This Objective Subscription Software Support Handbook (“Handbook”) describes the standard Software Support service supplied by Objective to licensees of (subscribers to) Objective Licensed Software. It forms an important part of each Customer’s licence and support terms of service (“Agreement”).

GLOBAL SUPPORT CENTRE

Objective operates a Global Support Centre for the Licensed Software made up of an online Support Portal and a staffed Support Service team of support consultants.

Objective’s support consultants are located in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

All Incidents will be logged in the Support Portal.

Objective will promptly respond to logged Incidents and will use commercially reasonable efforts to resolve any Faults. Incident Resolution times are targets only because the resolution outcomes depend upon the nature of the Fault.

Objective may decide to resolve a Fault by way of a code fix or a Workaround or other type of fix. See section 6 below. for important definitions used in this Handbook.

SUPPORT HOURS

The Support Portal is available 24 hours a day (subject to out-of-hours maintenance) for logging of Objective Support Incidents (“OSI”) and access to Knowledge base articles.

The Global Support Centre, staffed by support consultants, operates during Business Hours on Business Days i.e from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

For Customers whose install location for the Licensed Software is in any of those respective jurisdictions the Business Hours and Business Days will be those where the Customer is located.

For Customer’s located outside Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom the Business Hours and Business Days will be those of the Objective office in the jurisdiction (Australia, New Zealand or the United Kingdom) nearest to the Customer.

Global Support Centre Contact Details together with the selected jurisdiction of support, if applicable, will be provided by Objective to the Customer promptly after completion of the subscription transaction.

SUPPORT DURATION AND CHARGES

Software Support is provided for the duration of the subscription period i.e the Licence Period.

Software Support fees (for standard support) are included as part of the subscription fee.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT CONTACTS

Objective supplies the Software Support to Users and Support Contacts depending upon the particular subscription software solution.

Users may log Incidents to the Support Portal over the Web and to the Global Support Centre by email.

Support Contacts may log incidents to the Support Portal over the Web and to the Global Support Centre by email as well as by telephone.

For Support Contracts the Customer must designate at least one (1) and up to four (4) Support Contacts. If the Customer wants to have more than four (4) Support Contacts this will have to be reflected in the Agreement or a written variation and may attract additional fees.

Support Contacts must:

1. be familiar with how the Licensed Software functions;
2. be familiar with the embedded Help manual, quick reference user guides and the Support Portal;
3. be familiar with the Deployment Guide and know how to add new Users;
4. set up an internal location for the Customer’s configuration files;
5. have enough knowledge about the Licensed Software and the Customer’s specific deployment to be able to meaningfully work with Objective’s support consultants to assist in promptly resolving Faults;
6. be capable of providing the Minimum Incident Notice Information in an Incident Notice; and
7. ensure Users also are capable of providing the Minimum Incident Notice Information in an Incident Notice.

Objective recommends that, if practicable, Incidents experienced by Users should be funnelled to the Support Contacts so that the Support Contacts can ensure that they provide Minimum Incident Notice Information when they log the Incident.

ONBOARDING

To get the most out of the Global Support Centre support the following checklist for on-boarding is useful:

1. The Customer will have internal help desk procedures and staff in place to handle day-to-day end-user questions (level 1 support) and administration activities;
2. The Customer has nominated the Support Contacts;
3. Objective has set up Support Portal access for the nominated Support Contacts;
4. The nominated Support Contacts have been trained in the Licensed Software to enable them to fulfil their role;
5. Objective support will have been briefed by the Customer about any Customer-specific configuration;
6. Objective’s Global Support Centre has briefed the nominated Support Contacts on how to best use the Customer Support Portal, including incident logging, tracking and prioritisation.

INCIDENT CLASSIFICATION, RESPONSE & TARGET RESOLUTION

“Fault” means an error or flaw in the functionality of the Licensed Software which means Users cannot use it at all, or Users can use the Licensed Software but it is not functioning the way it should as detailed by its Documentation. However, the following are not Faults: (i) a non-compliance with the Documentation that does not affect functionality; (ii) functionality that produces a correct result but does not align to the users desired business workflow; (iii) User error.

“Incident” means any occurrence experienced by a User or Support Contact possibly indicating the presence of a Fault.

“Incident Notice” means the detailed report of an Incident in the form of an OSI made to the Global Support Centre via Web, email or phone by a Support Contact or by Objective’s own consultants.

“Minimum Incident Notice Information” means: (i) a full transcript of any error message; (ii) a detailed description of User steps taken at the time of the Fault; (iii) the User’s computer specifications, including version information of the Licensed Software, and the Windows operating system; and (iv) the file type of any documents accessed at the time of the Incident and any other relevant specifics (e.g. .pdf, .tiff, the problem happened working on pages 3-5 of the document). Objective will classify and handle Incidents according to the priority level in the table below.

“OSI” means an Objective Support Incident and relates to a support ticket recorded in the Objective Incident Tracking system in the Support Portal. Each OSI has a unique 12-digit identifier.

“Workaround” is a plan or method to circumvent a Fault without actually eliminating it.

Objective adopts the common four-level priority classification arrangement used in the software industry. A description of each of the four priority classifications that are assigned to incidents is provided below.

When a Customer logs a new Incident an initial priority classification will be allocated and a Support Consultant will assess that notice. Assessment may include investigating the incident, enlisting the assistance of the Customer’s Support Contact to provide further key technical detail if any is missing or assisting with troubleshooting to replicate the incident.

Both Objective and each Customer must act reasonably in assigning priority classifications and Objective does reserve a right to assign the final classification in the event of any disagreement.

The priority classification of any incident logged may be increased or decreased to align with the definitions depending on what information has been gathered about the incident so Objective encourages all customers to ensure their Support Contacts provide as much of the key technical information as possible.

Response Targets: Users and Customers’ Support Contacts are welcome to log incidents 24 x 7 at the portal. The time for target response is measured during Support Hours i.e. from the time the new incident is received by Objective consultants who can then commence working to achieve resolution of the issue (the response could be a telephone call back or an automated email).

Resolution Targets: Resolution Targets are measured from the time that the response to the new incident is provided by Objective during Support Hours to the time that a resolution (which may be a Workaround) is provided.

LOGGING AN INCIDENT

If a Customer requires assistance or believes that a Fault may be present in the Licensed Software they should:

1. log into the Support Portal;
2. select the relevant region in top right hand corner;
3. review the Knowledge Base articles and Troubleshooting Guides; and
4. if the Fault is not able to resolved through the guides, then select the ‘Incidents’ table and complete the online form i.e. log an Incident.

Each logged Incident will receive a unique OSI number by email to the relevant Support Contacts.

Objective encourages customers to log all Incidents via the Support Portal. Objective aims for it to be a single source of truth for all Incidents experienced by each Customer.

The Support Portal automatically generates an OSI number so one of Objective’s Global Support Centre consultants can get in touch during Business Hours.

In all cases of logging an OSI the Support Contacts must be ready with the Customer’s name and the Minimum Incident Notice Information before contacting the Global Support Centre.

For Priority 1 Incidents only, Objective recommends that the Support Contacts telephone the Global Support Centre after logging the incident via the Support Portal, as this is the quickest way for a Priority 1 Incident to receive attention.

RESOLUTION PROCESS

During Incident Resolution Objective may:

1. work with the Customer Support Contacts to try to reproduce the Fault. We often need to reproduce errors in order to resolve them and so we need the assistance of the Support Contacts to reproduce Incidents, including conducting diagnostic or troubleshooting activities as appropriate;
2. request example documents, clarification of user steps, or screenshots to assist in understanding or reproducing the problem. We may provide debug versions of software to enable us to gather more detailed diagnostic data;
3. suggest alternate user steps to determine if a suitable Workaround is possible, or whether a bug fix to software may be required;
4. create a bug fix in a new version of software, or defer a fix to a future software release if a viable workaround is available;
5. update the Support Portal Incident log to show what has been done, or to reclassify the Priority, or to close the Incident; or
6. escalate the Incident as described below if we reasonably believe that the target resolution times won’t be met.

It is important for Support Contacts to be aware that:

1. the problem may be experienced one or several more times during Incident Resolution; and
2. a Workaround is a sufficient Incident Resolution for the purposes of the Software Support.
3. Incident Resolution targets are based on elapsed time during Support hours.

ESCALATION PROCESS

Objective has designed the target timeframes for response and resolution with a view to adopting common software industry practice. Objective Global Support Centre aims to respond and resolve reported incidents promptly and within the target timeframes outlined in this handbook. In exceptional cases, however, a Customer may experience an incident and wish to arrange additional Objective attention to try to resolve it because:

1. it is reasonably apparent that the target timeframe for resolution has not been or will not be met as a consequence of the nature of the incident; or
2. the business impact of the incident may be of such a type that a rapid response and resolution arrangement is desirable.

In such circumstances the following escalation policy may be activated to enable additional Objective attention to be given to the particular incident.

This escalation process is available to assist Customers in the event of Priority 1 or Priority 2 incidents only.

Customers should note the escalation process is not a substitute shortened target timeframe nor is it a firm resolution deadline. It is a process to enable both Objective and a Customer to give appropriate attention to a high priority incident.

Having logged a Priority 1 or Priority 2 incident the Customer’s designated Support Contacts can ask Objective to activate the escalation process through either:

1. contacting Objective’s Support Consultant by email;
2. telephoning the Objective Global Support Centre and ask to speak with the relevant Support Consultant;
3. emailing or phoning Objective’s Global Support Manager; or
4. contacting the relevant Objective Account Manager.

The Customer’s Support Contacts should provide the context details of why an escalation is being activated in accordance with this Handbook.

Once Objective has been notified that the Customer has asked for the escalation the Objective internal escalation process will commence, which includes:

1. Incidents are promoted onto a list visible by all Objective Global Support Centre staff, engineering support staff, the Global Support Manager, and all relevant Account Managers for the Customer;
2. Engineering support staff are then responsible for interacting with Support Consultants and, if required, with Customer’s Support Contacts to assess the incident and work to resolution;
3. the relevant Support Consultant will work with the Customer’s Support Contacts to establish a mutually agreeable plan for resolving the incident and keeping the Customer informed of the status of Objective’s resolution efforts; and
4. the action plan will be reviewed by the Global Support Manager and additional resources will be assigned if needed.

Objective's internal processes include a regular meeting conducted between Account Managers and Global Support Centre staff to review and track progress on all escalated issues.

SUPPORT MATERIALS

All materials in the Support Portal are Objective’s Confidential Information under the Agreement so they may not be copied, modified, used, disclosed or distributed except strictly in accordance with the Agreement. Objective owns the Intellectual Property in all of its support materials and the Customer owns the Intellectual Property in all the Customer Data that its Users and Support Contacts input into the Licensed Software. The Customer licences Objective to the extent set out in the Agreement in respect of all Customer Data.

SUPPORT REPORTING

We will provide Support Contacts with a Web interface to the Support Portal which will allow Support Contacts to access real time reports of Incidents and the Incident Response and Incident Resolution activities.

PRODUCT SUGGESTIONS FEEDBACK

Objective welcomes and appreciates customer feedback, suggestions and recommendations for future software releases. We strive to continually improve software to meet our customers’ needs, though reserve the right to act on suggestions at our discretion.

What is a Product Suggestion?

A product suggestion is a suggestion to add software functionality that is not currently present in the software or to extend certain existing functionality beyond its documented parameters. An easy rule of thumb is to check the published product documentation to understand the expected behaviour (Help manual, Guides, Release notes). If the software is not working according to the documentation that means a bug or fault may be present. If the software is working as documented, but not as the Customer expects or prefers, any suggestions for change would be product suggestions.

How to submit a Product suggestion or feedback?

Product suggestions can be raised using the Objective Support Portal by clicking the ‘Raise a Support Ticket’ link. Upon receipt the support team will record and pass the suggestion / feedback details to Objective’s development team who will consider the feedback towards the ongoing development of software. We will acknowledge receipt of your feedback/suggestion upon receipt, and the ticket will be closed to confirm the information has been received and recorded.

For Customers who have an Objective Account Manager, product suggestions can be raised with that person.

What happens to Product Suggestions?

The product development team review all customer feedback and product suggestions to better understand our customers ongoing needs. Product suggestions are considered and prioritized during product planning, and if aligned with broader customer needs and the overall software design intent may be included into Objective’s development roadmap.