A definition of the terms used in this article.
Availability | The customer’s ability to access and use all functionalities of the LMS pursuant to the detailed specification and shall be calculated pursuant to section 5 below. |
Business Day | Any day other than a Saturday, Sunday or English public holiday or bank holiday or those Business Days between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day deemed by Unicorn as days when service is unlikely to be required, 9.00am - 5.30pm UK hours, subject to Unicorn giving 10 days’ notice to the customer that it intends to be closed on such Business Days. |
Downtime | Any period of non-scheduled service unavailability calculated from the time of notification of a fault by the customer to Unicorn. |
End User | Employees of the customer or any Group Member and any other persons nominated by the customer who are permitted to have access to the LMS on the terms of this Agreement. |
Permanent Fix | A permanent resolution of the support issue. |
Response Time | The times as set out in section 1 below when Unicorn responds to a support issue raised by the customer and which, for the avoidance of doubt, are calculated from the notification submitted by the customer during the Support Hours. |
Resolution Time |
The times as set out in section 1 below by which a Workaround or a Permanent Fix is provided in respect of the Support Issue and which for the avoidance of doubt is calculation from notification of the Support Issue by the customer during the Support Hours. |
Service Credit | A credit provided to the customer for each Service Failure event and is calculated pursuant to section 5 below. |
Service Failure |
(a) in respect of the Support Issue, failure by Unicorn to comply with the Resolution Time pursuant to paragraph 4 below; or (b) where the LMS fails to achieve Availability of 99.75% pursuant to section 5 below. |
Support Hours | The hours between 9.00am and 5.30pm Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays or public holidays in the United Kingdom. |
Support Issue |
(a) a failure of the LMS to perform in accordance with these Unicorn Training's Service Levels; or (b) a cessation, interruption or degradation of the usual functionality of the LMS. |
Workaround |
A temporary resolution in respect of the Support Issue and may include Unicorn performing the task on an ongoing basis on behalf of the customer’s End Users until a Permanent Fix is provided. |
1. Priority information
When a case is reported to Support we notify you to confirm your query has been received and then we allocate an Activity Case ID and a priority. We are often asked for the timescale of how long it will take for your query to be resolved.
Below are the priorities that we allocate to calls and the rationale for the allocation. If you are unsure what level of priority your call has been allocated at, please ask a member of the Support team.
Priority 1 (Critical) | Support issues which render the LMS unusable (Major Incident). Assigned immediately and resolved within 1 Business Day. |
Priority 2 (Urgent) | Support issues which render key areas of the LMS or content in the LMS unusable. Assigned within 2 hours and resolved within 2 Business Days. |
Priority 3 (High) | Support issues which do not render the LMS unusable but significantly impacts on the End User’s ability to perform a required action. Assigned within 8 hours and resolved within 5 Business Days. |
Priority 4 (Medium) | Support issues which do not render the system or content unusable but have some impact on access, usability and accuracy of the LMS. Assigned within 3 Business Days and resolved within 4 calendar weeks (in a scheduled maintenance release in the case of platform issues). |
Priority 5 (Low) | Support issues which have no significant impact on access and usability of the LMS. Assigned within 5 Business Days and resolved within 8 calendar weeks (in a scheduled maintenance release in the case of platform issues). |
A Support Issue will be lowered in its level of priority and notified to you once a suitable Workaround has been provided. All Permanent Fixes are subject to investigation, implementation and testing, and may require up to 4 weeks for such Permanent Fixes to be released, subject to your agreement.
If your Support query relates to an issue on one of our mobile applications, please be advised that we need to involve a third party (Apple and Google) to review and approve any submitted changes. This may take up to 7 days to review. For further information on this process, please speak to Support.
2. Our responsibilities
During your subscription period Unicorn shall:
- Provide maintenance and support services as described
- Maintain procedures for reporting, management and escalation of Support Issues
- Ensure the resolution of Support Issues whether through a Permanent Fix or a Workaround in accordance with the Response Time and Resolution Time.
3. Your responsibilities
During your subscription period the customer shall:
- Report a Support Issue, through via the Support telephone line +44 (0)800 055 6586 or email address unicorn.helpdesk@theaccessgroup.com as soon as practicable and provide sufficient detail of such Support Issue subject always that Unicorn shall request for information it requires from the customer; and ensure the Availability of the relevant personnel to provide assistance in the resolution of the Support Issues to the extent reasonably required by Unicorn.
4. Scope of maintenance and support service provided
Unicorn shall provide the maintenance and support services by means of telephone and email support to you for the following:
- Diagnosing the root cause of a Support Issue
- Advice and support on the set up, accessibility and use of the LMS
- Provision of a Permanent Fix or a Workaround in respect of all Support Issues raised by the customer in respect of the LMS, save for the exception set out below.
Exceptions to the maintenance and support services include the following:
- Responsibility for any End User hardware or software with which the LMS is used
- Development work on any customer-owned or third-party content to enable it to correctly function on the LMS
- Requests which would require the modification or extraction of data directly from the the LMS database
- Amendments to functionality as a result of changing customer requirements or redefinition of requirements after the Final Acceptance Date and
- Development required as a result of changes to the customer’s own organisational infrastructure or business procedures.
Please note: All Support Issues raised by the customer’s offices whether in or outside the United Kingdom shall be dealt with by Unicorn based on the Response and Resolution Times during the Support Hours. By way of example, where the customer’s office in Singapore submits a support request at 11.00am Singapore time, the Response and Resolution Times will only commence at 9.00am GMT or BST (as appropriate).
5. Availability Service Level
Unicorn provide a very robust service, the Service Level for the Availability of the LMS is 99.75% based on 24 hours x 365 days, excluding planned or scheduled downtime.
If any interruption of the Availability occurs Unicorn shall investigate and log the event and shall take all reasonable steps in accordance with the Response and Resolution Times to provide a Permanent Fix or a Workaround with a view to preventing a recurrence of the cause.
Please note: Planned or scheduled downtime does not constitute Downtime. It is our policy to organise planned or scheduled downtime outside of Business Days, however, should it have to occur during Business Days for technical reasons and the period of downtime is greater than 30 minutes Unicorn will give the customer at least 10 days’ notice.
Availability is to be calculated at the end of each calendar month in respect of the in accordance with the following formula:
A = (T – D) / T
where:
- 'A' means the Availability of the LMS (expressed as a percentage)
- 'D' means the total number of hours in the respective month during which
the LMS is unavailable, subject to paragraph 6.3 above which shall not be
included in the Availability calculation - 'T' means the total number of hours in that respective month.
For the purposes of calculating service unavailability (Downtime “D”), Downtime shall be calculated from the time of notification of a fault by the customer to Unicorn.
Downtime shall end when Availability of the LMS is restored to the customer.
In the event of a Service Failure, Unicorn shall at its own cost:
- Notify the customer immediately of the Service Failure
- Provide the customer with a plan to remedy the Service Failure and carry this out in accordance with Unicorn terms
- Award a Service Credit for Service Failures as detailed below.
The Service Credits shall be calculated as a sum equivalent to one day's worth of Licence Fee over a term of 12 months for Priority 1 and/or Priority 2 Service Failures as set out under paragraph 4 where less than 90% resolution is achieved by Unicorn for these priorities in any three consecutive months, and for the avoidance of doubt no Service Credits shall be payable for Priority 3, 4 or 5 Service Failures. Service credits will also be payable should System Availability fall below 99.75% in any three consecutive months.
Any sums owing to the customer as a Service Credit shall be deducted accordingly from any fees due from the customer under this contract.
Unicorn shall have no responsibility for, and Downtime shall not include, any time when the LMS Subscription is not Available as a result of any of the following:
- Failure of the customer’s internet connection
- Failure of any customer communications facilities or other customer equipment or any act of the customer which directly causes the Downtime.
Any emergency or unplanned Downtime shall be taken into account in respect of the Availability calculations.