Printer FriendlyEmail Article Link

Spirent Knowledge Base: Getting the most out of content subscriptions

Objective/Summary

One of the valuable features available to users that login to the Spirent CSC are subscriptions. Once you subscribe to content, you will get an email notification any time something you subscribe to is updated. Furthermore, the Spirent KB offers the chance to subscribe to as little or as much content as you need, and also the ability to choose entire categories of content all the way to the granularity of a single document. And should you find that you no longer need a particular subscription, canceling subscriptions is quick and easy.

Environment/Versions
  • Spirent Knowledge Base (KB)
  • Spirent Customer Service Center (CSC)
Procedure
  1. In order to begin subscribing, verify that you are logged-in to the CSC-- we need to know who you are so we can track subscriptions and send them to the right email address (What else do you get if you sign in?). Once signed in, you will see a "Logout" link at the top right. There are three types of subscriptions:
    1. Section (sometimes referred to as Channel): The Knowledge Base has six main sections: FAQs, Solutions, Tech Bulletins, Documentation, Training and News. Learn more about what's in each KB section.
    2. Section Category: You can browse deeper into the Knowledge Base by choosing Categories on the left. As you do, the list of KB Articles is filtered to match the chosen category.
    3. KB Article: This is a specific KB article, like this one you're reading now.
  • Section Subscription: Once you setup a section subscription, you will get an email notification for every article that is published or modified in that section. Please note that this can result in a large number of emails each day, especially for the more active sections such as FAQs, Solutions and Tech Bulletins.
    1. On the left, click the Knowledge Base tab. You will start on the FAQs section, but will also have a choice of other sections such as Solutions or Training.
    2. At the right side near the top, you will see a button for "Subscribe to all FAQs", which will change to the specific channel you've chosen (e.g. "Subscribe to all Documentation").
    3. Click on this button to create the subscription, and the button text will change to "Unsubscribe to all FAQs" .
    4. If you accidentally created a subscription, before you leave this page, click on the Unsubscribe button. If you've already left and come back, the button will revert to Subscribe rather than Unsubscribe. See further below for how to unsubscribe.
  • Section Category Subscription: A section category subscription is more specific, and is the most popular type of subscription. This subscription allows you to target the subscription to particular categories of content within a section of the KB. It may be useful for you to keep track of issues that crop up for a particular product you own (Tech Bulletins > Product > YourProduct), learn of new training created for your product (Training > Product > YourProduct) or stay up with product announcements ((News > Document Type > Product Announcements > YourProduct).
    1. Click the Knowledge Base tab on the left, then choose the section you want to setup a subscription (FAQs or News, for example)
    2. On the left, use the diredtory structure to choose from a cateogry of interest-- there are are hundreds of choices.
    3. As you choose various categories, the Subscribe button near the top right will update to your chosen category (if in FAQs, you browse to Product > Spirent TestCenter, the button will say "Subscribe to Spirent TestCenter FAQs")
    4. Click the Subscribe button, and it will change to Unsubscribe. This change confirms that the subscription has been set, and is also an easy way to disable the subscription if you accidentally hit the button. To cancel a subscrtiption later on, go to the Profile page.
  • KB Article Subscription: If you're browsing the KB aind find an article of particular interest, you can subscribe to the article to be notified whenever that article us updated with new information. This is especially useful for documented known issues that are expected to be fixed in the future (these will usually be Tech Bulletin type articles), or perhaps articles that document a new feature that may change over time (might be in Solutions), or staying on top of documentation (the folks who create product documentation tend to use the same article and update it as new releases come out).
    1. Bring up the KB article you're interested in keeping track of, whether through browsing or through search.
    2. At the top right of the article will be a series of four buttons (as long as you're logged in to the CSC). The rightmost button is "Subscribe".
    3. Click/tap the button to setup the subscription, and the button text will also change to "Unsubscribe", which confirms that the subscription is set. If you clicked subscribe accidentally, this allows you to easily turn off the subscription, but only when you first subscribe. To turn off subscriptions, see below.

​Once subscriptions are set, the subscription emails will start arriving into your inbox. They'll come from no-reply@spirent.com and here's what they'll look like:


Cancelling a KB Subscription:
  1. Login to the Spirent CSC, if you haven't already done so.
  2. Near the top right of the page, just to the left of Logout is "Profile". Click the Profile link.
  3. To the right of the Profile page is the "Manage Subscriptions" section.
  4. You will see a list of your active subscriptions, if any. Along with each subscription is an "X".
  5. Click the "X" to cancel the subscription. The cancellation is immediate, and you should not receive any further emails for that subscription.
  6. Note: in rare circumstances, clicking X to cancel may not work. If you encounter this, please reach out to Spirent support with what you're trying to do. To ensure we can find the subscription to cancel, be sure to include your email address and CSC username.
Notes

Please note that subscriptions are permanent until you cancel them.