Purpose: In this article, you will find quick tips and guidelines on how to capture and share visual evidence in order for us to troubleshoot your support case.
When you're facing a support related issue, we will be happy to assist you via our live channels. You can reach out to our Support team by navigating to your Sendcloud panel > click on the Question mark in the upper right corner > click the Support button.
Sometimes it can be helpful for us to have a visual representation of the error you're experiencing so that we can try to reproduce it ourselves and get to work on resolving it. Without a visual description, it can be hard to replicate a bug or error because every Sendcloud user has a different workflow. If a bug is randomly occurring, it can be even more difficult to pinpoint the error without a visual guide.
How to provide visual evidence
There are two ways to provide us with visual evidence:
- Take a screenshot; or
- Create a screencast
Provide visual evidence by taking a screenshot
A screenshot is a capture of your computer screen. You can save them in the file format .JPEG or .PNG.
If you're using your Sendcloud panel or webshop integration, and an error message pops up on the screen, we advise that you take a screenshot of the error message. Additionally, it is also important for us to know on which page the error occurred and the steps taken beforehand to get to this point.
You can find some examples below:
In this screenshot we are able to see the error message clearly, but we are not able to see on what page the issue occurred.
In this example, we have more insight on when the issue occurs.
The second screenshot provides us with more information. The error message appears when you are in the Shipping section > Incoming orders view> Edit order view and it occurs because the postal code is missing.
If the second screenshot is provided with a clear description, this will help us to understand the issue in more detail.
Provide visual evidence by creating a screencast
A screencast is a digital recording of your computer screen, which can be saved in different formats, for example .MP4 or .MOV (whereas screenshots can be saved as .JPEG or .PNG). Instead of having a static visual proof (a screenshot), you are now providing a video where all the steps you followed are being recorded.
In which scenarios can I provide a screencast?
You can provide a screencast as a how-to explanation. It's especially useful in situations where an issue is difficult for us to reproduce, it's occurring randomly or where you need to explain a specific setting or workflow in your account, environment or CMS/ERP/WMS backends.
Most screen recording apps or software programs allow you to record either the entire desktop or (a selection of) the current tab. Make sure the visual proof is provided with a full view (instead of the partial view as shown on the screenshot earlier).
Apps and software programs
There are a lot of Apps or software programs to take screenshots and create screencasts. User preference can be based on the functionality and capability of these programs. Some examples of commonly used screen capture software are Loom and Greenshot.
Most Windows and Mac operating systems even include pre-installed software programs. Examples of these programs and functionalities are mentioned below.
| Windows | Mac | Screenshots | Screen recordings |
| Snipping Tool | ✅ | ||
| Xbox Game app | ✅ | ||
| Built-in tool | ✅ | ✅ | |
| Quicktime | ✅ |
Using the Browser Developer Tool
Using the Browser Developer Tool can be helpful to pinpoint the cause of an issue. Once the Browser Developer Tool is opened, the live activity on your browser will be displayed. Don't forget to record your screen while you reproduce the issue, so the Browser Developer Tool can provide us with extra data.
Here is a video with an example using Google Chrome DevTool:
You can take a screenshot as well. This is a good example of a valid screenshot showing the Network and Console tab activity while reproducing the issue.
Since you are also showing the activity in your browser, HTTP errors 4xx and 5xx can be identified in the tabs Network and Console. You may be asked to send a video while the Browser Developer Tool is shown. If this is the case, you can use the video above as a reference.
How to open the Browser Developer Tool?
The instructions to open the Browser Developer Tool may vary per browser. For Chrome and Firefox you can follow the following steps:
- Navigate to the page where the error occurs
- Right click and select Inspect
- On the right side of your browser, a panel will be opened
- Click on the tab Network
- Try to reproduce the issue on the page on the left
- Once you have reproduced the issue, click on the tab Console
If you are using Safari, please follow to these steps instead.
How to share the visual evidence
There are many ways to share visual evidence. You can upload it to a cloud or a drive service and share the link when creating a ticket.
You can also choose to attach the file to the ticket you are about to submit (or the ticket you already submitted). Either way, your visual evidence will be shared safely via our ticket system.