.. _methods_of_contact:

Methods of Contact
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Methods of contact for help differ in *requirements* and *privacy* level.
In addition, while we try to accommodate a variety of means of *initial contact*, anything requiring *ongoing dialog* must use only a *preferred* method of communication.
Please read about our :ref:`communication policies <supported_methods_of_contact>` for more details.

====== ======= ============ =========
Method Privacy Requirements Preferred
====== ======= ============ =========
|ghd|_ |None|  |ghacct|_    Yes
|ghi|_ |None|  |ghacct|_    Yes
|mst|_ |Some|  |llnl|       No
|call| |Most|  |llnl|       No
====== ======= ============ =========

.. |ghd| replace:: GitHub Discussion
.. _ghd: https://github.com/visit-dav/visit/discussions

.. |ghi| replace:: GitHub Issue
.. _ghi: https://github.com/visit-dav/visit/issues

.. |mst| replace:: MS Teams
.. _mst: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3af2ed7be3682d40d1b8e038744e500a09%40thread.skype/conversations?groupId=70162982-9587-4bcc-ad53-20178c76fe11&tenantId=a722dec9-ae4e-4ae3-9d75-fd66e2680a63

.. |call| replace:: Hotline Telephone Call
.. |None| replace:: World discoverable / readable
.. |Some| replace:: Visible only in llnl.gov
.. |Most| replace:: Same as ordinary telphone call

.. |ghacct| replace:: Free GitHub account
.. _ghacct: https://github.com/signup?ref_cta=Sign+up&ref_loc=header+logged+out&ref_page=%2F&source=header-home

.. |llnl| replace:: Access to LLNL networks

In general, **coverage** is during normal West Coast business hours, 8am-12pm and 1-5pm (GMT-8, San Francisco time zone), Monday through Friday excluding `LLNL holidays <https://supplychain.llnl.gov/poattach/pdf/llnl_holidays.pdf>`_.
**Response time** may be as much as four hours due to team member's multi-tasking among many responsibilities.

If you are so inclined, we welcome you to read more about the VisIt project's :ref:`Site Reliability Engineering <site_reliability_engineering>` processes to understand how we provide support.