General Support F.A.Q.
The following questions and answers are a small set of general issues. There are more F.A.Q. items that can be accessed via the Collaborator Help System from with the Collaborator product itself.
Signup and Website Related Questions
Q: Why do I have to give you my email address in order to signup for the Collaborator service?
A. When you signup for Collaborator, you will be sent an email with instructions on how to download the Collaborator Client, random account passwords for accessing the signup server and instructions on how to complete the signup process. For security reasons, the signup process uses the Collaborator Secure Client software, instead of using web pages on our site. Your email address is required in order to forward this information to you.
Q: What do you do with my email address? Do you sell it to anyone?
A. Absolutely NOT! Your personal information is not sold or used for any other purpose than to communicate with you about the Collaborator service, such as sending you initial signup information, responses to support questions, system alerts from Collaborator itself when you request them, etc.
Q: How long do I have to finish the signup?
A. You have approximately 72 hours from the time you submit your email address for signup to complete the signup process. If you do not complete it by then, you may simply submit your email address again for a new signup account.
Q: Why don't I get asked for any billing information during signup?
A. We do not require any billing information during your 30 day trial period. So, we will not ask for billing information until you choose to become a customer. You may do so at any point during your trial period.
Q: What is an Alliance Name?
A. An Alliance Name is a unique name that identifies your account. It can be any text value that is 32 characters or less, but must be unique. During signup, your requested Alliance Name is checked to see if it is already in use.
Installation Questions
Q: What is the Collaborator Secure Client software?
A. The Collaborator Secure Client software ("Client") is necessary to access the Collaborator service. It provides the security (encryption) and other features of the Collaborator service. For more information on the Collaborator Secure Client software and related technology, see Technology Overview.
Q: Can I use the Collaborator Secure Client on my computer with the Mac/Linux/Unix/Other Operating System?
A. Maybe. Currently, the Client is only available for Windows. While there are future plans to provide the Client for other platforms as well, it will not run natively on other Operating Systems. However, if your non-Windows computer provides a way to run Windows software (VM, etc), then likely our Client will run as well.
Q: Is it safe to install the Collaborator Secure Client on my computer?
A. Absolutely. The Client does not create any security problems for your system, simply by installing it.
Q: Does the Collaborator Secure Client work on my version of Windows?
A. The Client should run on any of the following versions of Windows:
- Windows 2000 (Service Pack 4 or greater REQUIRED)
- Windows XP (Service Pack 3 or greater recommended)
- Windows 2003 Server (Service Pack 2 or greater recommended)
- Vista or Later
Note: For more Client system requirements, click here.
Q: Does the Collaborator Secure Client install the .Net runtime or other services on my computer?
A. No. The Client is a native Win32 application and does not install or require any other service.
Q: Why do I have to install the Collaborator Client to use Collaborator? I don't have to install anything extra to use the web!
A. There is a commonly believed myth that Web based applications are self supporting and require no additional applications to be installed, other than a Browser. Contrary to this publicly held myth, Web applications actually require you to install quite a few extensions, plug-ins and applications, in order to provide various types of functionality. Browsers, Flash, Acrobat, Java, .Net, SilverLight, media players, file download utilities, local databases, and numerous other applications and runtime environments, are often required in order to provide the functionality that the Web is lacking for hosted applications. Not only must you install these items to view documents or page content, but they must also be constantly updated, due to both security issues and feature enhancements; often, these updates come in the form of VERY LARGE downloads.
In contrast, because our proprietary technology provides the vast majority of the functionality that is required to support our applications, you must only install our small Client, which is self supporting. Currently, our technology does not require any other applications in order to run Collaborator. As a result, our small Client installation actually requires much less maintenance and administration than is required for your average Web application.
Login Questions
Q: Why do I need both a Password and a Phrase?
A. The Collaborator system was specifically designed to be very secure. Using two passwords has the potential to make password guessing much harder for hackers. For that reason, you are required to use a Password and a Phrase, which is essentially two passwords.
Q: Are my password and phrase case sensitive?
A. Yes. This means that the values "abc" and "ABC" will not match, when entered for your password or phrase. Therefore, pay very close attention to the use of SHIFT and CAPSLOCK when entered these values. You should see a warning when typing your password and phrase into the login form if the CAPSLOCK is enabled.
Q: I have forgotten my password/phrase. Can you tell me what they are?
A. No. For security purposes, your password and phrase are stored in a format that cannot be interpreted back into the original text. As a result, we can only change your password. We cannot tell you what it is.
Q: So, what should I do if I forget my password/phrase?
A. Ideally, if you are NOT the master user of the Alliance, then you should contact the user that is the master user or another administrator that they have setup, so that they can change your password for you. However, you may also request a password reset from this site. To do so, go to request a password reset.
Q: When I try to login, I get a message stating, "Your login attempt has failed". What should I do?
A. There are several issues that will cause your login to fail:
- If the message advises you to make sure that you are entering correct information, then you are quite likely entering incorrect information for either the Alliance Name, User Name, Password or Phrase. Be sure that you are using the correct casing for Password and Phrase, since they are case sensitive. NOTE: For security reasons, the login system will not tell you what you entered wrong. This prevents hackers from figuring out user names and other data from the login failure messages.
- If the message says that the server may be offline, then either you are unable to access the server or, while highly unlikely, the server could actually be offline. Please make sure that your internet connection is working correctly. Also, your firewall might be configured to not allow you to access our server. Those are the more likely causes. If you are attempting to login to the signup server for the first time, then probably a firewall configuration is the more probable issue.
- If the message provides you with details other than the two mentioned above, attempt to address the described issue. If you are unable to determine what that is, then please submit the message information to our support. You can do so from this Web site at the Contact Us page.
Billing Questions
Q: When do you start billing me for the Collaborator service?
A. You will not be billed for anything until you decide to use the Collaborator service during your trial period. After you submit your billing information, you will be billed within 24 hours.
Q: How often do you bill me for my use of the Collaborator service?
A. You will be billed monthly on the same day when you became a customer and submitted your billing information. So, if you submitted your billing information on the 3rd of the month, then you will be billed the 3rd of each month. If you submitted your billing information on a day greater than the 28th, then you will be billed on the same day for each month that has that day, otherwise you will be billed on the last day of the month. For example, if you submit your information on the 31st of July, then you will always be billed on the last day of every month.
Q: If I discontinue using the Collaborator service, do I get a refund for my unused time?
A. No. To maintain a simple billing process, if you discontinue using the Collaborator service, you will not receive a refund, you will simply no longer be billed at the end of your service month. Inversely, if you upgrade your account settings, then you will not be billed the larger fee until your next monthly billing. So, you essentially receive the upgraded services for free for the remaining monthly portion. However, if this policy does not meet your needs for some reason, feel free to contact us and explain your needs and we will attempt to satisfy your needs as best as we can.
Q: How do I discontinue using the Collaborator service?
A. Currently, we do not provide an automated way to discontinue your service within the Collaborator service. We will be providing one soon. Until that is available, simply create a support ticket from your Collaborator Help link, indicating your desire to discontinue services and any relevant details. We will be happy to discontinue your service for you accordingly. Note: We anticipate providing an automated mechanism for this by mid December. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause until then.
General Questions
Q: Is there a version of Collaborator that I can run in my own enterprise, instead of using your online version?
A. We are able to provide a version of our servers that you can host in your environment, using your own resources, instead of using our online service. If you are interested in running our servers on your own equipment instead of using our online service, then please contact us to obtain pricing information and further details. Simply send an email to sales@thoughtrealm.com describing the nature of your needs and we will provide you with more information. Please note that our server technology is currently built to run under Windows.
Q: I like the Collaborator product, but I would like to request some specific customizations for our company. Is that possible?
A: For a fee, we may be able to provide customized features for your specific needs. If you would like further information regarding fees and details, then please contact us at sales@thoughtrealm.com and provide some details of what you are wanting.