Service Level Agreement For Prepaid Priority Support Services
SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT (“Agreement”) FOR THE PROVISION OF ATP PREPAID PRIORITY SUPPORT SERVICES
Definitions
1. In this Agreement, Australian Technology Partnerships Pty Ltd will be known as “ATP” and any individual or the director or other representative of a company applying for ATP Prepaid Priority Support Services (“Services”) will be known as “Customer(s)”.
Scope of Agreement
2. This Agreement sets forth the service level and performance standards for the VoIP hardware and software installation and support, the software development and the technical support services provided by Australian Technology Partnerships Pty Ltd (ACN 055 914 595) of 25 Hardner Road, Mount Waverley, Victoria, 3150.
General
3. ATP shall strive to provide professional services that fully meet the needs of Customers during the agreed hours of operations.
4. All technical support staff of ATP shall be tertiary qualified and have received comprehensive training to ensure that they can perform their assignments in an effective and professional manner. They shall possess relevant and current industry experience.
5. The provision of ATP Services shall be coordinated by experienced management staff who shall assist in their endeavours by the use of ATP’s highly developed, computer based service management system, ATP Priority Support System.
6. ATP shall be entitled to vary these terms and conditions, including response time. Notice of such changes will be considered given and effective from the date posted on ATP website www.austechpartnerships.com.au Such changes will become binding on the Customer seven (7) days after such changes are posted on ATP website and no further notice by ATP is required.
Acceptance, Period of Performance, and Termination
7. The acceptance of this Agreement by the Customer and the period of performance, commence upon receipt of the Customer’s prepayment.
8. This Agreement has no completion date and its termination is dependent upon the consumption of services by the Customer and the Customer’s timely renewal and prepayment for additional prepaid support hours, or by the Customer’s choice for discontinuing the prepayment for future Services.
9. Failure of the Customer, for any reasons, to prepay for Services in accordance with the provisions incorporated herein, ATP reserve the right to terminate this Agreement at will.
10. Failure of the Customer, for any reasons, to pay for any excess Services consumed, ATP may, at its own sole discretion without prior notice, cease to provide additional Services to the Customer until payment is secured.
11. ATP may limit or terminate the Services being provided if the Customer uses the Services in an abusive or fraudulent manner, as determined by ATP in its reasonable discretion. Examples of such use include a high number of calls or emails that concern previously resolved issues, repeated posing of questions to which is readily found in the documentation, and discussion of issues that are not related to technical support.
12. ATP will make reasonable efforts to provide the Services in a professional manner, but cannot guarantee that every issue, question or problem raised by the Customer can or will be resolved.
Cancellation
13. ATP, at its own sole discretion, may discontinue offering future Services, selectively or wholly, at any time without giving any prior notice. In such event, ATP will honor any existing Agreements that ATP have previously accepted.
14. In the event where ATP cancels the Customer’s Agreement for any cause, ATP shall issue the Customer a pro rata refund of the unused portion of its service hour balance that the Customer prepaid.
15. In the event where the Customer cancels the Agreement, at any time or for any reason, ATP shall be entitled to any unused portion of the pre-payment, or calculate and bill the Customer for excess Services consumed.
Renewal, Payment and Hours
16. Unless terminated or cancelled, renewal and acceptance of the Agreement automatically occur when prepayment for the Services is received from the Customer on or before the date that Services begin or continue under renewal; and shall be reflected in an incremental increase to the Customer’s prepaid service hours balance.
17. Payments received from the Customer shall be processed in accordance with ATP’s standard payment processing guidelines and policies.
18. Time is decremented from the prepaid amount after each incident has been addressed by totalling the time spent on each fault and rounding up to the nearest quarter hour, and is deducted from the Customer’s running pre-paid service hours balance. Usage during outside of ATP’s normal hours of operations shall incur rate adjustments.
Rate Revision
19. ATP may revise its rates from time to time without prior notice; however, the newly revised rates will not be applicable to Agreements made prior to the change. If ATP revises its rates and the Customer chooses to renew the Agreement, ATP shall advise the Customer of the new rates prior to the Customer’s acceptance of a renewed Agreement. [This clause effectively imposes a completion date (being the date that the Agreement is renewed at a revised rate) and supersedes the “no completion date” terms of clause 2 of this Agreement.]
Authorisation and Security
20. ATP Service is provided to the Customer and authorised representative of the Customer.
21. The Customer assumes responsibility for maintaining the security and integrity of its PBX or equivalent equipment, systems, network infrastructure or services furnished by or to you. ATP excludes liability for fraudulent use of the aforementioned, including, but not limited to theft of any associated services.
Customer Assistance
22. During the support incident resolution process the Customer may be requested to carry out certain tasks in order for progress to be made. This must be carried out within a reasonable time and feedback must be promptly provided to ATP technical support staff.
Remote Access
23. Customer shall provide technical support staff members of ATP remote access to their system in order to effect investigations and resolutions when need be. The Customer is strongly advised to provide such remote access via a secure encrypted connection (e.g., SSH).
24. ATP would be please to discuss this requirement with the Customer if necessary and may, subject to charge, provide design and installation. When remotely accessing Customer systems, ATP will not delete, modify, copy or move any files or data without first obtaining agreement from the Customer.
Backups
25. Customer shall ensure regular backups of system configurations are made and tested.
Temporary “Work-arounds”
26. Where no immediate solution is available to solve the issue raised by the Customer, it may be necessary to introduce a temporary “work-around” solution while a permanent solution is investigated, tested and implemented. This “work-around” will be designed to provide a basic functioning system, which may involve changes to or implementation of manual working processes at the Customer’s site, or a revision to an earlier version of the ATP system configuration.
27. Where such a “work-around” is proposed by ATP, projected completion timescales for the implementation of a complete resolution will be given. With regards to achievement of Support Level, a temporary ‘”work-around” solution will be an acceptable substitute for “fix”.
Monitoring and Management of the Services Provided
28. ATP, through its ATP Priority Support System, will constantly monitor the level of service provided to its Customers, in terms of staff availability, response times and the effectiveness of the problem resolution.
29. ATP shall reasonably provide its Customers the opportunity to offer feedback on its services 24×7 in reference to all support issues via email priority@austechpartnerships.com .
Availability of the Services
30. ATP Services shall be available on all days of the year, except weekends, public holidays and Christmas shutdown period, between the normal office hours of 8.30am and 5.30pm AEST.
31. ATP technical support staff shall also be made available outside of ATP’s normal hours of operations by special arrangement and shall incur rate adjustments, which shall be deducted from the Customer’s running prepaid service hours balance and/or excess charges will be invoiced.
Response Time
32. Response Time refers to the time taken for ATP to begin working on a problem, not to resolve the problem.
33. Depending on the severity level, the following are the maximum response times for VoIP hardware and software installation and support, software development and technical support services problems:
| Support Level | Response Time | Support Description |
| Level 1: System Down | Available within 1 hourLevel 1 issues will be resolved as quickly as possible and take precedence over all other problems. | Customers are unable to log onto their system and / or are unable to complete essential business processes such as making and / or receiving phone calls. |
| Level 2: High | Available within 2 to 4 hours
If a Level 2 issue is unresolved after 8 hours, it will be automatically escalated to a Level 1 issue. |
Customers are able to continue to operate and perform essential business processes, but are unable to do so in an acceptable manner. |
| Level 3: Medium | Available within 24 to 48 hours.
Level 3 issues will be addressed by technical support staff available. A reasonable time frame to resolution or implementation will be agreed with the Customer. |
Customers have particular problems with their system or a specific application, or require other kinds of support (e.g., installation) |
Escalation of Procedures
34. ATP shall use its reasonable discretion to determine the level of severity a particular issue is given. The Customer shall be made aware of this determination and the progress being made on finding a resolution either via ATP Priority Support System or by phone.
35. Upon receiving notification of a Level 1 issue, the issue will be immediately escalated to the Client Services Director, or in their absence the Operations Manager, or in their absence the General Manager of other senior staff member acting in the role.
36. On a Level 1 issue, an update will be made available every two (2) hours and on a Level 2 issue, an update will be made available every four (4) hours.
37. There will be a one (1) hour commitment to begin work on the issue, and the work will not end until the issue is resolved. For items other than critical systems, the response times are as outlined.
Incident Recording
38. Information to be Provided by the Customer to ATP in the Initial Incident Report:
(a) Corresponding email address
(b) Name of the Customer’s company
(c) Contact telephone number and email address for a Customer representative, including name, who can assist with a problem resolution
(d) Full details of the problem, including when the problem arose and if there were any prior events that might be connected
(e) IP Address, System Username and Password, and Root Password
(f) Network information (preferably a network diagram showing network connections, firewalls, servers/hosts, etc) to help the ATP technical support staff understand the Customer’s network environment
Incident Recording by Email
39. While support incidents may be recorded at any time via email priority@austechpartnerships.com, response times will be in line with the Support Levels stated (e.g., for calls raised overnight AEST, the clock will not start ticking until 8.30am AEST on the next working day).
40. Delivery of email cannot be guaranteed, likewise delivery may be delayed through circumstances entirely outside of ATP’s control. Therefore, ATP recommend that incident reporting via ATP Priority Support System www.austechpartnerships.com/prioritysupport or phone is used in preference to email.
Incident Recording via the ATP Priority Support System
41. ATP Priority Support System is accessible via www.austechpartnerships.com/prioritysupport. While support incidents may be recorded at any time via the ATP Priority Support System, response times will be in line with the Support Levels stated (e.g., for calls raised overnight AEST, the clock will not start ticking until 8.30am AEST on the next working day).
Incident Ticket Number
42. The ATP Priority Support System generates a “Ticket Number” which is the key reference number used to associate all communications, actions and information to the incident. Once the incident has been recorded the Customer will automatically be sent an email containing the Ticket Number.
43. For incidents reported by telephone, ATP technical support staff will verbally inform the Customer the Ticket Number allocated. Receipt of the Ticket Number confirms that the Incident has been recorded in the ATP Priority Support System.
44. The Ticket Number must be recorded by the Customer and quoted in any subsequent telephone conversations about the incident; for email communications the Ticket Number will be included in the email title which must not be changed or amended by the Customer.
Software License
45. Any software or firmware (collectively “Software”) delivered by ATP to the Customer hereunder is licensed, not sold. ATP grants to the Customer a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Software, in object code only, only with the Part purchased by the Customer (the “Hardware”) and only for the purpose of operating the Hardware.
46. Customer shall not modify, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or create derivative work based upon the Software except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law notwithstanding this limitation.
47. Customer shall not make or distribute unauthorised copies of the Software, and shall acquire no rights or ownership in the Software. Title to and ownership of the Software and all extensions, enhancements and modifications thereof shall remain at all times with ATP and or its licensor.
Intellectual Property Rights
48. Subject to any license rights expressly granted herein, ATP retains all right, title and interest in all of its patents, trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, software, inventions, technology, ideas, concepts, know-how, tooling, techniques and other proprietary materials, intellectual property or confidential information.
Exclusions
49. ATP shall not be bound by the terms of this SLA in any of the following circumstances:
(a) Failure of the Customer to fulfil their obligations as specified in this Agreement.
(b) Information supplied by the Customer is inaccurate, incomplete or supplied in a non-timely manner.
(c) Incomplete configuration (e.g., missing components or modules essential for correct system operation).
(d) Use of hardware or software by the Customer which is not approved by ATP.
(e) For incidents caused by hardware problems supplied by a third party, ATP can only provide fault diagnosis and advice services unless the hardware was supplied by ATP.
(f) Failure, misconfiguration or incompatibility of third party software.
(g) Unable to obtain remote access to supported system.
(h) Force Majeure events beyond ATP’s reasonable control, including but not limited to Acts of God, government regulations, labour strikes, sabotage, natural disaster and national emergency.
(i) Failure of communication circuits, Internet connections, electricity supply, other vital services or hardware not supplied by ATP.
(j) Configuration, software or Internet problems beyond the control of the Customer or ATP.
(k) Any act or omission on the part of any third party other than an authorised ATP.
(l) Problems not reported promptly by the Customer or where a Support Incident / Ticket Number has not been obtained.
(m) ATP technical support staff being denied necessary access to Customer systems, including being able to restart the system, where this is required to complete trouble shooting, repair, diagnosis, or acceptance testing.
(n) ATP being unable to verify service restoration with the Customer.
Limitation of Liability
50. In no event shall ATP have any liability for any special, punitive, indirect, or consequential damages, including, without limitation, damages for PBX or system fraud, lost profits, loss of data, costs of procurement of substitute goods or services, loss of use of equipment or facilities, or interruption of business, arising in any way out of this service agreement under any theory of liability, whether or not ATP has been advised of the possibility of such damages. These limitations shall apply notwithstanding the failure of the essential purpose of any limited remedy. In no event shall ATP’s liability to customer exceed the amount paid by Customer for the specific part giving rise to such a claim or the fees paid by Customer for the service giving rise to such a claim.
Indemnification
51. Customer shall indemnify and hold ATP harmless, including costs and legal fees, from any and all liabilities, and claims by the Customer’s employees, distributors, or customers arising out of the performance of this Agreement.
Miscellaneous
52. If the Customer should fail to fulfil its obligations under this Agreement and such failure causes significant lost time, inconvenience or cost to ATP, then ATP shall be entitled to invoice the Customer its then current daily rate for each complete day of such lost time.
53. This Agreement, ATP’s Shipping and Returns, and Standard Terms and Conditions for Products constitute the entire agreement between ATP and the Customer and supersedes all written or oral agreement between the parties.
54.If any of the terms or provisions of this Agreement are or become invalid or unenforceable then they shall be deemed severable and all other terms and conditions shall remain in full force and effect.
55.The current Shipping and Returns, and Standard Terms and Conditions for Products apply and can be viewed at www.austechpartnerships.com
56.This Agreement is deemed to be made in the State of Victoria and all disputes shall be determined by the Court of relevant jurisdiction in Australia.