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Global Service Level Agreement for Dotdigital
Global Service Level Agreement for Dotdigital

Technology service availability, support management and product release communication channels.

Gareth Burroughes avatar
Written by Gareth Burroughes
Updated over a week ago

Explanation of Service Level Agreement (SLA)

The SLA and performance measures will be reviewed throughout the agreement period against business needs and expectations. Where appropriate, service levels and their associated measures may be altered during the life of this agreement to provide more effective performance assessment.


Service availability

Description

The service availability measurement is used to determine if the service meets the requirement for availability as agreed. This measure excludes any downtime arising from incidents, which occur outside of our email platform. Downtime is where our system is unavailable to send email communications to ISP’s or the customer is unable to connect to the platform due to a fault at Dotdigital.

Measure

(Time Period – Scheduled Downtime – Unscheduled Downtime)
------------------------------------------------- x 100
(Time Period – Scheduled Downtime)

SLA target

99.5%

Frequency

To be measured on a rolling month basis.

Definitions

Time Period:

  • Total number of hours in any rolling month less the total of Scheduled Downtime.

Scheduled Downtime:

  • Any downtime or outage planned by us and notified to the customer 6 days in advance via dotdigitalstatus.com. Customers can subscribe to receive automatic notifications (via email, SMS, X/Twitter, RSS).

Unscheduled Downtime:

  • Any downtime or outage that has not been planned by us in advance.

Service credits

In the event that the SLA Target is not met, you’ll be entitled to Service Credits as an exclusive remedy, in accordance with our Terms (dotdigital.com/terms). Service Credits will be available to you upon request within 30 days of the calendar month in which the downtime occurred and will be apportioned to you as outlined below:

Percentage Uptime and credit:

  • 98% – 99.4% → 2% Credit

  • 97% – 97.9% → 5% Credit

  • 95% – 96.9% → 10% Credit

  • 88% – 94.9% → 20% Credit

  • <88% → 40% Credit


Incident handling

The Dotdigital support team is responsible for remedying faults within the application. We use an incident ticketing system to record all incidents reported to us. The support team will provide you with a ticket reference number and regular updates at agreed intervals during incident handling and rectification process (wherever applicable).

Where we experience widespread outages or interruption to normal service, we’ll provide regular updates via dotdigitalstatus.com. We’ll additionally provide detailed root cause analysis (RCA) reports for all Priority 1 – Urgent issues (see table below for more details on priority).


Response times

The response time is the maximum duration time from when you report an incident, to the time an initial response is sent back to you. We aim to answer telephone calls within 15 seconds (on average).

The table below shows ‘initial response’ and ‘ongoing update’ target times for support requests:


Priority Level


Description

Standard SLA

Premium SLA

Initial Response Time

Ongoing Updates

Initial Response Time

Ongoing Updates

1 - Urgent

Unable to access or reasonably use the Platform for any practical purpose.

Within 1 Business Hour

Every 2 Business Hours

Within 1 Business Hour

Every 2 Business Hours

2 - High

Material defect, or Material loss of performance or functionality.
No reasonable workaround.

Within 2 Business Hours

Every 4 Business Hours

Within 2 Business Hours

Every 4 Business Hours

3 - Normal

Material defect, or material loss of performance or functionality in the Platform, but a reasonable workaround exists.
Minor defect, or minor loss of performance or functionality, in the Platform with no reasonable workaround.
Customer operations can continue without significant impact.

Within 24 Business Hours

Every 3 Business Days

Within 6 Business Hours

Every 2 Business Days

4 - Low

Information requests or enhancement suggestions.
Customer operations are not impacted

Within 2 Business days

Every 5 Business Days

Within 24 Business Hours

Every 4 Business Days

Exclusions

Support services do not include:

  • User training.

  • Assistance with internet service provider (ISP) issues not caused by us.

  • Assistance with API code or external integrations not provided for or officially supported by us.

  • Assistance with issues relating to hardware, software or network equipment not owned or operated by us.

The following incident resolution definitions apply:

Workaround (Temporary Fix)
An agreed temporary workaround of the incident will allow you to use the service without noticeable degradation in the service as per the requirements of that priority level. Also, in some instances a temporary fix may not be available or appropriate in which case we’ll inform you of the estimated permanent fix resolution time. When a workaround/fix is provided, we’ll agree with you on the timescales for the delivery of the permanent fix.

Permanent Fix
A permanent fix of the incident that restores the system to full performance and functionality, consequently becomes part of the installed/maintained hardware/software. In some instances, the temporary fix can become the permanent fix. However, for SLA monitoring purposes we’ll treat Priority Level 1 incidents and service affecting Priority Level 2 incidents as resolved when a workaround is implemented, and you are able to use the service without noticeable degradation.


Communication channels

We provide several channels to share platform information in addition to staffed departments such as Support, Account Management and Customer Success.

At all times, the operational status of the platform is shown in real-time on our status page at dotdigitalstatus.com. This area will include summaries of RCA reports which are posted publicly according to our policy on openness and transparency. This page is independent of our infrastructure and will continue to operate regardless of application status.

As part of this agreement, we’d like you and your colleagues using the platform to subscribe to the status service via email, SMS or both to receive notifications.

Our resource centre is available at support.dotdigital.com and includes details of past platform updates, feature requests, FAQs and useful information on platform functionality. We provide best practice and industry information on the Dotdigital blog at blog.dotdigital.com.

During maintenance and updates, we’ll Tweet updates from our @dotdigitalhelp X/Twitter account. We’ll use the hashtag #ddMaint to provide ongoing updates on progress, delays or issues. This hashtag is used for both planned and unplanned maintenance.


Escalations

In that event target response times are not being met, an incident is of a particularly sensitive nature or you are not satisfied with the support service provided, you should ask to speak with a Support Team Manager/Lead in the first instance.

If you are not satisfied with the response at this point, you should ask to speak with the Global Head of Support. You can at any time discuss details of your account and support services with your Customer Success Representative.

If we fall short of the incredibly high standards we set ourselves, we’ll do everything in our power to put things right. We’ll always be here to listen and act swiftly. Our Customer Promise is your satisfaction guarantee and our commitment to providing solutions you’re delighted with.


Change management

We’re a Software as a Service solution and therefore run a shared environment. The platform is regularly updated with new features and functionality as well as bug fixes. These regular updates are made on a fortnightly schedule, but we reserve the right to adjust this as necessary. Regular updates are scheduled at a time that minimises impact for most customers – currently, 7:30 am (UK time).

For all regular updates, we’ll identify significant changes that could impact you, document these changes and send to you via email. This email will include both the details of the change and any risk factors this may have no later than 24 hours before the scheduled release time.

Full details of the update will be posted on the Dotdigital support forum after deployment and can be accessed at Announcements.

We’d like you and your colleagues to ‘follow’ our Feature Release section to make sure you receive release updates.


Capacity management

We’re responsible for ensuring adequate capacity planning is undertaken on a regular basis and we’ll communicate to you via dotdigitalstatus.com any instances where capacity issues may impact upon the user experience.


Release management

All updates to software and hardware follow a structured process that includes:

  • Planning

  • Documentation

  • Risk assessment

  • Testing

  • Post change analysis


Scheduled downtime

Scheduled downtime may be necessary for us to carry out essential maintenance. We’ll use commercially reasonable efforts to keep downtime to a minimum. In any event, scheduled downtime will not exceed four hours per month unless prior written notice is sent to you. We’ll keep all downtime to a practical minimum, but we need you to be aware the duration of the outage will vary dependent on the work being completed.

We’ll communicate any scheduled downtime via dotdigitalstatus.com and will give you at least six working days’ notice. This excludes emergency maintenance as detailed in our terms and conditions. We’ll take the needs of customers into account when planning scheduled downtime, but as the platform is a shared environment, we need consider the needs of all customers. Notifications will include details of the scope, duration and likely impact of the intended works.


Support contact details

You can visit our contact us page for our full contact information. Our support team operates 24 hours a day, Monday to Friday (you can enhance the coverage to include weekends if you need to). Occasionally, we adjust our regular opening hours over holiday periods, such as Christmas and New Year. If we do, we’ll communicate them via our contact us page.

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