This manual covers T6 Planning's support policies and procedures for its clients. It provides detailed information on hiring technical support resources, accessing online services, managing technical support incidents, client online resources, product versions, support limitations, maintenance renewal, and different support levels offered by T6 Planning. Additionally, the manual addresses issues such as incident prioritization, problem identification and resolution, patch requests, support expiration, and product lifecycle, among other topics related to T6 Planning's technical support services.
The T6 Planning Technology Services team looks forward to working with you. We describe in detail below the policies and procedures that have been designed to provide a framework for an effective and productive relationship with our clients. This policy is subject to change at the sole discretion of T6 Planning. Notifications of these changes will be posted on the T6 Planning website https://www.sysphera.com/ when the changes become effective, or close to that time.
In the event of any discrepancies between the content of the policy in different languages, the English version will prevail.
T6 Planning provides its Technical Support Services for the software products licensed by itself (generally referred to as "Products") to all its clients, partners, and distributors (generally referred to as "Client").
Technical Support Services include responses to questions about software operation, troubleshooting, online support, and updates. Only clients with a valid Technical Support Services contract can receive Technical Support Services.
Note: The Technical Support Services outlined in this document describe the offering of T6 Planning's Standard Support.
T6 Planning also offers Premium Support Services, which are described in the Appendix of this document.
To hire online Technical Support resources, the user needs to contact the T6 Planning sales representative.
After hiring online Technical Support, the client will receive an account to access the T6 Planning support site https://support.sysphera.com/ according to their contract type. The account will be in the name of the person designated by the client as responsible for support relations, as detailed below.
T6 Planning's technical support will provide a more effective service if the client collaborates in designating a person identified as the "Responsible for Support Relations." A "Responsible for Support Relations" is a person designated by the Client, through their licenses or maintenance agreement, as a point of contact with T6 Planning Support staff. Technical support services can only be obtained by a "Responsible for Support Relations." It is assumed that "Responsibles for Support Relations" keep track of all technical issues that have been escalated to Technical Support. Thus, all communications relevant to their respective cases will be conducted by these named individuals.
The Support agreement between the client and T6 Planning is provided for the set of "Responsibles for Support Relations," who are authorized to contact Technical Support. Additionally, new "Responsibles for Support Relations" can be informed to T6 Planning when necessary. It is the client's responsibility to inform T6 Planning's technical support if there are existing cases that should be transferred when the "Responsible for Support Relations" is changed. Please note that the designated "Responsible for Support Relations" will be automatically registered to receive important Technical Support notifications via email.
During the troubleshooting process, T6 Planning's technical support staff may make recommendations that require administrative privileges on projects deployed with T6 Planning's Products, and it is assumed that the designated Responsible for Support Relations has a security level that allows them to fully manipulate T6 Planning's Products and access potentially sensitive project data, such as security filter settings. While not a requirement, we recommend that clients only designate Responsible for Support Relations who have permissions to be project administrators for T6 Planning's Product. This will eliminate security conflicts and improve incident resolution time. It is the client's responsibility to notify T6 Planning if the hiring of the "Responsible for Support Relations" has been terminated so that access to Technical Support is suspended.
Only clients with a valid Technical Support Services contract can access Client Online Resources. All Client Online Resources must be accessed using an account to the T6 Planning Technical Support site. It is the Client's responsibility to notify T6 Planning of any account that needs to be suspended.
Available online are: T6 Planning Technical Support Site, Download Site, and knowledge base. Clients are encouraged to take advantage of these resources to research system issues before registering an incident. These resources can be accessed using Internet Explorer version 8.0 or higher.
The Online Support Site is a centralized location for registering incidents, checking the status of existing incidents, accessing product documentation, downloading product versions, and searching the Knowledge Base. The Online Support Site is available at https://support.sysphera.com/.
As the site identifies users through login, each Client receives personalized information. Customer information security is important to us, and therefore, every necessary precaution is taken to ensure that no Client can access another Client's information.
The Online Support Interface is the mechanism through which the Responsible for Support Relations can register new incidents with Technical Support or check the status of existing incidents online.
The Knowledge Base is a repository of technical documentation designed to provide 24/7 online Technical Support. The Knowledge Base includes:
The product documentation provided on the Technical Support Site is the same documentation included with the T6 Planning Products set. It can be downloaded from the Technical Support Site in PDF format. Product documentation is grouped by version and language.
The T6 Planning Download Site is the online repository for all T6 Planning products and manuals. The client will also have access to download the licenses purchased by their company. Any discrepancies in product versions or licenses available to the client should be immediately reported to their respective sales contact.
When a Client has a problem they cannot resolve on their own or using any of the available resources, the Responsible for Support Relations can register an incident related to their problem directly on the T6 Planning Technical Support site.
Before registering an incident with T6 Planning Technical Support, the Responsible for Support Relations must follow the steps below:
To register an incident, the Responsible for Support Relations can contact T6 Planning Technical Support through the Online Support Interface. Only Responsible for Support Relations can register incidents with T6 Planning Technical Support. After registering an incident, the Responsible for Support Relations receives an incident identification number for future reference.
When registering an incident, be prepared to provide the following information:
To better understand the impact of the problem on the Client, assistance may be needed to jointly describe a "business case" about the problem. The "business case" describes the effect of the problem on the Client's environment from a non-technical perspective. This allows T6 Planning's Technical Support Engineers to understand how the incident hinders the Client's ability to successfully implement a T6 Planning solution.
A "business case" may include, but is not limited to:
T6 Planning assigns priority levels to incidents to allow Technical Support to maximize service levels for each Client. Depending on technical and business needs, T6 Planning works with each Responsible for Support Relations to define the correct level of priority for each incident.
T6 Planning recognizes that the technical and business priorities of each Client may involve overtime. If the Responsible for Support Relations believes that the incident's priority should be changed, T6 Planning's Technical Support Engineer is available to prioritize the incident again.
T6 Planning reserves the right to:
T6 Planning will make all reasonable commercial efforts to comply with the guidelines described below regarding problem resolution.
| SEVERITY | DEFINITION | INITIAL RESPONSE TIME |
|---|---|---|
| 1 - Critical | Production system is down. | < 4 hours |
| 2 - High | A production system resource is severely affected, or the development system is interrupted and causes a serious impact on the consumer. | < 6 hours |
| 3 - Medium | Production or development system is affected, but it is possible to continue production or development. | < 12 hours |
| 4 - Low | Usability issues, configuration, or software conflicts. | < 24 hours |
Customers registering incidents of priority level one (01) and level two (02) must be available to work full time throughout the resolution process with T6 Planning Technical Support to solve the problem. The Client must be willing to involve the necessary personnel level to effectively solve the problem and must be available to assist T6 Planning Technical Support with tasks such as testing, providing the appropriate information, implementing suggestions, etc. Resolution may be delayed if information is not provided promptly.
Once the problem is identified, T6 Planning Technical Support can provide Customers with one of the options below as a solution to the problem:
Sometimes, failures in third-party software may limit the operation of T6 Planning software. In these cases, Technical Support will try to identify the defective component so that the Client can seek a fix for the failure with the other vendor. Refer to the Third-Party Software section for additional details.
During problem location and resolution, T6 Planning's technical support team may require client data, such as diagnostics, database copies, remote access, etc. For customer convenience, T6 Planning provides various methods for transmitting this data, such as email, technical support website, and T6 Planning download site. However, if the customer is sharing any data that may be subject to government regulation, it is the customer's responsibility to transmit it to T6 Planning using the T6 Planning support site under the HTTPS protocol (the same security system provided by bank websites). Customers must work with the assigned technical support engineer for their cases to coordinate any data transfers.
Remote access to the client's problematic workstation or even remote access to the server where T6 Planning's product is installed may also be requested for the continuation of technical diagnostics.
This chapter presents the types of versions, requests, patches, and more.
T6 Planning provides cumulative version types to Clients. They are described below.
Major versions (A.b.c.d) are vehicles for delivering major and minor feature development and improvements to existing features. They incorporate all applicable bug fixes made in previous major versions, minor versions, and service packs. Major versions are typically released within a year after the previous major version.
Example:
Version: 11.2.1234.2345
Major Version: 11
Minor Version: 2
Service Pack (Build): 1234.2345
Minor versions (a.B.c.d) are vehicles for delivering minor feature developments, improvements to existing features, and bug fixes. They incorporate all applicable bug fixes made in previous minor versions, service packs. Minor versions are typically released within six months after the previous major version.
Example:
Version: 11.2.1234.2345
Major Version: 11
Minor Version: 2
Service Pack (Build): 1234.2345
Service packs (a.b.C.D) are vehicles for delivering improvements to existing features and bug fixes. They incorporate all applicable bug fixes made in previous service packs. Service packs are typically released as often as needed to stabilize the previous minor or major version.
Example:
Version: 11.2.1234.2345
Major Version: 11
Minor Version: 2
Service Pack (Build): 1234.2345
Customers can request a new patch to fix a critical issue at any time. However, patches are provided at the discretion of T6 Planning, based on technical complexity, customer business requirements, and schedules.
Once T6 Planning agrees to create a patch, it enters a queue with other scheduled releases. Typically, the required waiting period for a patch is longer than the waiting period for a scheduled release Service Pack or hotfix.
Once a bug is fixed in an available version, any customer encountering this bug in an earlier version should update to the available version, rather than requesting a patch.
T6 Planning provides support for each minor version for at least three years. Minor versions expire one year after they are replaced by another minor or major version.
Service packs are supported only as long as the respective minor or major version lasts.
The product expiration schedule is posted on the corporate website of T6 Planning, available at https://www.Sysphera.com/.
T6 Planning Technical Support has defined the policies described below regarding Product Updates, renewal of Technical Support Services, and Customers with outstanding overdue invoices.
Technical Support Services include Product Updates (as defined in the Software License Agreement between the customer and T6 Planning). See the Product Versions section for additional details on Product Updates and Support expiration.
A new License Key may be requested when upgrading to a newer version of T6 Planning. If this happens, please contact your Account Executive to request License Keys (the same contact used to hire technical support).
Customers cannot renew Technical Support Services on a subset of their licensed T6 Planning Products. When Technical Support Services expire, the Customer has the option to renew all licensed products or let Technical Support Services expire for all licensed products.
Technical Support Services will be suspended for clients with outstanding overdue invoices. Upon receipt of payment for the invoices, T6 Planning reinstates Technical Support Services.
Since October 1, 2009, a fee is charged to clients when requesting physical delivery of product manuals and CDs. Requests for physical materials should be made directly to the Client's Account Executive for processing. Existing clients currently benefiting from Technical Support Services can continue to download documentation and software products from the T6 Planning Technical Support Site https://support.sysphera.com/ for free.
There are some limitations to Technical Support Services, including on-site services, support for web customizations of T6 Planning products, and support for third-party software.
Technical Support Services do not include services that, in the normal business operation of T6 Planning, are provided to clients as "consulting services." These consulting services include, but are not limited to, on-site system condition analysis, development and support for custom applications, Data Warehouse design, requirements analysis, system performance tuning, and database design. Technical Support Services do not include on-site services. Refer to the Appendix at the end of this document for offerings that include on-site support.
T6 Planning products depend on various third-party components to function correctly. These components may include, but are not limited to, databases, operating systems, firewalls, browsers, application servers, web servers, and Microsoft Office suite applications. Technical Support from T6 Planning assists in the development and use of the T6 Planning platform with these components but does not provide direct support for third-party components. The client is responsible for configuring these components and ensuring the operation of other applications in the desired configuration before contacting T6 Planning Technical Support to discuss any issues related to T6 Planning software.
In some cases, T6 Planning Technical Support may be available to work and provide information to third-party vendors. If a failure in third-party software causes T6 Planning software to operate with reduced performance, T6 Planning Technical Support will identify this component so that the client can seek a solution with the correct vendor.
Clients can request T6 Planning license keys and inquire about their compliance with their respective license agreements from T6 Planning Technical Support.
When a client reports a compliance incident, T6 Planning will first attempt to determine if the incident is caused by a product issue. If the incident is indeed a product issue, T6 Planning Technical Support will facilitate resolution according to the Response guidelines in the detailed section of this document. If it is determined that a compliance incident is not caused by the product but by excessive development, clients will be asked to contact the Account Executive to adjust their licensing agreement with the respective development.
T6 Planning offers two levels of Technical Support to clients: Standard and Extended.
Standard Support provides:
Extended Support offers all the benefits of Standard Support, plus:
Clients can upgrade their support level by contacting a Technical Support Manager or their respective Account Executive.
In the case of Extended Support, during non-business hours, the T6 Planning Support Engineer will stabilize the client's application or find a reasonable interim solution. However, determining the cause may extend to business working hours when all resources are available. 24x7 support does not include code-level or Technology support.
Clients with development in multiple locations may need to designate access to Support Relations Representatives at different Support Centers; with intercontinental Support, the client can assign each Support Relations Representative to the Support Center that best reflects their business hours.
The T6 Planning Maintenance Renewal team handles all issues related to the renewal of T6 Planning maintenance agreements. Contact the Maintenance Renewal team in the following ways:
Email: T6PlanningMaintenanceRenewal@T6Planning.com
Email: T6PlanningMaintenanceRenewal@T6Planning.com