Certain Product Support

Happy smiling woman working in call center

Certain Product Support Services are provided during US business hours: Monday through Friday, 5:00 AM to 6:00 PM PST. 

Please submit a request using the Support / Help pages of Certain’s various products:

Platform-support.certain.com
Touchpoint-support.certain.com

Or contact us via our general support email at help@certain.com.

We appreciate your business! And look forward to helping you resolve any issues or requests as quickly as we can. Other, non-product related issues and requests can be directed via your Account Executive or Customer Success Manager, depending on your Support Level.

Certain, Inc. (“Certain”) Product Support Services are intended to be used post-implementation in order to help answer general questions pertaining to the use of Certain’s SaaS Application (our “SaaS Application” and to provide maintenance and support for errors and defects encountered when using the SaaS Application. The services described below are provided under the terms of the Master Services Agreement. Certain reserves the right to change this Product Support Services Level Agreement (the “SLA”) with reasonable notification to our customers. Notifications will be posted on our website at certain.com.

1. Overview. Certain provides several support levels based on the various needs of our customers. Certain customers can identify their support level by contacting their Account Executive or Customer Success Manager.

2. Product Support Services. Certain provides Product Support Services for questions pertaining to the use of our applications, such as accessing menus, features and functions, performing basic actions, using the reporting engine, email function, editing and viewing registration data, integrating with marketing automation, documentation clarification and all activities related to setting up and configuring events, mobile, check-in, forms and websites. Certain Product Support Services representatives will respond to such service requests during stated Support Hours. Product Support Services specifically excludes event design and building, training services, performance optimization or custom software development (which includes updates/on-going communication on enhancement requests). Support of custom HTML (which is a 3rd party component within the software) and API configuration are considered design & build services and are not covered under the Product Support agreement. Support agents will direct these requests to our Professional Services team.

3. Support Services. Certain provides Technical and Customer Support Services during stated Support Hours. Customers may submit Customer Support requests via the channels noted above. Certain Customer Support Services representatives will respond to such requests during Support Hours.

4. Classification of Customer Support Requests. Upon receipt of a Customer Support Request, Certain shall promptly investigate whether an Error exists and is reproducible. If so, Customer and Certain shall mutually and in good faith establish an agreed-upon severity level. Severity corresponds to priority and urgency in delivering a product fix. Each request is classified in accordance with its Severity level as defined below:

Severity: The Severity level assigned to an escalation ticket indicates the urgency for fixing it. The higher the Severity, the greater the urgency. Severity levels rank from “Low” to “Urgent”. The initial assignment of Severity will be determined by the customer in the form of a ticket “Priority”. Further assessment of Severity will be determined by business and technical impact, as well as the presence of a viable alternative solution. The final determination of the Severity level remains with Certain.

Severity 1 – URGENT: Major Business Impact Blocking the production of an event.

This severity implies a serious defect at a crucial time that would have a critical impact on the success of a live event. The following factors could lead to a ticket being categorized as a Severity Level 1:

  • A programming error or unrecoverable failure causing a total system shutdown.
  • An urgent error or failure for a critical system function at a crucial time in event production where an alternative configuration is unavailable.
  • An error resulting in unrecoverable data loss.
  • Missing major functionality with no viable alternative solution.
  • A programming error preventing registrants from moving forward or completing an action, with no alternative solution/event configuration available.


Severity 2 – HIGH: Major Business Impact but does Not Prevent Event Progress:

This severity level indicates a significant impact on business operations, yet it does not completely halt event proceedings. The following factors could lead to a ticket being categorized as a Severity Level 2:

  • An error in or failure of a critical system function at a crucial time in event production where an alternative solution is available.
  • Missing major functionality with a viable alternative solution.
  • An error preventing users from moving forward or completing an action. However, a viable alternative solution is available.

Severity 3 – NORMAL: Functional Error with Minimal Impact or for Which There is a Viable Alternative Solution.

This severity causes minimal or no delays with the production of an event. The following factors could lead to a ticket being categorized as a Severity Level 3:

  • An error in or failure of functionality that is not critical to the production of an event, therefore does not have major business implications for the customer.
  • A programming error when deviations from the documentation exist but the application is still usable, the functionality of the application is not impaired and there is no material impact on the user.
  • Delays or nuisances that could be considered a hang condition although the system recovers. This includes slight performance issues.


Severity 4 – LOW: This reported issue is cosmetic in nature or is identified as a functional error for which there is an acceptable workaround
.

This severity causes no delays in product shipment or scheduling. The following factors could lead to a ticket being categorized as a Severity Level 4:

  • Lack of complete “Help” support in the user interface, including unclear, missing or misleading user documentation.
  • A cosmetic error, such as spacing or padding.
  • Lack of user-friendly or intuitive operation.
  • Misspellings in user interface, on-line help, or documentation.


5. Programming Error Response and Repair Times
.

Certain will provide an alternative solution fix or correction “repair” for reported programming errors as soon as commercially practical. If an immediate resolution for a programming error is not available, Certain will respond within the timelines stated in the summary of Support in Section 1 above as follows:

  • Resolution may be either the supply of an actual fix (for Severity 1 issues) or Customer agreement in writing of the projected release in which the fix will be delivered.
  • Certain will consider an issue request resolved if 10 business days have passed without Customer acknowledgement of the proposed resolution. A Customer may open a follow-up ticket if a request was resolved due to unresponsiveness.
  • Escalation – a customer may request that an issue be escalated. The appropriate manager will contact the Customer to discuss and work out a plan for resolution.


6. Nonqualified Products
.

Certain shall have no support obligations for errors that are the result of programming or infrastructure provided or used by Customer or Customer’s users that is not part of the SaaS Application (“Nonqualified Products”). A program error is a problem caused by the Customer’s use of Nonqualified Products, the performance or non-performance of the Internet, or defective content. If Certain provides support services for a problem caused by Nonqualified Products, or if Certain’s service efforts are increased as a result of Nonqualified Products, Certain may, upon notification to the Customer, charge the Customer for time and materials for such extra services at its then-current rates. If, in Certain’s reasonable opinion, the performance of support services is or will be made more difficult or impaired because of Nonqualified Products, Certain shall notify the Customer, and the Customer shall remove the Nonqualified Products at the Customer’s own expense within a commercially reasonable od of time. The Customer shall remain solely responsible for the compatibility and functioning of Nonqualified Products with the SaaS Application.

7. Third Party Exceptions. Certain offers a number of third-party integrations as well as customer access to the Certain Web Services API Framework. For these integrations and for services accessed through Web Services, Certain shall not have SLA obligations. In addition, Certain reserves the right to change the Web Services terms of use as needed. The Web Services terms and conditions can be found at: https://developer.certain.com/api2docs/termsofuse.

8. Customer’s Responsibilities. Before contacting Certain for Product Support Services, Professional Support Customers agree to make their best effort to find an answer using self-service options, including online help files, self-playing tutorials, knowledge base, and user guides. In connection with Certain’s provision of Product Support Services, Customer shall maintain any Nonqualified Products and associated peripheral equipment, if any, in good working order in accordance with the manufacturers’ specifications and be reasonably certain that any problems reported to Certain are not due to hardware or operating system malfunction; supply Certain with access to and use of all information and facilities reasonably determined to be necessary by Certain to render support services; perform any tests or procedures recommended by Certain for the purpose of identifying and/or resolving any program errors; maintain, at Customer’s sole discretion, a procedure external to Certain for reconstruction of lost or altered files, data, or programs; follow routine operator procedures as specified in the SaaS Application documentation at all times and ensure that the SaaS Application is isolated from any process links or anything else that is reasonably likely to cause harm before requesting or receiving remote support assistance. Customer is solely responsible for providing all internal technical support for the use of the SaaS Application by Customer users.

9. Maintenance Services. Certain shall provide or cause to be provided enhancements, modifications, updates, corrections, or a subsequent release or version of the SaaS Application that Certain generally makes available.

10. Maintenance Windows. Certain will establish maintenance windows during which time Certain may take down our SaaS Application to conduct routine maintenance which shall not exceed three (3) hours per month. Exceptions for non-routine maintenance require Customer notification. Certain will provide a minimum of fourteen (14) days’ notice of scheduled or non-routine maintenance and will check Customer system activity at the time of scheduled maintenance before commencing activity that might impact the Customer. Certain shall not be responsible for any damages or costs incurred by Customer or any user during or as a result of the downtime scheduled in accordance with the provision of Maintenance Services. Certain may change its maintenance window upon one week’s prior notice. Certain’s regular scheduled maintenance occurs from 9:00 PM to 11:59 PM Pacific Standard Time. Certain shall give Customer’s network operations center notice promptly upon the commencement of any unscheduled downtime and at the end of such unscheduled downtime.

11. Availability. Certain will take adequate measures to provide SaaS Application availability of 99.5% for Certain Event Intelligence (CEI) and 99.9% for all other applications (a maximum of 43.8 minutes unscheduled downtime a month as defined in Point 10 above).

Support Levels

Silver

Gold

Platinum

Customer Support Hero (CSH)

 

 

    Case management of tickets logged via inbound channels

    Prioritized case queuing and escalation process

    Regular support issue reviews to facilitate case resolution.

Help Center support

Email support

Initial Response SLA*

Severity 1 URGENT

1 Hour

1 Hour

1 Hour

Severity 2 HIGH

4 Business Hours

2 Business Hours

2 Hours

Severity 3 NORMAL

1 Business Day

1 Business Day

4 Business Hours

Severity 4 LOW

2 Business Days

2 Business Days

1 Business Day

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