DEFINITION:
“Client” refers to an educational institution that has purchased and has an active Ed-admin licence.
“Client Portal” means an interactive web application for clients to self-service their needs.
“Custom Development Services” means services of the Company to manage Ed-admin in their software development tasks to modify the Software in accordance with the needs of the Client ahead of that of Ed-admin. Any and all custom software development remains the property of Ed-admin.
“Ed-admin” Ed-admin Pty Ltd means the company incorporated in terms of the company laws of Australia (Australian Business Number: 162 954 583) having a principal place of business at 27 Newham Way, Altona Meadows, VIC 3028, Australia. Owner of the Software depicted in this document.
"Entimex" Entimex Education, hereafter referred to as "The Company" (VAT: 4610268072 Company reg: 2011/011105/07 Registered head office: Office 1405 –14th Floor, Bedford Centre Office Tower, Cnr Smith Road & Van de Linde Road, Bedfordview, Johannesburg, South Africa 2007)
“Fuel Costs” means the costs for fuel paid by the Support Consultant to go by a car from the Headquarters of the Company to the premises of the Client and to return back to the Headquarters of the Company. The Fuel Costs is priced at the prevailing national rate per kilometer.
“On-site Support Services” means Support Services provided in the premises of the Client. “Response Time” means the elapsed time from when Company receives a request for assistance until the commencement of assistance.
“Support Services” shall mean the services defined in a Support Plan, including Custom Development Services and Training.
“Support Consultant” means a representative of the Company who provides Support Services directly to the Client.
“SLA or Service Level Agreement” means the Company Support Plan with unlimited elements of support purchased and agreed to with its own special terms & conditions – a separate formal agreement needs to be signed to enable clients to have unlimited elements of support with the conditions from that agreement and this operations policy binding use of the SLA.
“Support Plan” means a pre-purchased Company Support Plan as stipulated in the Client Portal Product Catalogue. The Support Plan contains:
The Support Plans offered by the Company are available on the Client Portal or on request by emailing your client support manager.
Support Plans do not have an expiration date, however any support hours not used within 12 months of purchase can be carried forward for future use only if a top up payment is made to increase the hourly rate they were purchased at to match the current equivalent plan's hourly rate. The Support provided through the Support Plan will be provided:
“Support Request” means a request for receiving Support Services made by the Client to the Company. The Support Request can be made by phone, email, or by completing a form in the Client Portal. The Support Request received by phone or email are referred to as “General Support Requests”. The Company prefers receiving Support Requests through the Client Portal.
When completing the form in the Client Portal, the Client will need to:
When completing the form, the Client will also be allowed to upload text and screenshots concerning the Support Request. Such information will allow the Company to resolve the issue quickly and efficiently. General Support Requests will be recorded on the Client Portal and a message about the General Support Requests will be sent to the Client.
“Software” means:
“Source Code” means the Software (which shall include all modifications, enhancements, revisions or updates in versions of the software supplied to the Client from time to time by the Ed-admin) written in programming languages, including all comments and procedural code, in a form intelligible to trained programmers for operation on computer equipment through assembly or compiling, and accompanied by documentation,
including flow charts, schematics, statements of principles of operations, and architecture standards, describing the data flows, data structures, and control logic of the Software in sufficient detail to enable a trained programmer through study of such documentation to maintain and/or modify the Software without undue experimentation.
“Training” means training provided by the Company to the Client on how to use the Software efficiently.
“Travel Time” means the time required for the Support Consultants to go from the Headquarters of the Company to the premises of the Client and to return back to the Headquarters of the Company.
The terms and conditions of this document are subject to change at the discretion of The Company, with the up to date terms housed on our website
Support Services:
During the Support Term, the Company shall render the Support Services set forth in the support option selected by the Client subject to:
All support requests must be raised via the Client Portal.The Company may provide the Support Services remotely or at the premises of the Client.
The Company will provide support services if it has the resources and expertise to provide the support required. The Client acknowledges that the Company may procure support services from a third party (Ed-admin) for support requests they are unable to complete. The Company shall in good faith use all reasonable endeavours to assist the third party support provider where required in its rendering of third party support to the Client. The use of a third party support provider by the Client shall be without prejudice to its rights arising from the Company’s failure to provide support.
Support Plans:
By submitting a Support Request through the Client Portal, the Client agrees to pay a fee for the initial analysis of the issue mentioned in the Support Request. The initial analysis shall be carried out once the Client approves the fee quoted by the Company. This fee will be deducted from the Support Plan. Any balance of hours on a support plan purchased can be carried forward to future years, if a top up payment is made to increase the hourly rate of the balance of hours from the hourly rate at which they were purchased to the prevailing hourly rate (for the like for like support plan package). This top up payment will be due for any support plan hours purchased over 12 months ago, regardless of the date / time of year. For example, if you have 20 hours remaining on a 200 hour support plan that were purchased over 12 months ago at an hourly rate of R425 and the prevailing hourly rate for a 200 hour plan is R450, these can be carried forward with a top up payment of R25 per hour (in this case R25 x 20 hours) The Client is responsible to ensure that the Support Plan has sufficient hours to enable unplanned Support Requests.
SLA Plans:
Clients on an SLA will not be charged for the free elements of support included in the SLA agreement (training, report card development and telephonic / online queries), but will be charged for items that fall outside of that agreement (custom development and travel costs). If you have purchased a Service Level Agreement (SLA) which covers unlimited support in some form, the terms and conditions herein still apply, including the billing types and minimum billing periods etc. This is so that the cost of the support offered within your SLA can still be tracked and managed. You will however only be actually charged for the costs as agreed in your SLA terms and conditions. The terms and conditions as set out in your SLA agreement if you have chosen to purchase this product must be read in In conjunction with the overall T&C's in this document, if there are any conflicts between the two terms and conditions the SLA will take preference as this is a specialized product. The Company represents and warrants that the Company has been expressly authorised by Ed-Admin to provide Support Services in relation to the software to it’s clients. The Company agrees to continuously monitor the needs of the Client and, if necessary, provide Ed-admin with suggestions on how to improve the software.
While we endeavour to keep the broad parameters of support terms and conditions consistent throughout the year, there will be minor changes as we learn more about how to improve the process of request management and support delivery.
Prices and Payment Terms:
The prices and fees charged in respect of support, licences and other products are indicated in the Client Portal. The Company shall be entitled to escalate support fees on Jan 1 of each year. The escalation of the support, licence and other fees charged by the Company to the Client will be made annually to an amount equal to a maximum of the combination of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and 50% of any Rand (ZAR) USD currency devaluation. Should the Client not pay an invoice by the due date, the Company will charge the Client a 5% amount on the outstanding amount for each month until the invoice is paid for.
Obligations of the Client:
In order to allow the Company to provide the Support Services remotely, the Client must have at its disposal the necessary personnel and possess the necessary facilities (hereinafter, referred to as the “Facilities”) to enable the Company to provide the Support Services remotely.
All support requests must be raised via the Client Portal.The Facilities include:
If the Client hosts the Software on a local server, the Client must provide the Company with either
If the Client hosts the Software on a local server, the Client must provide the Company with Remote Desktop access to that local server as well as administrator login for use by the Company.
If the Client hosts the Software on a local server, it is the Client’s responsibility to:
The Client is responsible for protecting the computers through which it accesses the Software and the server hosting the Software. Such protection can be achieved by implementing various information security measures including, but not limited to, a robust firewall, up-to-date anti-virus software, encrypted data transmission, and operating procedures to protect personal data, accounts, passwords, etc.
If the Client uses cloud hosting provided by the Ed-admin, the Client does not need to comply with the requirements of the preceding paragraphs.
The Client is solely responsible for ensuring that only authorized personnel of the Client will have access to the Client Portal and Ed-admin user accounts which The Client controls.
Implementation of the Software:
The Company and Client are jointly responsible for the implementation process of the Software (hereinafter, referred to as the “Implementation Process”). The Implementation Process includes the installation, configuration, training and testing of the Software.
Training:
The Training can be provided either remotely (hereinafter, referred to as the “Remote Training”) or in the premises of the Client (hereinafter, referred to as the “On-site Training”). The Remote Training can be performed online via web-meeting or can be self-taught through online guidelines. The online guides contain documents listing modules and areas of the Software with a suggested number of hours the Client should devote to learning and implementing these modules and function areas.
If the Client would like to receive Training, the Client needs to submit its training requirements, including whether the Client would like Remote Training or On-Site Training, to the Client Portal.
Storage of Data:
Hosted on Ed-Admin server:
When you input data/information to our server, Ed- admin store the information/data provided in Structured
Query Language (SQL) in their database management systems. The Ed-admin software/application is used to communicate with the SQL database. In case of termination of your contract with The Company, while the licence is valid (not expired), you can log in to your account and extract the required data using the Business Intelligence/report writer tools.
If a copy of your information/data is stored on Ed- admin’s servers you can download a full database at anytime using the Ed-admin system. If a copy of your information/data is required for your after termination of contract and within one month after your licence has expired, The Company will provide a fully unencrypted SQL backup containing all your data, and a file system backup containing relevant attachments to any modules in Ed-Admin. There will be a fee based on the volume of information/data for this work, since you are able to download a copy of your full database at anytime with an active licence.
Hosted directly by you on other servers:
If you input data/information to a server not hosted by Ed-admin, the data will not be protected by Ed-admin. If your contract is terminated and the licence has expired, you will not be able to use the Ed-admin system, but you will continue to have access to your server and can retrieve the required data/information directly from the database stored here.
Data Protection:
The Company acknowledges that it is required to secure the integrity and confidentiality of personal information in its possession or under its control by taking appropriate, reasonable technical and organizational measures to prevent:
The Company warrants to the Client that it shall take reasonable measures, in terms of Generally Accepted Information Security Practices and Procedures (including the South African Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013), to, on a continuous basis, as may be required in terms of Generally Accepted Information Security Practice:
To the extent that the Company may communicate personal information to a third party or allow personal information to be processed by a third party, the Company shall conclude a written contract with the third party requiring the establishment and maintenance of the information security measures referred to above.
In particular, an agreement has been made between the Company and Ed-admin to ensure Ed-admin’s compliance with Generally Accepted Information Security Practices and Procedures. The Client acknowledges that certain personal information processed using the software may be communicated to Ed-admin and its third party suppliers.
The Client acknowledges that where it has subscribed to the Ed-admin cloud hosting services, its data will remain within the borders of South Africa if it has purchased the “A1 - Amazon Cloud Hosting Service - Shared Hosting (AWS)” product and if it has purchased the “D18 Ed-admin Cloud Hosting - Dedicated Server” product that its data will be hosted outside the borders of South Africa.
If for any reason the integrity and confidentiality of the personal information under the control of or processed by the Company or Ed-admin, or any third parties to which the Ed-admin communicates or allows the processing of such personal information, is compromised, or there are reasonable grounds to believe that such information has been accessed or acquired by an unauthorized person, the Company shall immediately notify the Client, in writing, of this fact, providing full details of the actual or suspected compromise.
The Company is a processor of information in terms of the South African POPIA Act and not the responsible party when it comes to staff, student and parent personal information. As such it is the Clients responsibility to obtain the necessary permissions for obtaining and storage of this personal information. The Company will perform its obligations, as detailed above, in terms of a data processor only.
Information Security:
The Company acknowledges that in providing support it will have access to the Client’s information (including information not owned but controlled by the Client) on Ed-admin’s information system.
The Client reciprocally acknowledges that in providing support the Company, its staff, Ed-admin and its third party suppliers will have access to the data on its information systems.
The Company agrees to abide by Generally Accepted Information Security Practices as well as to have agreements with 3rd party suppliers (such as Ed-admin) to ensure they also abide by Generally Accepted Information Security Practices.
Confidential Information:
What is included. “Confidential information” is non-public information, proprietary information and trade secrets in any form that:
Is designated as “confidential”; A reasonable person knows or reasonably should understand to be confidential; or; For the purposes of this agreement the following information is stipulated to be confidential: Proprietary information of either the Company, Ed-admin or the Client, which includes but is not limited to: Business information including cost and pricing information; Business plans, advertising and marketing plans and strategies; Technical information including methods, systems, business processes, techniques, inventions and computer software; Educational materials and information of whatever nature belonging to the Company or Client or under its control; and personal information of any child who may have been enrolled at the Client at any time, the parents of the child, the staff of the Client or any third party whose personal information is processed by the Client.
What is not included? The following types of information, however marked, are not confidential information. Information that:
is, or becomes, publicly available without breach of this agreement; Was lawfully known or comes to the knowledge of the receiver of the information without an obligation to keep it confidential;Is received from another source who can disclose it lawfully and without an obligation to keep it confidential. Is, or becomes public for no fault of the receiver of the information.
Treatment of Confidential Information Company and Client agree not to disclose any confidential information to any third parties without the prior written consent of the other Party unless already expressly stated in this agreement.
Security precautions
The Company and Client agree:
To take all reasonable steps to safeguard confidential information. These safeguards must be appropriate to the sensitivity of the information and comply with Generally Accepted Information Security Practice and any policies, procedures or standards implemented by that party; To notify the Account Manager of the other party immediately upon discovery of any unauthorized access to confidential information; and To cooperate with the other Party or persons appointed by the other Party, to deal with any security breach, aimed at regaining control of the confidential information and preventing further unauthorized access to, use of, or disclosure of confidential information.
Priority Levels and Response Times:
Support Ticket Requests (STR’s) are monitored against actual business hours, which are 8am until 4:30pm and working days are country specific.
A priority level must be assigned to each Support Request by the Client. The priority level chosen dictates the Response Time within which the Support Consultant will respond to a Support Request. Support Consultants will alter Support Requests with Priority Level 1 or 2 applied if on initial analysis it is discovered the impact is more aligned with Priority Level 3 or 4. If an SLA timeframe is not met, the Client may take this up with the Company either in the regular Client development meetings or with a Client Support Manager. The Company will address all such matters with a formal response and ensure all efforts and controls are maintained to ensure the continued deliverance of the SLA timeframes. The Client acknowledges that no monetary compensation for missed SLA timeframes will apply. The table below indicates the definition of the priority levels as well as the Response Time for each of those priority levels.
Critical (Identified by red circle) – Initial response time of 4 business hours
A problem that severely impacts the use of the Software (such as loss of data or where systems are not functioning) The situation halts operations and no work can be done on Ed-admin. No practical workaround exists
Significant (Identified by blue circle) - Initial response time of 8 business hours
A problem where the Software is functioning but the use is severely reduced. The situation is causing a high impact to portions of operations and no practical workaround exists
Minimal (Identified by yellow circle) - Initial response time of 16 business hours
A problem that involves partial, non-critical loss of use of the Software. There is a medium – to-low impact, but the Software operations continue to function with or without practical workaround
Nominal (Identified by green circle) - Initial response time of 24 business hours
A general usage question, reporting of a documentation error, request or recommendation for a future enhancement or modification. There is low-to-no impact on operations or the performance or functionality of the Software.
IN NO EVENT SHALL ED-ADMIN, THE COMPANY OR ANY ED-ADMIN RESELLER AND FRANCHISE, BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES, LOSS OF USE, DATA, PROFITS OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE, UNLESS LEGALLY OBLIGED.
Custom Development:
Neither the Company, nor Ed-admin are a custom development house. The Client acknowledges that the Ed-admin system is purchase as a “Commercial Off The Shelf Product”(COTSP).
The above said, both the Company and Ed-admin are able to customise the Ed-admin product to a particular clients needs.
Custom development is always done on a quotation or charge for time basis and is always chargeable.
The Company and Ed-admin generally sponsors the major portion of new custom development requests, and sometimes all of it, with the client only paying a contribution. Custom development is done in conjunction with the client requesting it so that a robust solution capable of meeting the needs of all clients is achieved, with the Company and Ed-admin often suggesting improvements to the client specification that will strengthen and make the development long lasting. All custom development is owned by Ed-admin who are free to add this to the functionality for the benefit of other clients as they see fit.
Where custom development is delivered to the Client by Ed-admin or the Company, if this is done on a fixed cost quotation basis the agreed charges will not change unless the scope of work initially agreed by the Client changes.
The Client acknowledges that all delivery time estimates provided by the Company or Ed-admin for custom development are only estimates and that it is impossible to accurately determine the amount of time new and unknown custom development will take.
Custom Development Quality Assurance:
The Company has the obligation to monitor the Support Services provided by the Support Consultants.
The Company shall check the logs of the Support Consultants for accuracy of the completed work as well as for the accuracy of the time charged by the Support Consultants.
The Client shall be entitled to provide feedback when closing a Support Request. The Company shall take the feedback into account when assessing the quality of the Support Services provided by the Support Consultants.
The Company warrants that the personnel employed by it to provide support are properly skilled, experienced and qualified to provide the support.
The Client acknowledges that closing a support ticket, whether by their staff or automatically by the Client Portal where no response from the Client is obtained for a lengthy period (warning of which will be emailed to the client), that this constitutes satisfaction of the Client with the support provided unless raised directly with a Client Support Manager in writing.
Travel and Expense Policy:
This policy strives for the appropriate balance between ensuring our Consultants are enabled to perform at their best whilst travelling on business, and whilst keeping on-site training both affordable and high-quality for our clients.
General Travel Information:
If the Client prefers to organise the travel arrangements for The Company or Ed-admin consultants, then they may do so. Of course, in the event that there are multiple on-site visits to various clients, The Company will have to oversee the travel arrangements and the cost will then be split between the Clients appropriately.
Visas and Passports:
Visa costs are to be carried by the client. The Company takes the following items into consideration when booking travel arrangements:
Air Travel:
In order to allow our Clients to get the best deal possible, the Company books flights 14 or more days in advance, to ensure the best fare possible. Further to this, the Company also checks for cheaper flights within the two hours before and after the requested time by the Client. Insurance is included at the time of booking, to cover any unforeseen airline cancellations. Airfare will then be charged to the Client.
Road Transport:
In general, an intermediate or smaller car is the cartype booked for rental; however, the size and type of the rental car is taken into consideration based on the number of people in the car and the road conditions for which it will be used. The Company does include insurance at the time of the rental, to cover the unlikely event of an accident. Car Rental is charged to the Client and if an International driver’s license is required, the cost is covered by the Client.
Where road travel is made for any onsite visits to a Client by Ed-admin or the Company’s consultants in the consultants own vehicle the cost of travel will be charged based on the kilometres travelled multiplied by the South Africa AA rate.
Hotels:
The Client is to book a reasonably priced 3-star hotel to house travelling consultants. Hotel costs are charged to the Client if booked by the Company. If the consultant arranges their own accommodation with family or friends etc., then he or she will receive an allowance equivalent to half the cost of three-star hotel accommodation for the same number of days in the same city. This cost will be charged to the client.
Per diem:
A per diem daily food allowance is given to consultants travelling overnight to Client sites which is recovered by the Company. The allowance differs depending on the number of meals included in the accommodation above or provided by the Client.
All of the above expenses have fixed daily limits, which can be obtained from a Client Support Manager on request.
Requesting on-site training and implementation:
When the Client is ready to book on-site training, please proceed to your Client Portal and raise a request for this. Once the request is received, all the necessary arrangements will be made. The following notice periods are advised:
7 days advance booking for onsite training in the trainer's home city
14 days advance booking for onsite training in a city within the trainer's home country 21 days advance booking for onsite training outside the trainer's home country 1 month notice in some countries that require visa arrangements before flights can be booked
Please note that there are peak periods when the Company’s trainers may not be available even based on the above notice periods. We will however do our best to accommodate Client requirements wherever possible.
Travel arrangements:
If the requesting Client elects to arrange for travel, lodging, and food, Ed-admin Education retains the right to have the following guidelines met:
Flights shall be non-stop only.
If travel distance exceeds more than one time zone, the trainer will fly out the night prior to onsite training.
Accommodation is of a quality acceptable to a professional
If the Company determines that the arrangements do not meet the above guidelines and are not satisfactory, the Company retains the right to book the travel arrangements and bill the requesting Client for all costs incurred. Any travel tickets purchased by the Company for onsite training will be purchased at the lowest fully refundable, non-discounted rate available.
Training course content:
All training will follow a course plan as outlined in the Ed-admin training projects. Please refer to the projects on your Client Portal for more information on the course outlines.
Number of participants:
The maximum number of attendees per session is twenty, in order to ensure maximum productivity of the training.
When a Company consultant is coming on-site from outside of town, the minimum number of hours that a Client can book is four. This will ensure the Client can utilize more of Ed-admin and at the same time assist the Company in ensuring consultant time is not wasted just in travel.
Cancellation of on-site training:
If onsite training is cancelled by the Company and rescheduled, the Company will arrange for a full refund of any costs incurred by the Client such as flight bookings and accommodation.
If the onsite training is cancelled by the Client any costs incurred by the Company such as flight booking, accommodation, etc are to be re-reimbursed by the Client. Since there is significant commitment of resources towards a scheduled training, the following applies if the Client does not have an SLA for support:
Between 14 and 20 days prior to the training, 25% of the total onsite training days cost will be charged
Between 7 and 13 days prior to the training, 50% of the total onsite training days cost will be charged
Between 1 and 6 days prior to the training, 75% of the total onsite training days cost will be charged.
Relationship Management:
Each Party (the Client and the Company) shall appoint an account manager, who shall be primarily responsible for the management of the relationship between the Parties.
The Company’s account manager will always be any of the designated Client Support Managers.
The account managers shall inter alia:
The account managers shall provide to one another contact details which will include, at a minimum, the current telephone number, mobile number and email address of the account manager.
Account managers shall make appropriate records of the meetings with their counterparts, and ensure the secure retention of these records.
Client Portal:
The Client Portal is a dedicated application designed to assist Clients. It is essential for Clients to learn about this as one of the main focuses of the application is managing support delivery by streamlining the raising of support and ensuring that requests are responded to in an efficient manner.
Support should be requested by opening a ticket within the client portal; there are terms that must be agreed upon before a support ticket can be created.
When opening a ticket in the client portal, please ensure that you provide adequate information so that our support staff are better able to provide you with an immediate response. You have the option of following up with a Client Support Manager after you have entered the support ticket on the Client Portal.
No support can be provided until a ticket is created in the Client Portal, unless the Client Portal is down or in emergency situations when the Client does not have access to the Internet.
Once the request is placed through the Client Portal, we assume the request is authorised. It is the Client’s responsibility to ensure that authorised staff only have access to the Client Portal to request and authorise support. The Client will select a specific 'Charge Type' to suit the need of their request, details on differences below.
As soon as a request is submitted, the Company’s Consultant will be notified via email. It is only possible for Client Support Managers to maintain SLA timeframes by monitoring Consultant responses and timeliness via the Client portal. When the Consultant responds to the relevant request, the Client is then notified via email that there is activity on the Client Portal and can view what the Consultant's response is.
Charge Types:
When creating a support ticket on the client portal, an appropriate charge type must be selected. Selecting the wrong charge type can delay the delivery of support and services.
Charge for Time
Approved Time: Charge for time
Description: Charges will be incurred for the actual duration of time spent on the request, however no charges will be applicable if it is found to be a global bug.
If the ticket is for support and you have a SLA the time our consultants spend assisting you will be allocated to your SLA for us to track its profitability over the year, but you will not be billed for this as the SLA covers unlimited support.
Custom Development Quote
Approved Time: Minimum of 5 hours
Description: This request may be raised to create a specification and/or quotation for a custom development request with a minimum of 5 hours to be charged to provide the quote. Either a quote can be provided immediately from an initial request or together with the Consultant a specification will be developed in order to enable a quote.
The 5 hours are required to provide a quote, which is a standard practice in the software development industry, the Ed-admin Software is complex and when quoting detailed analysis is required to determine the costs involved, it is not a case of simply costing various “parts” and adding them to come up with a quote.
Development Suggestion
Approved Time: No charge
Description: This request may be chosen to suggest a custom development in Ed-admin software. There is no charge for this type of support request.
Development suggestions are reviewed periodically and if implemented by Ed-admin will feature in Development News. Please note the will not be feedback on suggestions until development have decided to investigate.
Billing Queries
Approved Time: No charge
Description: The request may be chosen to raise a query related to any invoice or other billing related issue between your establishment and Ed-admin for example sms billing, requesting new support plan, licensing, etc.
Support for server operating system and hardware:
Ed-admin can be hosted on a server within the Client’s network, however the norm is for it to be hosted in the Cloud on one of Ed-admin’s hosting products. Similar to any other server at the client, if hosting is done locally at the client, the Ed-admin server will require maintenance related to its hardware, operating system, networking, antivirus and security software, disk space management and backup, etc.
The focus of the The Company and Ed-admin support team is the Ed-admin application itself and not the server or operating system that the client operates. We prefer Clients to install the Ed-admin application themselves as this implies a required level of technical skill development at the Client and therefore the ability to maintain this ongoing which is the Client’s responsibility.
Although The Company and Ed-admin are happy to assist with the installation of Ed-admin when requested, we do not necessarily have the expertise or resources to manage the server itself on behalf of the Education Institution. Ed-admin runs very efficiently with a server of suitable operating system and hardware specifications (as per the guides).
However, a local issue related to the hardware, operating system or other installed software on the server or network issues, may prevent Ed-admin performing as fast and efficiently as it should.
We request primarily that Client’s use either their internal or externally-sourced expertise to troubleshoot such a performance issue because inevitably, such issues are related to the server hardware, operating system, network or other installed software and not Ed-admin.
In rare situations when Client’s do not have such expertise available, we are able to assist, upon request, with the understanding that we cannot take over full server support and can only assist in identifying any issues that may be affecting the Client’s server performance.
It is best to lodge a request for support of Charge for time if requesting this form of server support, as such support, although chargeable, is often difficult to quote for.
Please note that as previously mentioned, we only assist with the resolution of server-related issues to the extent that our resources and expertise extend. There is therefore no guarantee that our staff will identify the cause within any specified time frames.
It is for the above reasons that it is strongly encourage to always use an Ed-admin hosting product rather than the Client hosting on their local servers as Ed-admin have standard setup, maintenance, monitoring, error resolution and improvement processes for their cloud hosted products supported by partners like Amazon AWS.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
What exactly is support and what is not?
Support includes:
Support does not include:
Does using the Client Portal mean we are not able to communicate directly with Ed-admin consultants?
The Client Portal does not stop any Client from communicating directly via phone or email with an Ed-admin consultant.
However, raising the request via the Client Portal will ensure that your request is not lost among emails and phone calls and is allocated to a consultant that is available currently. Requests lodged on the Client Portal are also monitored by the Client Support Managers to ensure quick and efficient resolution and can be escalated to 2nd line support or another support consultant if needed with the full issue trail in the ticket log.
For these reasons, it is always in the Client’s best interest to log an issue on the Client Portal rather than contacting support directly.
We seem to have run out of budget for support and development hours. How did this happen?
It is the responsibility of the Client to manage the use of support plan hours over the course of the year. All requests are initiated by the Client, approved and then acted upon by support and development staff. It is, therefore, not possible for Ed-admin to enter negotiations once the support plan has been exhausted and to undo the work that has already been approved and acted upon.
We therefore strongly advise Clients to ensure staff that are authorised to have access to the Client Portal understand what they are doing when they select approval options. If you require training on using the Client Portal, please ask the Consultant responsible for your support.
All charges to your support plan are recorded and able for you to track and monitor real time on your Client Portal.
Custom Development - Overview:
Ed-admin is a Commercial Off the Shelf product (COTS). Neither The Company nor Ed-admin are custom development houses.
The above said, both The Company and Ed-admin offer the unique opportunity for their clients to customise Ed-admin to their specific needs. This service is unmatched in the SIS industry.
Clients can raise suggestions for improvements. Any suggestions may be developed by The Company or Ed-admin for free as part of their ongoing plans to keep the Ed-admin product at the forefront of School Management Systems. This decision is at the sole discretion of The Company or Ed-admin.
The Client may request a quote for development of any suggestions not done for free by The Company or Ed-admin at the Client’s cost. The Company and Ed-admin generally absorb the bulk of the cost for custom development suggestions as they acknowledge these can be used to improve the marketability of the product. Naturally though, this service is not without its costs as we employ efficient and experienced staff who can deal with the complexities of combining package product features with custom features.
It is often very difficult to have custom developed features in a way that will require no further updates or developments.
When quoting for custom development at the cost of the Client, the quote covers only the initial delivery, testing and sign-off by the Client of the development. Ongoing costs of maintenance of custom development are for the Client’s account.
The reasons contributing to this are:
Requirement definition
Requirements are not fully communicated or understood or implemented at first.
Bugs identified after frequent use
Some bugs or small improvements are only identified after frequent and long-term use of the custom development features. We only act on these as they arise and this is part of the process of software development. The more complex the development, the more chance of subsequent bugs that need to be fixed or small improvements that may be required.
Context changes:
Changes to other areas of Ed-admin, the operating system hosting Ed-admin, the server itself, or browser versions may require updates to the custom developed component. These ongoing updates may be chargeable.
Requirement refinement:
Later changes or further development of custom developed components may be chargeable.
Data structure changes:
There may also be changes in data structure. Ongoing updates may be chargeable, such as changes in basic elements (for example, the number of subjects, the billing method and cycles, and so on) that may affect custom built elements.
Data availability:
There are also situations where one year or more of data is required to complete the development process, especially in the area of report cards, results analysis, parent/sponsor/debtor statements, and IB diploma reporting. This is because the elements are custom developed to suit the way data is captured, reported and analysed. It is not possible to confirm accuracy of reports without enough data. In these cases, custom development is a gradual process. A very good example is term/semester based reportcards. It is not possible to design a report in Term 1 which will also work in Term 2, specially if some elements are different, such as the comment structure or if the report card is cumulative. Developers can not develop and test for report cards working for a complete year when the only data available is for Term
We therefore need to revisit the report card design towards the end of each term upon Client request to ensure data is pulled through to report cards, specially if the report cards are cumulative. This process can take just 1 to 2 hours if we have a simple report card structure or more if we have various designs per grade level across a K-12 school or tertiary environment. Additional changes are often introduced during this time as the Client finds better ways to present information. The requirements rarely stay static over the course of one year.
Please note that there is absolutely no method of guaranteeing that a custom report will work forever. Although this may sound uncertain to some, you will find that this sentiment is clearly stated and echoed in research in the market of custom development.
Revisions:
It is often impossible to do custom development with just one revision. Even with the best developer, no system is ever developed in one cycle. Custom development often requires revisions, issues that are discovered after some time or weeks later. It is therefore not a surprise when after weeks there is a new request to complete the initial development. The extra time required for the second revision was not taken and charged for in the first revision, so often each revision involves chargeable time.