The BlackBerry Developer Support Forums are a great tool when developing for BlackBerry. Use them to find answers, ask questions or get help your fellow developers. Like any tool, using it effectively can be the difference between achieving your goal or feeling frustrated.
Search First
The first step when you come to the forum with an issue is to search existing content. There is a good chance someone else has already asked and found a solution to a problem you are having, and this will give you the answer you need right away. Once you’ve found the answer, click on the Like button for the post that has the solution; it’s is a nice way to give thanks to the author.
Post to the Correct Board
When posting a question, make sure you post it to the correct board. We have boards for each platform BlackBerry supports, such as Native Development and Web & WebWorks Development. There are also boards for the services we provide to developers, such as Push, which is supported in the BlackBerry Push Development board. Posting your question in the appropriate board will increase your chances of quickly getting the answer you need.
Accept as Solution
After someone has replied to your post and provided the answer you need, click on the Accept as Solution button in the post that solves your issue. This not only gives credit to the author, but also makes it much easier for other developers with the same question to find the answer. Posts marked as the solution are ranked higher when searching. A solved thread also has a convenient link in the first post that will take you to the post with the solution, making it easy to quickly jump to the answer without reading the whole thread. Note that only the person who started the thread will see the Accept as Solution button, so make sure to use it on threads you start.
We’re Here To Help!
The BlackBerry Developer Support Forums has an extremely active community comprised of many helpful developers, many of whom spend numerous hours per day helping other developers. But even with all their great help, there are some questions that can only be answered by BlackBerry, and we’re committed to our developers. How committed are we? Well, as of the date of this post, there are 132 employees who are active in the developer forums with representation from many different organizations, including Developer Relations, Product Management, R&D, docs and many more. To meet demand, we significantly enhanced our participation in the forums throughout 2013 and the results are very impressive. Last fall, BlackBerry employees authored over 2500 posts and the solve rate increased nearly 20 percent. “Solve rate” is defined as percent of threads where the author marks their thread as solved by clicking the “Accept as Solution” button on a response.
Quick Tips
To summarize, here is a list of quick tips to get the most out of the forum.
- Search First
- Click Like on posts you find helpful
- Post in the correct board
- Click Accept as Solution on the post that answers your thread
How has the BlackBerry Developer Support Forums helped you with an development issue? Share in the comments below!
