HQA M&S Services Policy

High QA – Annual Maintenance & Support Services Policy

This Annual Maintenance and Support (M&S) Program document describes High QA’s commitment to support Customers having current, active, Maintenance and Support (M&S) contracts per the Program’s terms and benefits.

High QA offers a Maintenance and Support (M&S) Program on an annual basis built-in to our subscription license purchase and renewal or M&S Program renewal for customers with a perpetual license. M&S renewal is optional for perpetual customers and is highly recommended and allows you to protect your investment in the software for the long term.

Ultimately, our shared goal is to establish a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship between High QA and our customers while ensuring that responsibilities and expectations are well-defined.

Plan Benefits

The annual High QA Maintenance and Support (M&S) Program provides you with the following exclusive benefits:

• Access to new software versions (Major releases). High QA typically releases two new versions every year, usually one in mid-year and one at the end of the year. These versions introduce improvements and new functionality, as well as software bug fixes.

  High QA reserves the right to develop, package and price separately new modules which offer significantly new functionality.

• Access to interim patches and Maintenance Releases, offering immediate enhancements and software bug fixes.

• Unlimited, self-paced training courses through the High QA Academy.

• Unlimited 24x7 access to our Online Resources Center with ticketing and context-sensitive knowledge base system that includes Product Documentation, Educational Video clips, specific topics, and How-To articles, Troubleshooting information, and more.

• Triage phone support is offered between 8 AM - 6 PM, Monday - Friday (East Coast time, daylight savings affected), excluding company scheduled holidays. If your call is not answered by our staff, please leave a voice mail and we will reply as soon as we can.

Technical Support Policy

High QA Technical Support staff is available Monday-Friday from 8 AM - 6 PM EST. Support tickets are made using our online High QA Support Portal.

Support is provided for product and technical issues related to High QA software. The customer is responsible for reporting any issues via the High QA Support Portal/ticketing system. High QA only provides support for High QA software and installation, and we are not responsible for the customer’s IT environment and infrastructure, the customer is responsible for complying with our “Hardware and Software Requirements” (additional details are provided at the end of the document).

Support tickets can be reported 24/7 using the following support channels:

• High QA’s Online Resources Portal, Ticketing System at: https://highqa.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/

• From within the “Inspection Manager” software (using F3) – when connected to the internet.

• Via email to a general support email address: support@highqa.com

• Call us between 8 AM to 6 PM Eastern Standard Time at: 1-888-727-1266 Ext.1
  

Initial triage of all support issues will be based on the information provided by the customer. Customers should include as much information as possible to ensure High QA prioritizes the issue appropriately. The customer can attach supporting documentation to the support ticket, such as screenshots, and video clips describing the set of actions in the software that led to the issue, a clear description of the issue and its implication, and perceived priority (see the following article Using Support Portal to create tickets)

While our documentation is well vetted and the software installation wizard and experience should work well, we also offer hands-on technical/IT-related support calls with our engineers. Those will be scheduled based on our availability and we limit our technicians to 2 hours per ticket/incident, of support call before requiring management approval.

Issue Escalation Methodology

Issues reported through the High QA Portal will be triaged and escalated to the appropriate internal expert based on severity level. Our Professional Services Team will manage escalated tickets based on the following guidelines:

Not included in the M&S Subscription are Custom Reports and non-standard Presets (CMM/VMM/Other Digital Measurements Imports) Certifications requests. Those will be scoped, priced, and scheduled based on a first come first served basis.

Customer Technology IT, Environment, and Infrastructure

From our experience, issues related to this subject can extend over a longer time and may sometimes fall in the gray area between the software quality, security protection blocking access to data folders, permissions access (admin) control, network connectivity, and the infrastructure resources. In addition, many times High QA needs to support customers with a 3RD Party IT provider which can create delay and collaboration challenges. In the following, we are listing our best recommendations to prevent, minimize, and recommend the best practices to collaborate successfully and resolve in a professional and timely manner.

The Customer should be responsible for the following:

Communication: It is critically important to have timely and effective communication between our support team and the customer's IT staff. We encourage a designated point of contact for both parties.

System Requirements: Our requirements clearly outline the minimum needed system infrastructure prerequisites for the software to operate optimally. It's the customer's responsibility to meet these requirements. Here is the link to the Hardware and Software Requirements.

Infrastructure Maintenance: Address issues related to the maintenance of hardware and software components in the customer's environment. This includes server maintenance, operating system updates, security-related patches, and database management.

Data Backups: Stress the importance of regular data backups and data recovery procedures. While your software may have its own backup mechanisms, the responsibility for safeguarding critical data often rests with the customer.

Security Measures: Security policy and measures are the responsibility of the customer. This could involve firewall configurations, access controls, and data encryption. We will collaborate to ensure alignment and understanding of all parties’ roles in keeping customers’ environments secure.

Integration with Third-Party Systems: If your software installation, leverages the API to integrate with third-party systems, we would like to emphasize that the customer is responsible for issues related to changes in the third-party API versions or compatibility. You can purchase additional consulting services from High QA, to review those integrations with our Programming Services, to suggest the best strategy and tools for integration, to accomplish the business needs.

Performance Optimization: The customer is requested to monitor and optimize the performance of their infrastructure as it relates to the software installation. We will provide guidelines as necessary.

Third-Party Support such as Anti/Virus/Security Requirements: Refer to the following KB Security Requirements Article.

Consider having a Staging Environment: If you anticipate strict compliance and certification requirements (such as medical-FDA certification, DOD), we encourage customers to set up a staging and testing environment that mirrors their production environment configuration for software updates and patches. We stress the importance of testing updates before deploying them in the production environment. High QA offers purchasing a staging environment at a significantly reduced price.

High QA’ Staff Discussion Points. Recommended IT best practices:

1. Disaster Recovery Planning: Discuss the importance of disaster recovery and business continuity planning. Make it clear that the customer is responsible for creating and maintaining these plans.
   

2. Documentation: Encourage customers to maintain detailed documentation of their infrastructure setup, configurations, and procedures. This can greatly assist in troubleshooting and resolving issues.
   

3. Training and Knowledge Transfer: Offer training resources or recommendations to help customers better understand and manage their IT infrastructure in relation to your software.
   

4. Escalation Procedures: Clearly define the escalation process for issues that fall under the customer's responsibility but require your assistance or collaboration.
   

5. Regular Audits and Assessments: Suggest periodic audits or assessments of the customer's IT environment to ensure it aligns with your software's requirements and best practices.