service level statement

Service Levels
What is covered?

• Technical support for The Software or any subsequent release of The Software for which support and maintenance services have been agreed in writing by Asta.
• Technical support for add-ons and enhancements supplied by Asta but not including unsupported add-ons.
• Membership of the user group.
• Receipt of ‘Powerlines’ (user newsletter).
• Services release for current releases of The Software.
• Upgrade release to The Software or any subsequent release covered by this agreement.

What is not covered by the contract?

• Technical support for unsupported add-ons.
• Visual Basic for application macros.
• Macro creation service.
• SQL filter writing.
• Operational and/or technical support for any other software product (including Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle).
• Hardware, network or network operating system support.
• Training.
• Configuration of new printers, PC's etc.
• Programming of any kind.
• Asta Developers’ Toolkit.

Hours of Service
The support department hours are:

• Monday to Thursday: 09:00 to 17:00 (GMT/BST), except for English public holidays.
• Friday: 09:00 – 16:30 (GMT/BST), except for English public holidays.

Asta may from time to time announce that support will be unavailable or available on a reduced basis for a limited period (e.g. during staff training sessions, staff meetings etc). Periods of unavailability will not exceed 8 support hours. In addition, certain queries will not be answered in the period between Christmas and New Year – for 3 working days. No services will be performed outside the Hours of Service and Asta shall not be liable for any loss caused to the user by any delay in the provision of the services caused by periods of unavailability, reduced availability, or the Christmas/New Year period of suspension.

Methods of contact
Users can contact Asta Technical Support by any of the following methods:

Telephone: 01844 261609
Fax: 01844 214504
Internet: support@astadev.com
Website: http://www.astadev.com

Speed with which queries are handled
Technical Support calls are normally answered within 30 seconds. At peak times an answering service may intercept calls where the caller will be offered the options of holding, calling back or having the call returned.

All incoming support calls are logged by the support receptionist (as ‘issues’) and the user will be notified of the support log ID number allocated to that issue. The support receptionist will assign the issue to one of the support analysts who will then acknowledge it within 1 hour of receipt. If appropriate, a pre-prepared answer from our Frequently Asked Questions library will be forwarded to the user.

To ensure the quickest response times the User should email Asta Technical Support (support@astadev.com) with the following information:

• Concise description of the support issue.
• Contact details (name, company name, phone number and serial number etc).
• Establish urgency of the issue:
  • A - system unusable, immediate attention required
  • B - project corrupted
  • C - important - issue must be attended to as soon as possible
  • D - non-urgent - attention required when convenient

The support issue will be logged by support reception and the user will be notified of the support log ID number allocated to that issue. All emails will be acknowledged within 1 hour of receipt.

Speed of clearance
Asta will attempt to answer all queries within 8 working hours of receipt. However, certain issues such as customer projects will take longer to resolve. For significant problems taking some time to resolve, callers will receive regular updates as to the progress of calls outstanding. Where projects are sent in electronically or on disk for investigation, we aim to deal with Asta Teamplan and Asta Powerproject projects within 3 working days and Version 5 projects within 5 working days where possible, provided that no resources outside of the support department are required. Where external departments are required to assist with work on these projects, the customer will be regularly informed of timescales and progress.

Escalation procedure
If a user is unhappy with the level of service provided by Asta Technical Support, in the first instance they should contact the Help Desk Supervisor with details of dates called and Asta staff member dealing with the call. The Help Desk Supervisor will then attempt to resolve the issue. All such enquiries are regularly brought to the attention of the directors of Asta.

Software Faults and Software Developments are logged into the development plan. The support analyst will inform the user of anticipated release dates for releases and service releases, if applicable.

Further enquiries regarding the availability of releases and service releases should be directed to the Help Desk Supervisor.

User Group/Newsletters
The Support and Upgrade Contract includes membership of the independent user group that has regular regional meetings (Scotland, North West, North East, Midlands, South West, East Anglia, London and the South Coast). The user will receive a complimentary copy of Powerlines — the user group newsletter published during the term of the Support and Upgrade Contract.

Asta reserves the right to vary the number of User Group meetings held per year as well as the venues where the meetings are held.

Updates
Updates of the software will be supplied to the user free of charge, provided that the release date of the new version falls within the term of a Support and Upgrade Contract.

Variations
Asta Development plc reserves the right to review and vary the terms of a Support and Upgrade Contract offered at each renewal date. If the answer to a technical support question is available in the product help file or the product documentation or is available on a Frequently Asked Questions list then Asta reserves the right to refer the caller to one of these sources.

Confidentiality and Data Protection
Asta will remove user data on regular basis to comply with the Data Protection Act.