Support Policy

Created by Will Rogers, Modified on Fri, 28 Jul 2023 at 03:35 PM by Emilie Macke

CM Support Policy and Terms for Software as a Service

Maintenance for Software as a Service (“SaaS”) solutions from Cause Machine (CM) consists of infrastructure and application support provided by CM in its sole judgement, in order that the Service provided under the Saas Subscription and Subscription Terms and Conditions (“Agreement”) may operate satisfactorily and necessary for the delivery of such Service operates according to its Documentation.  Maintenance will be provided in a timely and professional manner by qualified support engineers in accordance with this CM Support Policy and Terms for Software as a Service (the “Policy”).

You are only eligible to receive SaaS Maintenance if you have an active Agreement, remain current on all applicable Saas Subscription and maintenance fees due and payable to CM, and are otherwise compliant with your applicable contractual obligations to CM.  At CM’s sole discretion, CM may make other fee-based tiers of maintenance or SaaS Subscription offerings available that provide specific, customized, and/or more comprehensive forms of enhanced maintenance.  

This Policy may be updated by CM from time to time, in its sole discretion, however such updates will not result in a material reduction in the level of SaaS Maintenance provided for which the applicable SaaS Subscription and maintenance fees, if applicable, have been paid.

Defined terms used in this policy include the following:

  • “Available Functionality” means the functionality which is generally available and provided by CM as part of the Service as described in the applicable Documentation for the Service.
  • “Client Technologies” means any non-MA Software installed in Customer workstations or other Customer environments.
  • “Documentation” means specifications, user documentation, including but not limited to User Guides, Knowledge Base, SaaS Listings, and technical documents provided by CM regarding the Service and Available Functionality.
  • “Incident” means a reproducible error or problem with the Service that prevents the Available Functionality from operating in accordance with its Documentation.
  • “Knowledge Base” means the online user manuals for the Service and for the Available Functionality.
  • “Non-Production” means a test, sandbox, staging, or development Service environment where untested changes are performed outside of a Production environment.
  • “Production” means the “live” Service environment where the Available Functionality processes data on a real-time basis.
  • “SaaS Listing” is a SaaS solution-specific document that provides information, standards, features and specific terms of the Service such as billing information, security audit standards, Service availability, Service features and hosting terms.
  • “SaaS Maintenance” means the maintenance of the SaaS Service provided under the terms of the SaaS Service Subscription Agreement and in accordance with this Policy.
  • “Service” means the provision by CM, of an online, web-based version of the Available Functionality for access to and usage by you via designated Production and Non-Production website(s) and the associated offline components and desktop utilities, all as described in the applicable User Guide.
  • “Service Support” means Customer requested other services as noted in Section 3, below.

 

Maintenance

The Agreement identifies the type of Maintenance purchased for each SaaS Subscription, the duration of such Maintenance (the “Maintenance Term”) and the applicable fees for Saas Maintenance of the Available Functionality.  Support will be performed in a timely and professional manner by qualified support engineers includes:

  • Direct access to CM Support and the ability to open and manage support Incidents via CM Support Online.
  • Production environment support: 24x7x365 for Severity 1 Incidents; normal business hours for Severities 2-5.
  • Non-Production environment support normal business hours.
  • Access to CM Support Online (https://support.causemachine.com) for 24x7x365 online support and access to CM SaaS documentation, FAQs, samples, webcast recordings and demos, usage tips, technical updates as such are made available by CM.
  • Interactive remote diagnostic support allowing CM Support engineers to troubleshoot securely through a real-time browser-based remote control feature.

Service Level Objectives: Target Response Times

CM will use reasonable efforts to meet the Service Level Objectives stated in the table below and will provide continuous efforts to resolve Severity 1 service Incidents. For Severity 1 Incidents, CM will work 24x7x365 until the Incident can be downgraded to a lower severity. For Severity 1 Incidents, your Support Contact(s) must be available at all times via telephone and online to provide CM with relevant and requested information, data gathering and testing necessary to resolve the Incident. Severity 2-4 calls can be logged with CM on a 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year basis and will be responded to during published business hours as per the Service Level Objectives table below.

Screen_Shot_2019-09-24_at_7.42.07_AM.png* During normal business hours: M-F 8am-5pm EST; all major holidays off. 

** Applies only to issues submitted by telephone.

Screen_Shot_2019-09-24_at_7.43.41_AM.png

a) You may be required to upgrade to third-party-supported applications and operating systems as specified by CM in the Documentation, as applicable, in order to continue receiving SaaS Maintenance from CM under this Policy.

b) If you decide to implement Client Technologies (ex: Google Analytics, Mail Chimp, Zapier, etc.), you will be responsible for the successful installation and implementation of such third-party technologies within the recommended environments specified in the Documentation, as applicable.

c) You will utilize CM Support Online or other site or notification mechanisms as CM may designate from time to time, to notify CM of system availability issues, or request other in-scope maintenance and support assistance.

 

SaaS Service Information

Information pertaining to the Service and the Service catalog provided for your specific SaaS solution(s), can be found in the appropriate SaaS Customer Knowledge Base.

 

Customer Responsibilities

a)  In order to receive maintenance, support requests must contain all pertinent information, in English, including but not limited to, Customer name or site domain, Incident severity, Service name, area of Service (Production or Non-Production identified by URL), Incident description, screenshots, and a technical contact familiar with your environment or the problem to be solved. You must make reasonable efforts to communicate with CM in order to verify the existence of the problem and provide information about the conditions under which the problem could be duplicated.

b)  As set forth above, for Severity 1 Incidents, your Support Contact(s) must be available at all times via telephone and online to provide CM with relevant and requested information, data gathering and testing necessary to bring the Incident to resolution.

c)  Named Callers: You shall designate one (1) primary and up to two (2) backup named individuals (“Support Contacts”) to serve as liaisons with CM Support for each active Service from CM. Support Contacts should be fully trained in the use and application of the Available Functionality, and should be either responsible for maintaining any required CM client software or have direct access to those who do. At its sole discretion, CM may agree to additional Support Contacts in order to help you meet specific business requirements. You must notify CM Support whenever the list of Support Contacts changes by logging an issue on CM Support Online.

d)  Cooperation: CM must be able to reproduce errors in order to resolve them.  Customer agrees to cooperate and work closely with CM to reproduce errors, including conducting diagnostic or troubleshooting activities as requested and appropriate.  Also, subject to Customer’s approval on a case-by-case basis, User may be asked to provide remote access to their CM application and/or desktop system for troubleshooting purposes.

 

SaaS Release and Upgrade Policy

Supported versions, SaaS release, upgrade cycles and upgrade notifications are addressed in the “SaaS Release and Upgrade Policy”.

 

Maintenance Limitations

a)  Consulting services, assistance with system design, product training, education, strategy, research, termination and migration assistance are NOT provided as part of your SaaS Subscription or SaaS Maintenance.

b)  Installation or upgrade services of any Client Technologies will NOT be provided.

c)  Customizations to the version of Available Functionality provided under your SaaS Subscription may be provided under a separate fee-based CM Services agreement.

d)  CM shall NOT be obligated to provide technical support for Client Technologies, CM Software that is not used in accordance with the Documentation, configuration modifications to the Available Functionality, training, customer-generated scripts, custom reports and other content, custom code provided by you or any third party or otherwise not part of the Available Functionality or problems associated with software products running on unsupported hardware, operating systems, or third party software. Any such service may be available on a fee basis, as determined by CM. You may be required to upgrade to a supported third party software product or release, hardware platform, framework, database or operating system configuration as approved or certified in CM’s published specifications to continue receiving technical support services from CM.

e) CM, at its sole discretion, will accept standard service catalog requests and coordinate the execution of such requests within the stipulated lead times as indicated in the service catalog of the specific SaaS Solution. For more information regarding the service catalog please refer to the Customer Knowledge Base for the specific SaaS Solution.

f)  CM does NOT provide assistance with CM password resets.  For password resets, User should click the “Forgot your password?” link on the login page or contact their system administrator.  

g) CM does NOT provide assistance with CM usernames. For instance with usernames, Users should contact their system administrator.

h) CM does NOT provide assistance with CM lockouts due to incorrect login attempts.  

i) CM does NOT  provide assistance with non-CM products, services or technologies, including implementations, administration or use of third-party enabling technologies such as databases, computer networks, or communication systems.

j) CM does NOT offer end user support for CM client members.  Clients are responsible for managing all direct member support and questions.  Client member issues may be posted to CM support deck only by CM client.  

 

Non-Incident Classifications

Non-incidents may include (but not limited to) questions, feature requests, custom development, research, strategy, and/or training.  These non-incident classifications are not included in the SaaS Subscription Agreement. CM reserves the right to and may assist in these submissions.  CM may offer assistance or offer additional support packages for non-incident requests at an additional cost.  

 

Feature Requests / Custom Development

Feature requests may be submitted by CM clients.  CM reserves the right to enhance the platform with these submitted ideas at its sole discretion.  Individual submitting feature requests forfeits all intellectual property rights to submitted idea once submitted to Cause Machine.  Any custom development (module or module enhancement) converts to this general support policy 60 days after deployment to production.  Refer to the Cause Machine Custom Development Policy for more details.



Referenced Documents

The Documentation referenced in this CM Support Policy and Terms for Software as a Service is available at: http://support.causemachine.com. The location of these documents is subject to change.

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