Service Levels

1            

INTRODUCTION

1.1                     

Service Provider will provide, measure and report the quality of the Services provided under the Agreement in accordance with the terms of this Service Level Agreement (“SLA”). Service Levels herein are subject to reasonable adjustment:

1.1.1              in accordance with a change in Law requiring the same; or

1.1.2              when the present level unreasonably causes competitive disadvantage; or

1.1.3              when Service Provider’s business operating model necessitates changes to the present level description and / or way of work.

2                              

MEASURING AND REPORTING

2.1                     

Open tickets and incidents which require consultation with Customer or remedial action will be discussed, where applicable, via an appropriate communications medium or platform.

2.2                     

If Service Provider, for a specific Service Level, missed the Minimum Performance Level for (3) consecutive months, then a Service Level Default is proclaimed on the 3rd month and subsequent months until the Minimum Performance Level is reached for that Service Level. However, the same Service Level can only be considered to be missed once for a particular month.

3                              

EXCUSED PERFORMANCE

3.1                     

Service Providers failure to meet a Service Level will be excused if such failure is as a result of any of the following:

3.1.1              During Force Majeure Events;

3.1.2              Customer, Customer’s End User or Customer’s negligence or wilful misconduct, or the negligence or wilful misconduct of others authorized by Customer and / or Customer’s End User to use or receive the Services provided under this Agreement;

3.1.3              Failure of equipment, services, software or systems not provided or managed by Service Provider, its Affiliates or Subcontractors or suppliers;

3.1.4              Performance of Services pursuant to the Disaster Recovery Plan.

4                              

SUPPORT LEVELS

4.1                     

Service Provider will at all times endeavour to provide the Service at the Target Performance Levels.

4.2                     

Service Provider understand the importance of the Service in the context of [Category]’s business.

4.3                     

Service Provider will endeavour, that when an incident is reported with regards to the Services, it meets prompt, efficient, accurate, complete, appropriate, professional, and a competent level of service, as defined in this SLA.

4.4                     

It is the intention of this SLA to ensure that incidents are resolved, where applicable:

4.4.1              within [Category]’s applicable Pay Period;

4.4.2              before [Category]’s applicable Payment Date;

4.4.3              In line with a Self-Service Process. or;

4.4.4              In line with a Correct Output requirement.

4.5                     

Service Provider further acknowledges that there are certain processes that are detached from a Pay Period, such as Self-Services Processes, and where the severity of an incident cannot be determined based on the Pay Period. 

4.6                     

Service Provider is a global payroll service provider and provide the Services in excess of 50 countries across more than 4 continents.

4.7                     

Service Provider provides a tiered level of support across all its Services and the tiered Support Level is based on the location of the Global, In Country and / or Regional Country Support Centre.

4.8                     

IT IS OF ABSOLUTE IMPORTANCE THAT, WHEN A MEASUREMENT WINDOW IS ASSESED AND SERVICE LEVELS ARE CALCULATED, THE TIME ZONE OF THE GLOBAL, IN COUNTRY AND / OR REGIONAL COUNTRY SUPPORT CENTRE LOCATION IS TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION AND THAT TIME ZONE VARIANCES / DIFFERENCES ARE INCLUDED IN SUCH CALCULATIONS.

4.9                     

The tables below describe the levels of support provided and from which Global, In Country and / or Regional Country Support Centre it is supported:

4.9.1              Table 1(a) – Service Provider Support Levels (Tiers)

4.9.2              Table 1(b) – Support Locations

5                              

INCIDENT MANAGEMENT AND RESOLUTION

5.1                     

Whenever there is an incident related to the Service and/or a missed Service Level that requires resolution, Service Provider will work on resolving it according to the priority levels indicated in the applicable clause 7.

5.2                     

Service Provider will follow an incident management process as per Service Provider’s standards operating procedure.

6                              

CLASSIFICATION OF INCIDENTS

6.1                     

It is not necessary (nor is it likely) to have a perfect match of each characteristic to categorize an incident at a particular severity level. An incident must also be judged against other characteristics, to make an overall assessment of which severity level, best describes the incident. These characteristics being:

6.1.1              correct Output Requirement;

6.1.2              Self-Services Processes;

6.1.3              business and financial exposure;

6.1.4              work outage. and;

6.1.5              number of employees affected.

6.2                     

Subject to clause 6.1 above, classification of incidents, are specifically linked to Customer’s Pay Period, Payment Date, and the timing of [Category]’s processes in relation to the Pay Period.

6.3                     

When information and / or output is required within Customer’s Pay Period, the proximity of same to [Category]’s Payment Date will have a direct influence on the incident severity level.

6.4                     

Customer’s original description and input regarding the incident, will determine the initial severity classification for the incident.

6.5                     

In some cases, the incident may be escalated to a different tier of support, possibly resulting in a reclassification of the incident as a different severity or as a Work request. Reclassification of incidents by Service Provider will be communicated and explained to Customer.

6.6                     

The characteristics indicated in clause 6, do not cover work requests. Severity levels for Work Requests will have a separate set of characteristics and weightings. Work requests are not covered as part of this SLA.

7                              

SERVICE LEVEL DEFINITIONS

7.1                     

Severity Level 1: Major Business Impact

7.1.1               

7.1.2              Defined as an incident that causes complete loss of Service to the production environment and work cannot reasonably continue. Work-arounds to provide the same functionality are not possible and cannot be found in time to minimize the impact on Customer’s and/or Customer’s business. The problem has one or more of the following characteristics:

7.1.2.1        A large number of users cannot access the system and/or application or be provided the Services;

7.1.2.2        Critical functionality is not available;

7.1.2.3        The application/s and/or system/s and/or Services (as applicable) cannot continue because a vital feature is inoperable.

7.2                     

Severity Level 2: Significant Business Impact

7.2.1              This classification applies when processing can proceed but performance is significantly reduced and/or operation of the system/and/or application/and/or Services (as applicable) is considered severely limited. A work-around might or might not be available, however operations can continue in a restricted fashion. The problem has one or more of the following characteristics:

7.2.1.1        internal software error, causing the system, Software and/or Services to fail, but restart or recovery is possible;

7.2.1.2        Performance is severely degraded;

7.2.1.3        Some important functionality is unavailable, yet the system, Software and/or Services can continue to operate in a restricted fashion.

7.3                     

Severity Level 3: Minor Business Impact

7.3.1              The incident causes minimal loss of Service. The impact of the incident is minor or an inconvenience, such as a manual bypass to restore product and/or service functionality. The incident has one or more of the following characteristics:

7.3.1.1        A Software or Services error for which there is an acceptable workaround for Customer.

7.3.1.2        Minimal performance degradation.

7.3.1.3        Software error requiring manual editing of configuration or script files around a problem.

7.4                     

Severity Level 4: No Business Impact

7.4.1              The incident causes no loss of service and in no way impedes use of the system, Software and/or Services.

8                              

INCIDENT SEVERITY LEVELS

8.1                     

Table 2 below sets forth the Service severity levels related to the Services. Service Provider will respond to requests according to the following Service severity levels:

8.1.1              Table 2 – Severity levels, response frequency and work-around times

8.1.2              Table 3 – Service: Service Levels

8.1.3              Table 4 – System Availability: Service Levels

8.1.4              System Availability Calculations

8.1.4.1        For Service Level Agreement assessment purposes, the extent of availability loss is calculated by the difference between the start time and end time. Start time is the date and time of the last SQL statement (or equivalent) in the restored redo log. End time is the earlier of the point when the failure is deemed to have occurred or the last hour of service hours prior to the incident occurring.

8.1.4.2        The system will be available no less than ninety-nine and one-half percent (99.5%) of the time except during standard scheduled maintenance.

8.1.4.3        Availability shall be calculated by dividing the number of minutes the system is up and running at the standard levels set forth below and available for Use by authorized Users during a given calendar month, by the number of minutes the system is scheduled to be available (i.e. 8 Hours per day, 7 Days per week, less scheduled maintenance), expressed as a percentage.