Customer Support Procedures
For more information please contact:
[email protected] | UK: +44 (0) 870 879 3000 | US: +1 888 757 7476 www.blueprism.com
Contents Overview .......................................................................................................................................................................4 Service Description .......................................................................................................................................................4 What we provide.......................................................................................................................................................4 Prerequisites .............................................................................................................................................................4 Access to Support .........................................................................................................................................................4 Email .........................................................................................................................................................................4 Telephone .................................................................................................................................................................4 Self Service ................................................................................................................................................................4 Process for logging a new Support Request ..................................................................................................................5 Information to have ready ........................................................................................................................................5 Once a call is logged ..................................................................................................................................................5 Resolution .................................................................................................................................................................6 Closure ......................................................................................................................................................................6 Review ...........................................................................................................................................................................6 Reports......................................................................................................................................................................6 Service Review Meetings ..........................................................................................................................................6 Infrastructure Review................................................................................................................................................7 Appendix A ....................................................................................................................................................................8 Flow diagram showing Incident Logging and Resolution ..........................................................................................8 Appendix B ....................................................................................................................................................................9 Service Review Meeting ............................................................................................................................................9 Typical Agenda ..........................................................................................................................................................9 Appendix C – Infrastructure Review - Typical Agenda / Focus Points ...........................................................................9 Current Blue Prism Infrastructure .............................................................................................................................9 IT Objectives............................................................................................................................................................10 Current Method(s) of Accessing, Controlling and Monitoring ................................................................................10 Ambitions for the Blue Prism Capability..................................................................................................................10
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The information contained in this document is the proprietary and confidential information of Blue Prism Limited and should not be disclosed to a third party without the written consent of an authorised Blue Prism representative. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying without the written permission of Blue Prism Limited. © Blue Prism Limited, 2001 – 2016 ®Blue Prism is a registered trademark of Blue Prism Limited All trademarks are hereby acknowledged and are used to the benefit of their respective owners. Blue Prism is not responsible for the content of external websites referenced by this document. Blue Prism Limited, Centrix House, Crow Lane East, Newton-le-Willows, WA12 9UY, United Kingdom Registered in England: Reg. No. 4260035. Tel: +44 870 879 3000. Web: www.blueprism.com
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Overview The Blue Prism team is committed to customers' continued successful use of our products through a comprehensive support programme which provides:
Product and Process support within agreed SLA's
Comprehensive incident tracking, escalation and resolution procedures providing up to the minute status, next actions and schedules
Regular account service reviews
We also have a Customer Portal, giving registered customers access to additional documentation including Data Sheets, Roadmap information, Release notes and Product documentation, Software downloads, and details of User Group meetings. Blue Prism’s standard package provides support between the hours of 9:00 and 17:00 Monday to Friday excluding public holidays in your nominated time zone. Additional support packages are available – please enquire with your account manager. Support contract Terms & Conditions are available on request Blue Prism Support is managed by a central Help Desk facility to ensure continuity of support and issue resolution.
Service Description What we provide Blue Prism provides Third Line support services to resolve incidents where such issues cannot be resolved by the Customer.
Prerequisites Before logging an incident with Blue Prism Customer Services, it is expected that the Customer will have performed their own fault finding and investigation to attempt to reproduce and correct the problem. The Customer should ensure that any personnel dealing with diagnosis and resolution of a suspected issue have sufficient skills and competency reasonably expected of personnel working in a support environment and are accredited by Blue Prism in the use and operation of the Blue Prism Software.
Access to Support Requests for support may be raised in one of three ways:-
Email Sending an email to
[email protected] will automatically raise a support request in our incident management system
Telephone Support can be contacted in the UK on +44(0)330 321 0055. Support can be contacted in the US on +1 844 321 0055
Self Service Customers can also access our Help Desk system via the Blue Prism Portal (https://portal.blueprism.com). Navigate to the Support page to find the link to the Help Desk system. This allows customers to view their currently raised tickets, and raise new ones.
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Process for logging a new Support Request The information below details the process for raising a new support request:-
Information to have ready When contacting Blue Prism Customer Services for assistance, have the following information ready in order to expedite the process and ensure your query is handled quickly.
Blue Prism Version number o
Summary of issue o
To assist us in prioritising the issue, please give an indication of the severity of the problem. Definitions of the various severities we assign to issues can be found in the table below.
Steps to reproduce and details of investigation o
Provide information on what the issue is, what you are trying to achieve, and any relevant information such as environment details, types of application you are interacting with, recent changes made to the environment and processes etc.
Severity o
Version information is vital when dealing with problems. By telling us the version of the software that you are running, you enable us to accurately simulate the problem that you report by testing against the correct version You may find out which version of Blue Prism you are running by clicking the "About" option from the "Help" menu.
To help us to understand and replicate your problem, it is useful to have a clear explanation of the circumstances that led to the issue and details of investigations into the issue that have been undertaken. If it is not possible to create such documentation (eg if it is a problem that only happens occasionally with no apparent cause) then please tell us as much as you can about the specific issue.
Logs and Screenshots o
Depending on the nature of the problem, there may well be useful system diagnostic information available. For example if your concern is about a process which fails to run successfully then it is likely that the session log will contain useful information. Please be sure to anonymise any log data before you send it to the support team.
o
Other potential sources of information of interest include:
o
Audit log data
Error messages from the user interface
Exported processes
Screenshots of unexpected visual results
Windows Event logs
See the “Raising a Support Request” tutorial for further information on how to gather relevant logs etc.
Once a call is logged You will receive confirmation of your ticket reference by email. You will then receive a response from a Support consultant, either requesting more information, providing advice or details of next steps. A priority will be assigned to your ticket, with the following SLA:-
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9am-5pm weekday support with current standard SLA’s
Severity
Definition
Response
Resolution
Severity 1
The entire Blue Prism Software is not working on the Customer’s production system due to a critical issue
Response within one hour.
Fault resolved by the end of the following Business Day.
Severity 2
A substantial part of the Blue Prism Software is not working, or the entire Blue Prism Software is not working on the Customer’s test or development system.
Response within three hours.
Fault resolved by the end of the following three Business Days.
Severity 3
There are one or more issues that are causing inconvenience but the Blue Prism Software is substantially working.
Response within one Business Day.
Bug fix scheduled for the next available release.
Severity 4
There is a minor issue or a suggestion for a change in functionality or appearance of the Blue Prism Software.
Blue Prism shall consider such issues or requests in the light of other Customer requirements and will advise what action will be taken to address the issue.
When a ticket is awaiting response from a customer, the SLA clock is put on hold.
Resolution Resolution of an incident can take one (or more) of the following forms:
Acknowledgement of the fault and confirmation of expected resolution timescale
Workaround provided which achieves what the customer needs along with confirmation of expected resolution timescale
Advice that a fix is available in a current release (and that release made available to the customer).
An explanation why the reported issue is not a fault, along with details of any other options for resolving the issue if appropriate.
Closure When we believe that a ticket has been resolved to the customer’s satisfaction, we will contact the user who raised the ticket to confirm they are happy for this to be closed. The ticket will be closed on confirmation of resolution from the end user, or after two weeks if no response is received. Tickets can always be re-opened if required.
Review Reports If required, we can provide regular reports to customers on the status of their tickets by arrangement. You can also check the status of issues via the Portal.
Service Review Meetings We also offer the option of regular Service Review Meetings with the Customer Services Manager. This allows the opportunity to review Support performance and process, discuss any outstanding issues and their progress.
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It also allows an opportunity to share upcoming release information, and any upcoming projects or important dates for the customer. See Appendix B for a typical Service Review Meeting agenda.
Infrastructure Review The Blue Prism Infrastructure Review is a deployment “health-check” that is designed to review the hardware and associated software platforms that are featured as part of the Blue Prism implementation to provide commentary and insight regarding:
Best practice recommendations.
Features that could be considered to aid performance, resilience, fail-over and scalability.
The suitability of the current infrastructure with respect to the growth ambitions of the organisation in the medium to long term.
Regular optimisation and housekeeping recommendations aimed at keeping the platform running smoothly
The review is carried out through a mixture of onsite and remote engagements with the relevant teams within the organisations with the deliverable of a health-check report. See Appendix C for the typical Infrastructure Review Agenda/Focus Areas
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Appendix A Flow diagram showing Incident Logging and Resolution Customer contacts Blue Prism Support by phone
Customer emails support@blueprism .com
Blue Prism Support Consultant logs details of issue and informs customer of ticket reference number.
Customer creates ticket via Portal
Customer receives confirmation email with ticket reference number
Ticket assigned to Support Consultant
Support Consultant contacts customer to request relevant information.
Yes
Is further information required?
No Consultant works to resolve issue keeping customer updated on progress
Is issue resolved?
No
No
Does issue require 3rd line intervention?
Yes
Issue assigned to 3rd line consultant.
Workaround provided to customer.
Yes
Is workaround available?
Yes Customer contacted to confirm closure of ticket.
No
Ticket closed
Bug logged for resolution in future planned release.
Bug logged for resolution in patch release.
Release supplied to customer.
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Appendix B Service Review Meeting In order for Blue Prism to continue to provide a high quality support service to its customers, we recommend holding regular Service Review Meetings. These meetings give both Blue Prism and the customer the opportunity to review both past performance and future plans. The frequency of these meetings is determined on a case by case basis, but we would recommend once per quarter as a good starting point. If you are interested in arranging Service Review Meetings, please contact us via
[email protected].
Typical Agenda Introductions
All meeting attendees to introduce themselves.
Incident Case Review
Review SLA performance for the period since the last Service Review Meeting to include number of tickets raised / closed / still open.
Go through any outstanding incident tickets to report on current status.
Roadmap Review
Blue Prism to share future product plans and timescales, along with any upcoming service offerings that may be of interest to the customer, and review customer’s current version against latest current release to identify possible upgrade benefits vs. risks in not upgrading.
Customer to share future plans, to include any infrastructure changes, upgrade plans and process pipelines, along with any new processes implemented since the last meeting.
Service & Product Improvement
Discuss any items relating to things that could be done to improve the Customer Service experience.
Talk through any past incidents which may highlight a need for process change on either side, or a future product enhancement.
Discussion of any raised, or to be raised product enhancements not specifically linked to incidents.
Appendix C – Infrastructure Review - Typical Agenda / Focus Points Current Blue Prism Infrastructure Information capture:
Specification of various network resources (e.g. SQL Server, runtime resources, application servers)
Connectivity between the network resources
Current backup and monitoring processes
Virtualisation technologies used
Software that is installed on each of the relevant Blue Prism components
Any customer questions or concerns regarding the current performance and architecture of the platform.
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IT Objectives Identify if there are any planned changes to the network (e.g. hardware or software refresh), ambitions for enhancing the platform to provide high availability, high performance or cater for fail-over and disaster recovery scenarios.
Current Method(s) of Accessing, Controlling and Monitoring Understand the current user interaction with Blue Prism (e.g. via local or remote access) and the tools that are used for monitoring, controlling and troubleshooting the runtime resources.
Ambitions for the Blue Prism Capability Understand if there are any planned changes to the required capacity or nature of the platform (e.g. increased capacity/workload; new site locations where automation is required) and their respective timescales.
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