Support Service Level Agreements
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SchoolNow Support

A Multi-level agreement that includes technical support and training based on the user license. Administrators get Premium support. Publishers get Professional support.

Review this information carefully. It explains what you can expect from SchoolNow in the event of problems, outages, and even basic support issues. Having a clear understanding of how our organizations work together will reduce confusion and assure you we're on the case.

The SchoolNow support agreement aims to allow SchoolNow to assist the customer in defining and forming responses to their needs based on predefined expectations of urgency. SchoolNow looks to assign all requests a definition and apply the appropriate Service Level Agreement (SLA) to resolve requests promptly. There are two levels of support: Administrative and Publisher, each designed to accommodate requests efficiently and by priority.

Support

Administrator

Premium support

Support

  • Phone support
    • If you do not have access to a computer, call in to leave a message with a support representative. Requests are handled in the order received during regular support hours. 2-hour e-mail response to confirm that a ticket has been opened.
    • Next business day response defining your request as a support ticket, with an action plan for the next steps.
    • Outage requests are given immediate priority
  • Training
    • Live scheduled training sessions
    • SchoolNow User Guides
    • Online training videos

Publisher/Teacher

Professional support

  • Ticket support
    • Incident support by e-mail (helpdesk at SchoolNow dot com), instant chat, SchoolNow dashboard or at www.schoolnow.com/support
    • 4-hour email response to confirm that a ticket has been opened.
    • Next business day response defining your request as a support item or project.
  • Training
    • Live scheduled training sessions
    • SchoolNow User Guides
    • Online training videos

Types of support requests

Each type of request has a specific action plan and timelines for SchoolNow to meet SLA response times. SchoolNow makes final determinations on request type classifications.

Personal requests are a request by an individual for a question, need, or issue related to that specific individual.

  • Error with system
  • Configuration issue
  • “How to” questions

A technical request is for issues and questions related to site-wide outages, hosting, security, integrations, SSL, DNS, and other technology and Internet-related items.

  • Server/application outages
  • Errors from SchoolNow code
  • Back-end errors
    • Bugs
    • Feeds
    • Widgets
    • Configuration
  • Front-end errors (SchoolNow standards)
    • Widgets
    • Modules
    • Mobile
    • Login issues
  • Technical questions
    • Configuration
    • Infrastructure
    • Capacity
    • User access
  • Security incident
  • Integration

Prioritization

SchoolNow manages service and support load in the following order:

  1. Outages - Any SchoolNow error creating a system outage affecting all or a majority of users
  2. Errors - Error requests are ranked by the number of users affected
  3. Technical questions - Questions regarding configuration or other SchoolNow-related questions
  4. "How do I" questions - Support for new features or using the CMS tools

All support requests will:

  1. Be opened as a ticket in the SchoolNow support system and assigned a ticket number
  2. The ticket will be attached to a named user
  3. The ticket will contain enough information to define and recreate the request
  4. Be assigned a type and placed in the proper SLA queue
  5. Handled during regular support hours (8 am-6 pm EST)
  6. Completed within support definitions and documented according to our Best Effort policy.
  7. Closed when completed, with an e-mail to the named contact with details on the resolution



Response Time

Response time is defined as the time in which SchoolNow has to contact a named user and start the resolution process with the user. Standard support issues are handled during regular support hours. Requests are serviced on a first-come, first-served basis, that is... in the order they are received. Based on their priority, requests are serviced during our standard operating hours (8 am-6 pm EST). Urgent issues affecting all users or websites are handled immediately as our engineers are notified via an advanced alert system that provides our team 24/7/365 server monitoring. Response time is not a guarantee of closing a request; rather signals the start of working on a resolution. Resolution time is affected by client responsiveness, resource availability, and the ability to define and recreate issues or requests. Please review and understand our Best Effort policy.


Service Disruption Procedure (Outages)

When there is an outage, you can check to be sure it is SchoolNow servers by visiting our status monitor. This monitor is located on three disparate servers in Chicago, California, and Atlanta. All three monitors will be "Down" if there is a SchoolNow outage.

In the event of an outage, you will not be immediately contacted by SchoolNow. It is our policy to invoke our prioritization policies and quickly resolve the issue to get our servers back online.

When a service disruption or outage occurs, we are notified by several alarms, and our response is immediate. Our primary goal is to get sites back up and running, and we will work continuously until full service is restored. It is counter-intuitive to waste time responding to individual inquiries or even sending out a notification until we properly assess the situation. We must understand if the outage is only on a specific site or platform-wide. Is the outage the result of our servers, an upstream provider, or something in between? This entails combing our server logs and reviewing our status monitors to understand the situation entirely. 

Once we are clear on the scope of the outage, we work to get services restored, and then we debrief on the situation to understand three things;

  1. When the issue occurred
  2. How the issue occurred
  3. What should be done to avoid a repeat of the issue
Until our team is clear on the above, there is no valuable information we can provide to a customer, and time is better spent continuing to work to get websites up and systems stabilized. When we have corrected and assessed the entire situation, we will then send out a notice to all (or the affected) customers. You may put in a support ticket to our support team, and they will provide you with the information that has been provided to them by our development team.  We will never contaminate our communication with irregular or inaccurate responses during an outage, but instead, identify the problem and implement a solution before contacting you.
Thank you for reviewing the SchoolNow support agreement, and we look forward to serving you now and in the future.