Service Level Agreement (SLA) and support 

Annex Cloud Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Updated on January 17, 2024

Overview

This Annex Cloud Support Policy applies to the products defined and contracted by the Customer in Annex Cloud Technology and Annex Cloud Services. Support is subject to the terms and conditions of the Annex Cloud Master Services Agreement.

Annex Cloud will provide SaaS (Software as a Service) support in accordance with Annex Cloud’s privacy policy available at https://www.annexcloud.com/privacy-policy.

The Support Policy is subject to change at Annex Cloud’s discretion; however, Annex Cloud policy changes will not result in a material reduction in the level of SaaS support provided during the period for which fees for the applicable Annex Cloud Technology have been paid.

Service Level Agreement (SLA) Support Terms

Annex Cloud Technology Fees

The fees paid by you under your Annex Cloud Master Services Agreement include the support described in the Support Policy. You will not be separately invoiced for the support provided.

Support Period

Support is active upon the Effective Date specified in the Annex Cloud Master Services Agreement and ends upon the expiration or termination of the Agreement (the “support period”). Annex Cloud is not obligated to provide support beyond the end of the support period.

Technical Contacts

The Customer’s technical contacts are the sole liaisons between you and Annex Cloud for support of the Annex Cloud Services. Customer’s technical contacts must have at a minimum, initial basic product training and as needed, supplemental training appropriate for a specific role or implementation phase, specialized product usage, and/or migration. A Customer’s technical contacts must be knowledgeable about their Annex Cloud environment to help resolve system issues and assist Annex Cloud in analyzing and resolving service requests. When submitting a support request, the Customer’s technical contact should have a baseline understanding of the problem being encountered and the ability to reproduce the problem in order to assist Annex Cloud in diagnosing and triaging the problem. To avoid interruptions of support services, Customer must notify Annex Cloud whenever Customer’s technical contact responsibilities are transferred to another individual. Annex Cloud may review support requests logged by the Customer’s technical contacts and may recommend specific training to avoid unnecessary support requests.

First and Second Line Support

Customers are expected to establish and maintain the organization and processes to provide “First Line Support” for the Annex Cloud Services directly to its users. First Line Support shall include but not be limited to (i) a direct response to users with respect to inquiries concerning the performance, functionality, or operation, (ii) a direct response to users with respect to problems or issues, (iii) a diagnosis of problems or issues, and (iv) a resolution of problems or issues.

After reasonable commercial efforts, if you are unable to diagnose or resolve problems/issues of Annex Cloud Services, you may contact Annex Cloud for “Second Line Support.

Second Line Support shall consist of (i) a diagnosis of problems or issues with the Annex Cloud Services, and (ii) reasonable commercial efforts to resolve reported and verifiable errors so that the Annex Cloud Services perform in all material respects as described in the associated program documentation.

Annex Cloud may review support requests logged by your technical contacts and may recommend specific organizational and process changes to assist you with the practices described in this Support Policy.

Annex Cloud Support

  • The Second Line Support is described above.
  • Program updates, fixes, security updates, and critical patch updates.
  • General maintenance releases, selected functionality releases, and documentation updates.
  • Assistance with support requests related to issues with Annex Cloud Services.
  • Non-technical customer service.

Service Level Agreement (SLA) Severity Definitions

The support request severity level is based on the following severity definitions:

Type DescriptionAcknowledgment TimeResolution Time
Level 1High-severity issues that significantly impact users, system stability, or security.
They require immediate attention and remediation.
 
Examples:
·       Complete system outage or major service disruption.
·       Critical data loss or security breach.
·       Severe performance issues that render the application unusable.
1 hour24 hours
Level 2Medium-severity issues that have a noticeable impact on users or system performance
but are not critical or showstoppers. They require attention but may not demand immediate action.
 
Examples:
·       Functional issues that affect specific features but do not render the entire application unusable.
·       Moderate performance degradation that affects user experience but is not a system-wide outage.
·       Non-critical security vulnerabilities that require patching.
·       Data discrepancies or issues with feeds
1-2 business days5 -10 business days
Level 3Low-severity issues typically have minimal impact on users and can be considered minor inconveniences or cosmetic problems.
 
Examples:
·       Cosmetic UI glitches that do not affect functionality.
·       Non-urgent feature requests or enhancements.
·       Low-priority bugs that have workarounds.
·       Minor performance degradation that doesn’t significantly impact user experience.
2-3 business daysAs agreed with Customer

Support Request Severity Level

Initial Severity Level

At the time Annex Cloud accepts a support request, Annex Cloud will record an initial severity level of the support request based on the Severity definitions defined above.    Annex Cloud’s initial focus, upon acceptance of a support request, will be to resolve the issues underlying the support request. The severity level of a support request may be adjusted as described below.

Downgrades Of Severity Levels

If during the support request process, the issue no longer warrants the severity level currently assigned based on its current impact on the production operation of the Annex Cloud Services, then the severity level will be downgraded to the severity level that most appropriately reflects its current impact.

Upgrade of Severity Levels

If during the support request process, the issue warrants the assignment of a higher severity level than that currently assigned based on the current impact on the production operation of the Annex Cloud Services, then the severity level will be upgraded to the severity level that most appropriately reflects its current impact. In requesting any assignment of a higher severity level, you must provide Annex Cloud with sufficient information that demonstrates the increased impact of the issue on the production operation of the service.

Adherence to Severity Level Definitions

The customer shall ensure that the assignment and adjustment of any severity level designation are accurate based on the current impact on the production operation of the Annex Cloud Services. The customer acknowledges that Annex Cloud is not responsible for any failure to meet performance standards caused by your misuse or misassignment of severity level designations.

Support Request Escalation

If the customer believes in good faith that they have not received quality or timely assistance in response to a support request or that customer urgently needs to communicate important support-related business issues to Annex Cloud management, the customer’s technical contact may escalate the support request by contacting Annex Cloud and requesting that the support request be escalated. The escalation process should not be used to change the reported business impact of the issue.

For support requests that are escalated, the Annex Cloud support analyst will engage the Annex Cloud support request escalation manager who will be responsible for managing your escalation. The Annex Cloud support request escalation manager will work with you to develop an action plan and allocate the appropriate Annex Cloud resources.

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

This Annex Cloud Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) is a policy governing the use of the Annex Cloud Platform (the “Platform”) between Social Annex, Inc. d.b.a Annex Cloud (“Annex Cloud” or “we”) and its Customer (“you”). This Service Level Agreement (SLA) applies separately to each customer using the Annex Cloud Platform.

SERVICE COMMITMENT
Annex Cloud will use commercially reasonable efforts to make its software available with a Monthly Uptime Percentage of at least 99.5% during the monthly billing cycle (the “Service Commitment”). If Annex Cloud does not meet the Service Commitment; you will be eligible to receive Credits in accordance with section 2.

SLA EXCLUSIONS
This does not apply to any unavailability, suspension or termination of the Platform or any other issues that result from (i) Service termination or suspension (ii) Caused by factors outside of our reasonable control, including any force majeure event or Internet access or related problems beyond the demarcation point of Annex Cloud (iii) that result from actions or inactions from you or a third party.

Definitions

Actual Uptime” means the measurement of time that a Subscription Service is Available during the calendar month. Such measurement will be calculated by subtracting Downtime from the Scheduled Uptime.

Available” (or “Availability”) means that a Subscription Service is available and responding to data requests. 

Credits” means the number of days that will be added to the Subscription Term for the relevant Subscription Services in the event Annex Cloud does not meet the Availability Service Levels set forth in section 2.

Downtime” means the time that a Subscription Service is not Available during the calendar month.

Excused Downtime” means Downtime caused by any of the following:

  • Scheduled Maintenance and Unscheduled Maintenance;
  • any Force Majeure Event;
  • Customer’s telecommunications or Internet service provider failures or the acts or omissions of any third party not within Annex Cloud’s reasonable control, and security attacks;
  • Customer’s use of the Subscription Services in violation of law of this Agreement; or
  • Customer’s exceeding its Usage Rights.

Scheduled Maintenance” means any planned deployment of major releases once a month and if needed additionally for the latest security patches, applying network/infrastructure changes for improvement of a Subscription Service. 

Scheduled Uptime” means the total number of minutes in the applicable calendar month.

Unscheduled Maintenance” means any maintenance required for unforeseen events beyond Annex Cloud’s reasonable control and in categories such as critical security patches. Annex Cloud will use commercially reasonable efforts to provide Customer with notice of any Unscheduled Maintenance as soon as practicable given the circumstances for the Unscheduled Maintenance.

1. NOTICE OF MAINTENANCE.

Annex Cloud shall provide at least 48 hours advance notice of all Scheduled Maintenance. Scheduled Maintenance windows are between 3:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. (Coordinated Universal Time) or as otherwise provided in the advance notice, with a maximum of eight hours of Scheduled Maintenance each calendar quarter.

2. AVAILABILITY SERVICE LEVEL.

Annex Cloud shall use commercially reasonable efforts to provide Availability of not less than 99.5% (the “Availability Service Level”) during each calendar month.  Availability for each calendar month shall be calculated as follows:

If a Subscription Service fails to achieve the Availability Service Level during any calendar month, Customer’s exclusive remedy shall be for Customer to request, and Annex Cloud to provide, Credits to Customer’s account in accordance with the table below. In no circumstance shall a failure to achieve the Availability Service Level be deemed a default under the Agreement. 

Application AvailabilityCredits
≥ 99.00 but < 99.50 % in one calendar monthExtension of the Subscription Term for the affected Subscription Services by 3 days
≥ 97.00 but < 98.99% in one calendar monthExtension of the Subscription Term for the affected Subscription Services by 7 days
< 97.00% in one calendar monthExtension of the Subscription Term for the affected Subscription Services by 15 days

To request Credit, Customer must notify Annex Cloud by sending an email to billing@annexcloud.com within 30 days of the end of the calendar month in which the Availability falls below the thresholds set forth in the table above. 

Updated on January 17, 2024

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