I have been playing with SQL Clone for a few weeks now and liking the product. I’m looking forward to using this more and more, especially for testing ideas in development. However, there are times I have questions or am unsure of how to use things.

I work for Redgate Software, so I have an in. I can certainly email developers if I need to, but we also have this:

There’s a great Slack channel where I can quickly reach developers. This comes in handy as it seems various people at Redgate pay more attention to Slack than email or other communication methods.

No, this post won’t get you on our Slack channel.

However, when opening the SQL Clone beta, I see this dashboard.

Notice the little circle in the lower right? Click it and you get this:

Apparently there’s a semi-live chat system that our developers are using. Chris is actually one of the SQL Clone developers, and he helped me solve the registry issue a few weeks ago.

That’s pretty cool. If you type something in there, it will get sent to the developers, and if they’re around, they will respond. I sent a test, with a semi-legitimate question, and see this below my text:

Given I sent the note late in the afternoon, I’m sure all developers are gone for the day. I can hide the popup, and then will see when someone responds.

Update: in the am, I got an email from the system, at the same time, I got a reply in my SQL Clone dashboard. As you can see, my question was answered.

If I click the arrow in the upper left, I can see all my conversations, which is handy if I’m trying to report or work on a few issues.

That’s pretty cool, and it’s an neat way to get quick feedback. Assuming it doesn’t take too much time away from developers actually developing the product.

I suspect we’ll get support involved here, with escalations to developers. At least, that’s what I’d do, but for now, it’s good that our developers are responding to beta users and helping them use and test the product.