LCD SU1500 as an example? Do you have a list of what older units the
AP9630 will work in?

Thanks.

______________________________________________________________________

This email has
been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service.

______________________________________________________________________

Anonymous user · ‎2021-07-01

Hi Charlie,

First of all, thanks for your feedback and your long standing support of our company. You are correct in that we do leverage some of our Schneider Electric teams offshore in places like India and the Philippines for some North American support. We have done this for more than five years now and have had very good success in terms of both accuracy of solution and customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, the high quality of support that we hold ourselves to was not evidenced in your interaction in this case. As much as we try to avoid them, mistakes like this can and do happen and are not specific to our teams based outside the United States.

I take full responsibility for this error and am working with my team to ensure it is not repeated in the future. Thanks again for your feedback and my apologies for the hassle on your end here. Please let me know if you'd like to discuss in more detail.

Thanks,

Will Swanson

Director of Customer Consultation

Schneider Electric

Anonymous user · ‎2021-07-01

Will,

First of all, I am very impressed with the fact that you (meaning Schneider/APC) takes responsibility for such a dumb mistake ONLINE. It would have been very easy for you to PM me, and be done with whole thing "out of sight". Thank you for that!

With the above said, I must admit that I have spoken with Schneider/APC Philippines in the last year. In all honesty, I found them sorely lacking any real APC expertise and asked to be transferred back to RI for help. Perhaps that is because Rhode Island, and people like Angela N., have set the bar so high or because the folks off shore are simply reading off a script and not really APC UPS aficionados. I suspect the latter.

In my experience APC is not unique. I can only think of 4 or 5 companies I do business with that have been able to maintain their technical support as it was 10 years ago. I understand the issues with cost and competition. I can deal with change! All I ask is that you (meaning all of my vendors) don't fool themselves into believing that the QUALITY of their legacy support is on par with 10 years ago. It is not.

I am done pontificating. I will say no more on this issue. By the way, this forum and the people that support it are as good as it gets!

Thank you again.

Charlie

Anonymous user · ‎2021-07-01

All good points, thanks Charlie. Sometimes as a leader it is easy to get caught up in the numbers and not really understand the true customer experience. Feedback and interactions like this help keep me grounded. Please feel free to post feedback like this on our forums any time and we in turn will continue to work hard on making the customer experience better in every way possible.