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Continuous Improvement Desk – Solochain
Introduction
LIDD offers support of customer applications through its Continuous Improvement Desk (CID).
The standard business hours for the Continuous Improvement Desk hours are from 8:00AM to 8:00PM (EST), Monday to Friday.
Support services will be made available for the following applications:
Tools
LIDD leverages Microsoft’s Azure DevOps software to manage project backlog with the following structure:
- Boards: Support tickets and associated Work items, including implementation history
- Test Plans: Unit tests and acceptance. These can then be reused for updates, new integrations and employee onboarding
- Repos: Code management, providing visibility on who was the developer, changes they brought and when these occurred.
Services
LIDD’s Continuous Improvement Desk offers a wide range of services that can be leveraged throughout the duration of this agreement. Although not extensive, the following list serves as starting point to illustrate how LIDD can assist in the continuous growth and support of the application park. For any new requests estimated to be more than 200 hours, a separate proposal will be generated.
Although certain configuration and development requests require less effort than others, they all follow the same process which requires a customer approval after the “Gather Requirements and Design” step.
Hypercare
Typically following a software launch or major feature implementation, operations require dedicated support to ensure they can execute their daily operations efficiently. LIDD’s team assists the customer’s operations and can support them with short delay. This personalized hyper care plan ensures dedicated resources with a flat fee so customers know who will assist operations and how much this will cost.
Operational Support
While LIDD recommends establishing a team of Super Users to serve as first responders for common operational issues and questions, we understand that teams may still require additional support.
This service is designed for the post-stabilization phase: when the application is running smoothly and Super Users are active, but an additional safety net is desired. LIDD remains available to step in quickly and effectively should any issues arise, ensuring minimal disruption and a swift return to normal operations.
Enhancements
As businesses evolves, new processes or functionalities are required to stay efficient. LIDD assists in defining the best way to leverage or enhance the system to meet these new requirements.
These types of requests are documented against Stories in DevOps and approved by the customer before being worked on.
A dedicated proposal is required if an enhancement is estimated to take more then 200 hours.
Issue Resolution
Although rigorous testing is executed during the implementation phase, it is possible to find technical issues. These are documented against Bugs in DevOps and approved by the customer before being worked on.
Implementation Assessment
After a year or two of implementation, LIDD recommends a re-assessment of the operations to evaluate how processes have evolved and whether new functionalities could be leveraged.
Training
LIDD can train new or existing Users to ensure they are using the system to the maximum of their ability.
Packages
While not mandatory, having a Continuous Improvement Desk (CID) plan is recommended to fully leverage the benefits of the service. All activities—ranging from initial investigation and requirements documentation to deployment and project management—are billed on a time-and-materials basis.
When selecting a support package, consider expectations around response time and the operational impact of potential issues. The right package should align with how critical timely support is when a ticket is submitted.
To ensure efficient support, LIDD leverages DevOps which gives access to:
- Implementation work items and history for traceability and analysis.
- Implementation test cases to be reused for upgrades, new integrations and change management.
- Management of the Continuous Improvement tickets, enhancement and bugs.
Billing Scope and Exclusions
Below is the comprehensive list of billable scope and exclusions available in our continuous improvement support packages. The exclusions will not be billed.
Billing Scope
- Ticket Investigation and Resolution: LIDD will diligently investigate and resolve any tickets related to user errors that impact critical areas, such as order completion, master data, inventory discrepancies, and integration errors. Additionally, LIDD will address configuration and integration changes as needed.
- Additional Development Requests: LIDD offers support for additional development requests to enhance the functionality and efficiency of Solochain.
- Meeting Requests: LIDD is available for meetings to discuss any aspects of Solochain and provide guidance as required.
- Training: LIDD provides training sessions to ensure that users are effectively utilizing Solochain to its full potential.
- Bug Caused by Application Customizations: If any bugs arise from customizations specific to the customer application, we will conduct thorough investigations, undertake necessary development fixes, and conduct rigorous testing to ensure a seamless resolution.
- A new process requiring activating a new module.
- A new business scenario requiring changes to existing features.
- A change in operations that requires updates to configuration.
Exclusions
- Bugs caused by a Core component of the Generix Application: Generix will provide a resolution to the issue.
- LIDD will work with the customer to identify and document issues to be addressed by Generix. Time spent with the customer replicating and documenting the issue, replication steps and expected outcome will count as support hours. We work closely with our customer to facilitate these investigation steps and accelerate resolution times. However, time spent on communicating the issue to Generix, tracking and deploying its resolution will not be billable and will be credited to the monthly pool of available hours. LIDD will provide the template in which issues must be reported and documented to be accepted by Generix so the customer can take on the replication and documentations steps internally if needed.
- Bugs caused by a core component of the LIDDConnect Application: LIDD will provide a resolution to the issue.
- LIDD will work with the customer to identify and document issues to be addressed.
- A modification made by LIDD, not functioning as per its initial expected requirements and dedicated scenarios documented during the project phase or post go-live enhancements. LIDD will take necessary action to correct the modification or customization.
- A Generix released version of Solochain that changes a core feature without having included the change in release notes, will be outside the scope of this agreement. LIDD will provide reasonable assistance to the customer in reporting/requesting resolution from Generix if such an occurrence is discovered.
Customer Access
Customer Support Users
A list of individuals, to be defined with the customer approval users, will be given access to LIDD’s Continuous Improvement Desk and have access to support resources included in the selected package. Support resources are limited to Operational Support, Issue Resolution, and Training services. Any Enhancement work requested by these individuals will need to be approved by Customer’s Approval Users prior to be started by LIDD.
The customer must send a written communication to LIDD to make any changes to this list.
Customer Approval Users
A list of individuals, to be defined at CID Contract signature, will be given access to LIDD’s Continuous Improvement Desk and have access to all services included in the selected package. Any Enhancement work requested will need to be approved by at least one of these individuals prior to be started by LIDD. The approval will be communicated through LIDD’s Azure DevOps or by email.
The customer must send a written communication to LIDD to make any changes to this list.
Holiday Services
During designated holidays, the availability of services provided under this contract will be limited. The holidays are billed at 1.5x times the hourly rate.
Canada
- New Year’s Day – January 1
- Good Friday – Date varies (typically in April)
- Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day – June 24
- Canada Day – July 1
- Labour Day – First Monday in September
- Thanksgiving – Second Monday in October
- Christmas Day – December 25
- Boxing Day – December 26
United States
- New Year’s Day – January 1
- Independence Day – July 4
- Labor Day – First Monday in September
- Thanksgiving Day – Fourth Thursday in November
- Christmas Day – December 25
Appendix 1 – Ticket Severity
Ticket Severity
Before contacting the CID, customers are responsible for determining tickets severity levels. LIDD reserves the right to revise the severity if it has not been established correctly.
Assignment time
The guaranteed time related to the severity of the tickets applies only to level 1, 2 and 3 plans. If the customer has chosen not to take a package, tickets will be processed according to availability of LIDD resources.
The creation of a ticket must precede a call to the CID. Prior validations made by the customer must be included in the ticket.
Severity 1 – Critical
Critical Severity Definition: The software is inaccessible (unplanned downtime).
Severity 2 – High
High Severity Definition: It is impossible to complete a primary function in the software.
- It’s impossible to receive all active orders.
- It’s impossible to allocate all active orders.
Severity 3 – Medium
Medium Severity Definition: There is a data error in the system preventing a document from flowing through the process, but operations are proceeding normally.
Severity 4 – Low
Low Severity Definition: Improvement must be made to the system as requested by the customer. For example:
- A change in the software display must be made.
- A change in the configuration of a process is necessary.
- Request for a new report.
These requests must be validated and approved by the LIDD directors before generating a development task. LIDD will provide a time estimate, which must be approved by the customer prior to starting development.
LIDD will provide an estimated time specific to each item.