What is it?

In this context, a user journey is a path a user may take to reach their goal when using a particular website.

For our user community, the goal is to find the information they are looking for as quickly as possible, in the most efficient way while browsing for datasets and tools of interest from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate Data Store (CDS).

ECMWF User Support promotes self-help and has developed various self-help tools, available 24/7 for its Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) users. To better guide our C3S users through the different tools at their disposal, a dedicated C3S User Support Journey map has been developed and is described below.

C3S User Support Journey

Step 1

The CDS Virtual Assistant (familiarly known as the Knowledge Duck) is the first step of the C3S User Support Journey for our C3S users. 

CDS users can use it to ask questions and find answers about the CDS. You can find its icon in the corner of the CDS pages. 

If you would like to find out more about the CDS, C3S, ECMWF and more, why don't you ask our Knowledge Duck!? Knowledge Duck will point you out to the relevant documentation which includes information about how datasets and tools are presented in the catalogue, where to find evaluation and quality control (EQC) information, CDS queues, limits, etc.

Step 2

The Documentation Centre is the second step of the C3S User Support Journey. It is the gateway to quality-assured information about C3S products and services. The C3S Documentation Centre has 2 components: 

• C3S Knowledge Base (CKB)
• C3S Quality Assurance Reports (QARs).

The C3S Knowledge Base (CKB) is a trusted source of reference information for users and it contains information that is critical for the correct usage of Copernicus data (e.g. data format, units conversions or API errors). The CKB is also the repository for some of the documentation of the datasets of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). The CKB is constantly evolving as new content is added.

C3S Quality Assurance Reports (QARs) are fully integrated into the CDS environment. The QARs are presented as interactive Synthesis Tables accessible via the EQC tab (starting with selected catalogue entries). The QARs cover all aspects of quality assurance as described by the provider and further include independent scientific assessments, focusing on satellite observations and reanalysis. The QARs are one of the components of the Evaluation and Quality Control (EQC) service.

Step 3

The Forum is the third step of the C3S User Support Journey. This is a community-based place where users can ask questions and share their knowledge and experience with others about the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) . Anyone can browse and search the forum. To join and interact with the community (by posting a "New Topic"), first open an ECMWF web account. If you already have it you need simply to login!

Step 4

Still can't find the answer? Use your ECMWF web account to log on to the ECMWF Support Portal and raise your question with the C3S support team, part of the ECMWF Support. We aim at resolving requests within 5 working days. It may however take longer when external parties may need to be involved (e.g. technical and scientific experts, data providers, etc). You can use our secure Support Portal to communicate with us, to share your requests with other ECMWF web account holders (i.e. sharing is similar to the cc function in email)  and also to check on the status of your current and past enquiries. You may have ideas for how the C3S can be improved. As a user-driven service, C3S encourages its users to submit their user requirements using the ECMWF Support Portal. Alternatively, let us know by completing this short online survey. User requirements requests are processed by the EQC service for the improvement of C3S.

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