Introduction
Support tickets are categorized according to an issue severity scale. Help@CS support efforts are prioritized based on the impact of the issue, and on the support level of the the technology area and/or operating level agreement with third-party vendors.
Technical support requests within a severity level are generally processed on a first-come, first-serve basis. Service(s) Down and High impact requests that require an immediate response or direct help of technical support specialists may be processed out of turn.
When submitting a Support ticket, you are requested to supply detailed information (such as name and version of the product, platforms, example machines, steps to reproduce, exact error messages, logs, changes made to the system or environment prior to the issue, etc) for the Help@CS support staff to properly identify and diagnose the issue and speed up response and resolution of the ticket. Failure to supply this information upon request may result in a delay of support assistance.
Help@CS support cannot guarantee a fixed problem resolution period due to a number of influencing factors, amongst them:
- Timely replies
- Response time of a third party company
- The need to prepare and release hotfix, software update, new feature, etc.
- The Issue Severity of a support ticket is set according to the guidelines listed below.
Since it is not possible to define every possible condition or technical situation, these guidelines can only provide guidance.
Service(s) Down
Production application down or major malfunction resulting in a product inoperative condition. Users are unable to reasonably perform their normal functions.
The specific functionality is mission critical to the business and the situation is considered an emergency.
Qualifying Conditions
- Help@CS server completely unusable
- Help@CS related issue that stops all monitoring, alerting or ticketing functions resulting in a loss of productivity and remote monitoring functionality.
- No Help@CS agents are checking in / All Agents are offline.
- No admin can remote control
- Help@CS Service Desk module (or Ticketing system) is completely down, no tickets are accessible.
- Support Effort
- Requires maximum effort from Help@CS and user, until an emergency fix is developed or workaround is available.
Critical situations may require both user and Help@CS personnel to be at their respective work locations on an around-the-clock basis.
If the authorized or designated user’s contact is not available to engage in this effort, Help@CS may reduce the Severity level. If the user refuses to implement the steps suggested to troubleshoot or correct the issue, Help@CS may close the ticket.
High
Critical loss of application functionality or performance resulting in a high number of users unable to perform their normal functions. Major feature/product failure; inconvenient workaround or no workaround exists. The service is usable but severely limited.
Qualifying Conditions
- Service interruptions to some, but not all, modules (Example: Modules not functional for some users but functional for others.)
- Time-sensitive issue reported by user, which may adversely affect grading, monitoring or productivity (Example: All modules have ceased to function or are not generating data, or some but not all user in the system cannot use the service).
- In a production system, important tasks cannot be performed, but the error does not impair essential operations (Example: Server performance is slow, but users are checking in and it is usable, All reports are giving errors).
- Most (but not all) admins are unable to remote control into any service. A workaround exists by using an alternative remote control module
- Some types of features are non-functional
- Support Effort
- Requires intensive support effort from Help@CS and user, until a fix is developed or workaround is available.
High situations do not generally require user and Help@CS personnel to be at their respective work locations on an around-the-clock basis. Help@CS personnel will build an agreement with the user about what effort is required.
If the authorized or designated user contact is not available to engage in this effort, Help@CS may reduce the Severity level. If the user refuses to implement the steps suggested to troubleshoot or correct the issue, Help@CS may close the ticket.
Normal
Moderate loss of application functionality or performance resulting in multiple users impacted in their normal functions. Minor feature/product failure, a convenient workaround exists/minor performance degradation/not impacting production.
Qualifying Conditions
- The system is up and running, but the problem causes a non-negligible impact.
- A workaround exists, but it is only temporary (Example: A report can be triggered manually but does not run when scheduled.)
- The software still functions in the user’s environment, but there are functional limitations that are not critical in the daily operation (Example: User is getting service but wants them to behave in a different manner.)
- Does not prevent the operation of a production system or there is some degradation in performance (Example: The issue affects a small subset of users)
- Moderate loss of application functionality or performance resulting in multiple users impacted in their normal functions
- A workaround exists by using an alternative
- Important to long-term productivity (Example: User cannot set up a particular service or an installation script for third-party software is not working as intended.)
- Support Effort
- Requires moderate support effort from Help@CS and user, until a fix is developed or workaround is available.
Normal Impact situations do not require around-the-clock effort.
If the user refuses to implement the steps suggested to troubleshoot or correct the issue, Help@CS may close the ticket.