Learn about various important details concerning our service-level agreements.
In this article
Support SLAs overview
The service-level agreements (SLAs) you can expect with TradeLens include:
- Six different contact options
- Severity definitions
- Contact opening hours
- Escalation process
Contact options
The following options are available for you to ask for help or report an issue:
Community forum: a public forum, available for general questions and assistance from IBM support and the TradeLens user community. Because this is a public channel, we don’t recommend sharing proprietary, private, or sensitive information here.
Watson chatbot: an interactive AI fed by IBM Support knowledge assets. You can ask the chatbot TradeLens-related questions, and it will try to provide guidance based on existing knowledge assets. Chat to Watson by clicking on the Chat with Support link on the TradeLens Support Portal.
Knowledge Base: TradeLens offers extensive on-demand learning, from simple how-to guides to detailed background information and the option to download relevant documents.
My Notifications: a public communications channel that you’ll need to sign up for. Used to tell you about the latest:
- Security updates
- Outage notifications and other urgent notices
- Technotes, new features, and functions
- Product announcements
Live agent chat: the TradeLens support team is available for you to contact them Monday to Friday during US business hours. You can start a live chat by typing talk to an agent into a Watson chatbot session (see above). If we can’t resolve your issue in a reasonable timeframe, the chat session can be converted into a case. The newly created case will contain the full history of the chat interaction leading up to the case being opened.
To open a support case you can open a case via the IBM TradeLens support page or by typing open a case via the Watson chatbot.
Severity definitions
Severity 1 – critical impact/system down: a business-critical software component is inoperable or a critical interface has failed. This usually applies to a production environment and indicates you’re unable to use the program, resulting in a critical impact. Requires an immediate solution.
Examples:
- A company website is down, affecting all users
- A production server is down
Severity 2 – significant business impact: a software component is severely restricted in its use, or you’re at risk of missing business deadlines because of problems with a new application roll-out.
Example:
- All users of an application receive an error when attempting to access a service
Severity 3 – some business impact: the program is usable with less significant features (not critical to operations) unavailable.
Example:
- A client can’t connect to a server
Severity 4 – minimal business impact: a non-critical software component is malfunctioning; also covers non-technical requests.
Examples:
- Incorrect documentation
- Additional documentation requested
Contact opening hours
Monday to Friday 8:00am – 5:00pm (EST)
Support outside business hours is available for Severity 1 cases, 24/7, 365 days a year. Customers must be available for contact 24/7. No other support requests will be accepted outside business hours.
If support is required outside business hours, then the case should be raised to Severity 1, and the customer must be available for contact 24/7.
To request after-hours support, open a Severity 1 case via the IBM TradeLens support page.
Escalation process
If you’d like to follow up on an open support case, you can raise its severity level to 1. Escalate a case by logging into the IBM TradeLens support page. Click Cases in the top navigation, then View your cases. Once you’ve increased the severity level to 1, the support team will contact you to try and resolve the issue.
