Ensim Technical Support Policy – Ensim Support

Introduction

This policy document describes the terms and conditions for technical assistance provided by the Technical Support group of Ensim Corporation (hereinafter “Ensim”). Technical Support is available to customers who have purchased any Ensim product and is applicable only to the product for which it is purchased.

All payments for Technical Support must be current before receiving any technical assistance. In addition to technical assistances, all Ensim customers in good standing have access to the Ensim support site containing:

All Software Documentation for their purchased product
All generally available software updates and fixes for their purchased product

Ensim reserves the right to refuse all Technical Support to any customer that is currently past due or in arrears until such time as their account is brought current.

Reinstatement of lapsed Technical Support is subject to the fees specified in the Ensim price list effective on the date of reinstatement. In the event that customer has allowed Technical Support to lapse for a period of one year or more, customer must repurchase the licenses for which Technical Support has lapsed in order to reinstate Technical Support.

Technical Support is not available for less than all the Software licenses for each product family (Ensim Automation Suite) held by customer.

Technical Support Provisions

The terms and conditions of technical assistance are defined herein.

Nature of Technical Support

Technical Support is subject to the following: Ensim will use reasonable efforts to assist in locating appropriate solutions to customer inquiries and problems. In order to resolve a problem, Ensim may require customer's reasonable assistance in re-creating the problem. Failure by customer to re-create the problem after reasonable efforts, or to provide such assistance as may be necessary, may prevent Ensim from resolving the problem or further investigating the customer’s problem. Ensim will utilize trained and skilled professionals selected by Ensim in its sole discretion who will be able to respond to technical questions, reasonably help customer identify problems, and assist customer in finding solutions to those problems.

In order to receive technical assistance, customer must file a support case at https://support.ensim.com and provide Ensim technical support with the following information (as a minimum) at the time of initially reporting the problem or question:

A valid Ensim ID
Product Name and Version
Concise question or clear description of problem (must include exact error message if applicable), and steps leading to the error or problem symptom
Machine or system access information (or contact name to gain access)

In many cases, in order to solve a reported problem, customer may be asked to provide additional data and information, including but not limited to:

Reproducible test cases
Remote access to systems by Technical Support Staff
Log files

At the time the support request is submitted, a support engineer will be assigned to coordinate the resolution of the reported problem or question.

In order to maximize the efficiency and timeliness of resolving the reported problem or question, the customer contact who reported the issue must be available to respond to inquiries from Ensim support personnel. Ensim reserves the right to change the assignment of its support engineer at any time and at its sole discretion.

In order to verify a product error, customer shall provide a complete description of the product error to enable Ensim support engineers to proceed with the problem investigation, including sufficient information to enable Ensim technical support to reproduce the problem. Assistance in the creation of test cases can be provided separately to customers who request such assistance. Assistance of this type is provided through Ensim Professional Services, pursuant to Ensim’s standard Professional Services Agreement (“PSA”), at an additional charge to that of the Technical Support, at Ensim’s then current rates and strictly on a time and materials basis.

Customers are responsible for all actions required to verify and substantiate the existence of a product problem and to ascertain the conditions under which the problem may be duplicated.

Contacting Ensim

If a customer needs to request support service for the purpose of resolving questions about or reporting problems encountered with Ensim Software products, a web-based support case must be filed. Once a support case has been entered through the web-based support mechanism, a customer may phone Ensim support and receive direct attention.

Technical Support is available based on support plan times excluding office closures for holidays or unforeseen circumstances (weather, power outage, etc). The online interface to file web-based support cases is available 24 hours each day, every day of the week excluding unforeseen outages.

Each separate issue must be filed as a separate support request. Secondary issues may not be added to a support case unless directly associated with the initial problem as described.

Remote Access

In some cases, a remote access connection is needed by Ensim technical staff to perform discovery and diagnostics for the purpose of providing technical support. Remote access details and information or permission for remote access must be granted by the customer in a timely manner. Otherwise, support response and resolution will not be optimized and may delay support or make not available.

Response Stages

Four stages of responses will be delivered by Ensim to customers as follows:

Initial: The initial response will acknowledge the support request. The initial problem assessment will begin.
Follow-up: A follow-up response will occur if Ensim is unable to reproduce a problem that has been reported. This type of follow-up will generally request further information from customer to better define the problem. Direct access to customer environment may be requested. The failure of the customer to provide requested information at the time of request will have a significant impact on the ability of Ensim to resolve problems in a timely manner.
Fix: When and if a fix becomes available, Ensim will contact customer through the online support system regarding availability of the fix or workaround and any related software or documentation.
Feature Requests: If the issue reported requires new product functionality, those requests are forwarded to our product management team and the case may be closed. Such action by Ensim technical staff is not a commitment to deliver said feature.

Severity Level

Problems encountered by a customer and reported to Ensim should be assigned an appropriate Severity Level value by the customer. Ensim reserves the right to modify the Severity Level value for any issues, based on the following definitions:

Critical: Ensim Software has experienced a significant problem that prevents operation or severely limits or is reasonably expected to severely limit the performance of the customer causing significant loss and impact to the customer’s business. No workaround is known to be available.
Major: Ensim Software has experienced a significant problem, but there is no pending loss of revenue or a workaround exists.
Minor: Ensim Software has experienced a problem that does not significantly affect performance of the customer, but either does not function as described in documentation or does not perform as expected. General questions about Ensim Software that are either not covered in documentation or need clarification should be considered minor.
Feature Request: This is a request for a new feature or functionality that does not exist in Ensim Software. There is no obligation for Ensim to deliver product enhancements to any customer. New features or customer development delivered to a specific customer may not be covered by Ensim Technical Support. Ensim shall retain all title and interest in any enhancement, including all copyright, patent, trademark and other proprietary rights.

Support Response Times

Program Features	Standard	Premium
16 hrs x 5 Days Support	Yes	No
24 Hrs x 7 Days Support	No	Yes
Web & Phone Access	Yes	Yes
Critical Issues First Response Time	4 hrs	2 hrs
Software Upgrade Installation Assistance (Remote)	No	Yes
Toll Free Access (In the US)	Yes	Yes
Priority Escalation	Yes	Yes
Primary Technical Account Manager	No	Yes
Online Ticket Summaries	Yes	Yes

* All incidents will require customer to first create a case via Ensim web support portal (https://support.ensim.com) to receive a support ticket number.

If you have a critical issue that needs immediate attention or require escalation, please contact your assigned Ensim Technical Account Manager for immediate assistance.

Confidentiality. All communications from Ensim technical support to customers of Technical Support are classified as the confidential and proprietary information of both Ensim and the customer. This includes any files or information obtained by customers from the Ensim technical support Web and FTP servers. Customers are expressly prohibited from sharing, publishing or reproducing such confidential information to any third party person or organization under any circumstance without the express written permission of Ensim.
Third Party Vendor Support. Some Ensim software products or features may be dependent upon third-party products for their proper operation. Third party products include, but are not limited to Operating Systems, Compilers, Debuggers, Databases, Content Management Systems, Web servers, Web browsers, Connectivity Tools, and Messaging Tools. Ensim tests its products on the latest Microsoft Windows security Patches only when Ensim releases new patches for its products. Ensim is not be liable if customer updates their operating system with Microsoft Windows security Patches which are not supported or tested by Ensim.

Ensim software products may be developed, tested, and released for use with specific versions of third-party software including application of certain patches or service packs. The use of Ensim software products with alternate versions of the third-party components is not recommend or supported without specific notification or approval from Ensim.

Ensim is reliant upon third party vendors to provide support to Ensim customers for their software products, as specified by Ensim, which are either integrated into Ensim software products or work with Ensim software products. Ensim will make reasonable efforts to work with such vendors to investigate or correct problems found in such third party software. However, Ensim cannot be held responsible for any problem whose cause is related to a third party product where the vendor does not or will not provide timely support.

Technical support from Ensim is not available for problems that arise as a result of the use of Ensim software products in conjunction with alpha and/or beta software from third party vendors.

Excluded Services and Software. The Ensim Technical Support Policy does not obligate Ensim to provide: (a) project management; (b) personnel management; (c) application design, new feature implementation or development; (d) consulting or other services relating to software other than Ensim Software; (e) re-creation or re-entry of data lost for any reason whatsoever; (f) support or maintenance services relating to any hardware, deliverable or peripheral devices; (g) provision of any functional deliverables. Ensim has no obligation to provide or deliver bug fixes, improvements to existing software functions, upgrades, revisions, patches, or enhancements that are requested only by a specific customer, developed on a custom basis for a specific customer, or have no general applicability to other Ensim customers. Ensim shall have no obligation to support software that has been altered, modified, or damaged or is used in any manner other than that specified in the Ensim Software documentation. The Technical Support offered under this Software Support Service Policy applies only to current Ensim Software products and not to Ensim products or versions that have been announced by Ensim as no longer supported by Ensim according to current product support policies.

In addition to the foregoing, Ensim shall have no obligation to provide technical assistance if a problem is caused by: (a) relocation, movement, improper operation, neglect or misuse of the Ensim Software, (b) Customers’ failure to maintain proper site or environmental conditions, (c) any fault of agents or employees of the Customer, (d) any attempts at repairs, maintenance, or modifications to the Ensim Software performed by other than authorized service personnel of Ensim, (e) casualty, acts of God, strikes, riot, war, the unauthorized acts of third parties, (f) failure or interruption of any electrical power, telephone or communication line or like cause, (g) service for Ensim software for which all required maintenance releases have not been implemented by the customer, or (h) any other cause external to the Ensim software except ordinary use.

Ensim reserves the right to change the terms and conditions of the Ensim Technical Support Policy at any time.