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Communicate: Data Service Level Agreement

©Freedom Communications 2013

Communicate: Data Service Level Agreementv1.1 of 12

Communicate: Data

Service Level Agreement

Author: Service

Date: October 13




Contents

1. Scope 3

2. Service Definitions 3

3. Service Provision 3

4. Optional Service Provision Features 4

5. Proactive 24/7 Network Monitoring 4

6. Service Management 5

7. Supported Hours 6

8. Incident and Service Request Targets 7

9. Incident Priority Matrix 8

10. Service Performance and KPIs 9

11. Incident and Request Reporting 10

12. Customer Responsibilities 11

13. Service Escalation 11

14. Document Control 12




1. Scope

The purpose of this document is to define the specific service requirements to support the Service

Level Agreement Framework to be provided by Freedom Communications UK Ltd.

The scope of this Service Level Agreement covers allocation of certified resources with the required

levels of knowledge and experience to provide support services across the solution. The agreement

does not cover 3rd Party Applications, Unsupported Hardware or Peripherals including but not

limited to devices such as servers, telephones, laptops, computers, headsets or cameras.

2. Service Definitions

As an Alcatel Premier Business Partner and Microsoft Gold Partner, Freedom offer a set of certified,

experienced and competent people who support the full service lifecycle. Our telecommunications

heritage, together with our expertise in networks and IT infrastructure, allow us to deliver and

support integrated unified communications solutions.

The Freedom Service Desk provides a single point of contact for all Incidents, Service Requests,

Change Requests and Escalations. Service Requests are captured through Request Fulfilment, and

may include for example Requests for Information, Moves, Adds and Changes (MACs) or Professional

Service Days (PSDs) such as training or consultancy. All requests should be delivered by named

customer representatives that have received adequate training on the solution and associated

technologies to perform end user triage.

3. Service Provision

The support service provided under the Active Support Contract includes the following default

services unless stated as exceptions in the contract:

• Telephone and e-mail Incident/Request reporting.

• Tier 1, 2 and 3 support provided by accredited engineers (or approved 3rd Party’s)

• Remote and On-site Incident support by qualified engineers

• Access to Tier 4 level support within Alcatel TAC (where purchased and under current

support from Alcatel)

• Software updates and fixes from manufacturer (where applicable and under current support

from the manufacturer/vendor).

• Maintenance Spares provision for failures in supported Configuration Items.




4. Optional Service Provision Features

The below list are services that are out of scope for the Service, but can be included as optional

items that will be added to the contract terms;

• Moves, Adds and Changes (MACs) - maintain all solution requirements

• Inclusive Professional Services Days (PSDs) – Budget for on-going projects and consultancy

• Technical Health Checks - Annual strategic review of solution and improvement

recommendations

• Support for End-User issues or devices.

• Service Delivery Management – Nominated contact to manage escalations and host reviews

• 24/7 Proactive Network Monitoring

5. Proactive 24/7 Network Monitoring

The Proactive 24/7 Network Monitoring service is available as an additional service and not

inclusive within the standard SLA framework

Freedoms Network monitoring solution ensures notification of any system hardware failures or

degradation of a service below an agreed threshold so reactive steps can be taken to provide a

resolution. As part of the proactive health check services, the monitoring solution allows detection,

remote diagnosis and resolution to problems, even before it becomes system affecting.

The system is also monitored through live dashboard images of the hardware architecture delivered

as part of the solution; this is available to Freedoms service operation team to quickly highlight

where degradation in service or an outage might be occurring to take the appropriate action. Both

the alarms and the dashboard can be made available to enable your own IT teams to also be able to

take appropriate control of their own solution.

Freedom provide this service on a 24/7 basis, where the notification highlights an Incident on a

support area of the solution, Freedoms service desk will take instant steps to provide a resolution

and communicate all updates fully with nominated customer representatives. Where the notification

is for an area of the wider customer architecture not under support, Freedom will agree who to

notify and by what method prior to the service going live.

.




6. Service Management

Service Delivery Management is available as an additional service and not inclusive within the

standard SLA framework.

Freedom and the customer will conduct a monthly Service Review (or as agreed). At these review

meetings both parties will review the performance of the services provided with the aid of the reports

provided by Freedom.

The Service Review will be attended by the Service Manager for Freedom, supported by any

necessary resource to discuss any service issues or commercial requirements.

Inputs to this meeting will include:

• A summary of key issues, problems, on-going project work, changes completed and

escalations within the period and performance against contracted SLAs and agreed KPI’s.

• An update to any Continuous Service Improvement process and any actions.

• Details of any Customer Satisfaction survey responses for the period.

Outputs to this meeting will include:

• Understanding of the current perception of service and the challenges for the month ahead

• An updated CSI actions log with feedback from the customer and clarification on how to

progress with any process issues.

• Feedback/Agreement on any breach discussions

Either party at any time with reasonable notice can request a meeting.

A standard agenda for a SRM shall include:

1) Minutes of previous meeting

2) Review Reports

3) Review Incidents and Problems

4) Service Improvement Plan

5) Customer satisfaction

6) AOB (preferably topics known in advance)

7) Update on any live projects within the account

The Service Management function also owns the Transition Process for any Project or Upgrade

activity that takes place. The Service Manager will work closely with Project Management

throughout the Project to ensure successful transition into Service Operations, guaranteeing that a

knowledge transfer has taken place, systems are updated with key information and any early life

issues are managed to a successful resolution.




7. Supported Hours

Freedom provide three level of Hours of Service as standard, the hours of support will be defined

within the Active Support Order, by service, organisation or department.

Monday to Friday 9:00am – 17:00pm (8x5)

All Incidents and Service Requests will be managed within core business hours (09:00 – 17:00)

Monday to Friday 8:00am – 20:00pm (13x5)

24/7 Support (24x7)

For Incidents that are raised out of hours (17:00 – 09:00) support from Freedom will be solely

focused on service restoration; the associated root cause analysis will be carried out within normal

business hours. Problem management and Request Fulfilment is provided within business hours.

Hours P1/P2 Incident P3/P4/P5 Incident Request Fulfilment

Monday to Friday 09:00 – 17:00 09:00 – 17:00 09:00 – 17:00

Saturday � � �

Sunday � � �

Bank Holiday � � �


Monday to Friday 08:00 – 20:00 09:00 – 17:00 09:00 – 17:00

Saturday � � �

Sunday � � �



Monday to Friday 24/7 09:00 – 17:00 09:00 – 17:00

Saturday 24/7 � �

Sunday 24/7 � �





8. Incident and Service Request Targets

Freedom provide the following levels of response and resolution for requests in relation to the

corresponding Severity Levels;

Freedoms initial response to a request will be made by the single point of contact service desk at

Freedom Communications. The Service Desk will take all the necessary details, and raise a request

using the ITSM toolsets to log, categorise and complete an initial assessment on priority.

The Service Desk will provide the customer with a unique reference number for the request and will

allocate the necessary technical resource from Freedom to respond to the request within the

timeframes indicated in the table above. The timeframes are based on the agreed priority set when

raising the request.

Freedoms Technical response to a reported request will involve the incident being accepted by a

qualified resource and commencing with performing remote diagnostics on the incident.

On all Priority One Critical incidents the Senior Management team and Service Operations

Management team at Freedom are instantly notified and kept updated on progress.

The table below details the triggers that will Start, Stop and Pause the above Service Levels;

Priority Level Incident Severity Response Site Visit Manager Escalation

Priority 1 Critical <1hrs <4hrs Immediate

Priority 2 High <2hrs <8hrs <4hrs

Priority 3 Medium <8hrs <NBD <1BD

Priority 4 Low <12hrs <2BD <2BD

Priority 5 Cosmetic/Very Low <24hrs <5BD <5BD

Service Request N/A <24hrs � �

Service Level Start Stop Pause

Response Incident is raised within

Freedoms ITSM Toolset

Incident is accepted by the

Technical Team

Status is awaiting customer response, or is

outside of customer supported hours.

Site Visits Incident is raised within

Freedoms ITSM Toolset

Engineering resources arrived

on site.

Status is awaiting customer response, or is

outside of customer supported hours.




Freedom will pause the targets on the reported incident for the following reasons

• Unsupported Hardware failure

• Unsupported Network failure

• Non Supported infrastructure causing the failure

• The failure is caused by a code bug within the Alcatel or Microsoft Solution and requires

correction by Alcatel R&D.

9. Incident Priority Matrix

Freedom will classify an Incident using the following Impact Level matrix. The classification will be

agreed with the Customer at the time of raising an incident.

At any stage the customer can request that the Priority of an Incident be increased, based on an

increase in the Urgency or the Impact to the business, this would be done through escalation following

the escalation procedures outlined in section 16 of this document.

Whereby the following Priority Level definitions apply:

Priority Matrix

Impact

High

(Core Business function

affected)

Medium

(Core Business function partially

affected)

Low

(Core Business function

unaffected)

Urg

en

cy

High

(Total System Failure) Priority 1 Priority 2 Priority 3

Medium

(Substantial System Failure) Priority 2 Priority 3 Priority 4

Low

(Partial System Failure) Priority 3 Priority 4 Priority 5

Priority Level Severity Severity Level Description

Priority One Critical A failure of the entire service where the customer is experiencing a complete loss of

Security or Network Services

Priority Two High A failure where there has been a substantial loss of the services, which has created a

significant impact to the users

Priority Three Medium A failure where there has been a partial loss of services, and the core business is

partially effected

Priority Four Low Minor failure where single users are partially effected

Priority Five Planned/ Very Low A partial failure where core business functions are unaffected.




10. Service Performance and KPIs

The SLA will be measured within Freedoms Service Management Toolset from the time reported to

the Freedom Service Desk. Any delays that are not caused by Freedom will cause the SLA clock to be

suspended until such time that the delay has been resolved and the clock will resume.

Freedom will measure actual performance against the SLAs, and during the three months following

the Effective Date of the SLA will review these with the customer to ensure they are appropriate for

the customer’s service requirements.

Freedom will achieve over 90% of Service Response targets in accordance with the call logging

procedure over a three month rolling period.

The following shall be deemed as accepted exceptions to any SLA breach, where:

• the Customer invokes a change to an Incident, which therefore requires that the resolution

needs to be rescheduled at the request of the Customer

• the Customer provides incorrect or incomplete information

• the User is not immediately available when their input is required to resolve the incident

• access to the equipment is denied or unavailable

• the manufacturer no longer supports the products in question (freedom will notify of any

equipment or software that is due expire for commercial support)

• the faulty hardware or application is not in scope of the support contract

• The incident is caused by:

o User misuse.

o A none supported software or operating system issue

o a non-scheduled change being made to the environment

o environmental issues

Where an exception has been registered, the SLA statistics for that Incident will be excluded from

the calculations.

Where Freedom has failed to meet the SLA KPI for three consecutive months, Freedom will ensure

that a Customer Service Improvement Plan (CSIP) is established to;

• Resolve any outstanding Incident/Problem

• Put in place steps and actions, in agreement with the customer, to ensure there is no repeat

incident

• The CSIP will identify the timescales for the actions and clear points of contact.




11. Incident and Request Reporting

All Incidents and Requests should be raised with the Freedom Service Desk via e-mail or telephone

by named systems operators, and not through end users. The caller should provide Freedom with

the core information listed below on initial submission:

• Effected User Name and User Location

• Effected User contact number, email

• Service or CI affected

• Impact of service provided

• Urgency of service impacted

• Brief description of issue/symptoms

• Any diagnostics or technical information gathered prior to incident being raised with

Freedom

• Recommended Priority (P1, P2, P3 etc )

Freedom Service Desk contact details are:

• Telephone – 0871 271 3800

• Email – [email protected]

Critical Incidents which need to be raised on a 13x5 or 24/7 basis have a dedicated telephone number;

• Telephone – 0870 055 6905

Freedom will log the Incident against a unique incident reference number and begin initial diagnosis

towards a resolution. In order to successfully address an incident in a timely manner, it is important

that the Customer provides a clear description of the incident supported by information such as:

• Has the incident occurred before, or was this an isolated event?

• What steps led to the incident?

• Can the incident be recreated? If so, what are the steps required?

• Have there been any system changes made?

• Is there any information available through System Monitoring such as alerts and alarms?

Any correspondence regarding the incident should use the unique incident reference number.

Once the incident has been resolved the Freedom Service Desk will gain confirmation from the

Customer that the incident can be closed. Once resolved, Freedom will attempt to seek confirmation

from the Customer, after three attempts to seek confirmation the incident will be marked as closed.

Incident report notifications for new incidents, incidents resolved and incidents closed will be

delivered via e-mail to the provided email address.

Where the Service Desk identifies that a specific query relates to the use of a 3rd party product

rather than the functionality supported under the Service Level Agreement for the solution, the

Service Desk reserves the right to refer the Customer to the appropriate 3rd Party Provider of the

specific product.




12. Customer Responsibilities

Remote Access In the majority of cases, Incidents and Problems are able to be resolved through remote support.

Reliable remote access to the required areas of the system is therefore imperative. Failure to provide

remote access to the solution will most likely incur longer times to provide a resolution which will

impact the restoration of normal business function, and may incur additional costs for engineering

site visits.

Remote access requirements will be determined and setup at the start of the support contract. Any

specific requirements for remote access such as specialist software for access control should be

provided by the customer to Freedom Communication.

Physical Access Where an incident cannot be resolved through Remote Access, (in the example of a hardware fault)

physical access to site will be required.

Site access requirements will be determined at the start of the contract, and Freedom will comply with

any requirements the customer has for access such as providing method statements, health and safety

compliance as well as photo identification.

13. Service Escalation

Freedom will classify an Incident using the following Impact Level matrix. The classification will be

agreed with the Customer at the time of raising an incident.

Escalations shall only occur and be accepted on Incidents, Enquiries or Fulfilment Requests that have

been exchanged between the Freedom and the Customer with the relevant incident reference

numbers and incident details. Escalation triggers are:

(a) Established incidents where the Response service levels cannot be met

(b) Incidents where either party is dissatisfied with incident clearance progression; or

(c) Where both parties agree an incident to be a constant repeat incident.

Constant repeat incidents, or issues which cannot be resolved through normal channels, should be

referred to the Freedom Communications Service Manager as detailed in the escalation hierarchy who

will escalate such internally.

Freedom Communications




Incident & Service Request Reporting

Active Support Service Desk

Freedom Communications

Olds Approach, Tolpits Lane

Watford

WD18 9RX

Contact Details

Telephone: 0871 271 3800

Telephone 24/7: 0870 055 6905

Email: [email protected]

Freedom Escalation Points

1st Service Desk Manager

Name: Imad Akhrass

Direct Dial: 01923 654285

Mobile: 07964 256 406


3rd Head of Service Operations

Name: Ben Wilson


Mobile: 07970 831 943


2nd Service & Transition Manager

Name: Simon Roe


Mobile: 07736 979 779


4th Commercial Director

Name: Kevin Kemp


Mobile: 07825 541 663


Freedom Additional Contacts

Technical Manager

Name: June Valentine


Mobile: 07917 826 943


Provisioning Manager

Name: Katrina Cronin


Mobile: 07950 320446


14. Document Control

Amendment History

Version Date Author Amendment

1.0 18th September 2013 Ben Wilson (HOSO) Template Published

1.1 14th October Ben Wilson (HOSO) Generic amends

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