Support Policy

What is Support?

Support (as offered as part of our Hosting and Support) is the service that allows us to provide help to our clients in the form of emails, support tickets, phone calls, shared desktop sessions, or other means as we deem necessary to assist with a specific question or problem.

Our support includes the concept of correcting a software function that is not operating according to the design intent of the WebAlliance system.

Adjustments needed (to a commercially reasonable extent*) to keep a client’s ERP system functioning with the WebAlliance system are also part of our support service.

Our support hours are Monday – Friday, 8AM – 5PM CST.

Often times our corporate culture of helpfulness is expressed by our customer experience representatives offering service which is outside the scope of our covered support services. This could include things such as answering questions that aren’t technical or specific, providing advice on best practices, answering how-tos, etc.

This level of service is the way we like to be treated and so it is the way we try to treat our clients. However, this extra level of service is not a guarantee. We are only able to offer an extra level of service to the extent that the privilege is not abused. Depending on the question, time available, resources available, and the specific circumstance, some requests may require a billable engagement.

*The ability to maintain functionality of a system is dependent upon both the ERP and WebAlliance and at times it may be necessary to upgrade one or the other to maintain compatibility.

What Support Is Not

Support (as offered as part of our Hosting and Support) is not a replacement for in-house staff. We work hard to provide assistance to your internal staff; however, we are unable to field requests directly to users outside of your organization.

Support is not a replacement for training. We offer paid training classes on a variety of topics including deep dives on a specific topic and training for an overview of topics. Support is not an appropriate avenue for training a new employee or teaching an employee how to use the WebAlliance system. We provide initial training to our client’s staff as part of the WebAlliance Go-Live process. Thereafter, training may be purchased as needed for one person or groups of people.

Support is limited to the scope of our software. We generally try to be as helpful as we can however, direct support of ERP platforms or requests outside the scope of our software is only available on a paid engagement as time permits.

Who Can Request Support?

Under standard support arrangements, each organization can appoint up to two named employee users to be support requestors.  To be eligible to be a support requestor, the individual must have completed (including an 80% on the assessment) at least our Users and Orders admin training class (live or via the Learning Management Portal). All support requests for an organization must be submitted by one of the named support users via the Helpdesk Portal.

It is key that each organization develop the internal ability to aide their internal customers and external users. Dealing with a known set of requestors allows for consistency in our support process and reduces the confusion created when multiple users request changes.  

Standard support for additional employee users may be purchased on a per user basis.

Alternative Support Agreements

Clients who need large numbers of users, or support for outside consultants, contractors, or non-employees should contact us regarding other limited support offerings.  Alternative support agreements may allow for more than two submitting users or external users, but with a limit of how many issues may be submitted per month. Issues exceeding the issue limit would be billed per instance. Contact us for pricing and details on alternative support agreements.

General Rules of Thumb

• Support requests should typically be initiated via the customer portal helpdesk system
• Support requests should cover a specific technical question about the system
• Support requests should cover a feature or function that is part of the WebAlliance system, as opposed to functions of third party systems or APIs
• Support requests of an urgent nature may be submitted via telephone (e.g. any issue that prevents a site from taking orders could be considered urgent)
• Questions about third party systems or applications are often outside the scope of our support, but may be available as a paid engagement

Available Support Mechanisms

Online Manuals

• Online manuals may be accessed directly from the website admin by clicking the “Need Help” link at the top of each page.
• When accessing manuals via the website admin, most links are context sensitive and will open the manuals to the topic pertinent to the page you were on.
• The online manuals may be searched with keywords or browsed via topic.

Helpdesk Portal

• The Helpdesk Portal allows supported users to submit tickets and check on the status of existing tickets.

Telephone

• For any urgent issue that is causing a website to be unusable to customers, a support request may be submitted via phone.