POLICY DEFINITIONS

For the purposes of all GATE Village Policy Documents, the following definitions exist:

• ACKNOWLEDGER: The point-of-contact (usually Department Manager) within an GATE Village department that was assigned a particular ISSUE.
• CUSTOMER: For the purposes of this document, CUSTOMER is another name for a user of GATE Village’s services.
• MEMBER SERVICES: A department within GATE Village, responsible for a number of functions including Customer Support.
• CUSTOMER CARE CENTER: A part of GATE Village that acts as a central repository for all training manuals, FAQ, Customer Support documentation, etc. It can be used as a first step in troubleshooting any ISSUE.
• CUSTOMER SUPPORT: The function provided by the Member Services department with respect to responding to ISSUES raised by Customers.
• CUSTOMER SUPPORT VIOLATION: The repeated, improper designation of support ISSUES as CRITICAL.
• INITIATOR: The CUSTOMER personnel who made the support request of GATE Village or the employee designated as the point-of-contact for a given issue.
• ISSUE: Any request, comment, criticism or observation made by a CUSTOMER about a SERVICE they are contracted to receive.
• ISSUE COMPLETION NOTICE: The notification sent to CUSTOMERS by GATE Village upon resolution of an ISSUE.
• ISSUE PRIORITY: One of Critical, Severe, or Functional.
• ISSUE TRIAGE: The process of defining ISSUES (according to their category, TYPE and PRIORITY) and then assigning explicit SLAs.
• ISSUE TYPE: Either Site Support or End User Support.
• MAY, MAY NOT: Use of these words indicates that a number of equally good options exist. Choosing between these options is left to the individual tasked with this step.
• MUST, MUST NOT, WILL, WILL NOT: Use of these words indicates mandatory actions, or actions that should not be taken under any circumstances.
• RESPONSE TIME: The period of time between an ISSUE being sent to GATE Village and a MSR’S acknowledgement of its receipt.
• MEMBER SERVICES REPRESENTATIVE: The GATE Village personnel assigned to TRIAGE an ISSUE.
• SERVICE: In the context of this document, SERVICE refers to all elements of the delivered service to the CUSTOMER including the CUSTOMER’S application and the underlying infrastructure within GATE Village’s control.
• SHOULD, SHOULD NOT: Use of these words indicates a recommendation that, in most cases, should be followed. Some discretion exists, however, depending upon circumstances.
• SLA: Service Level Agreements detail the targets and timelines GATE Village endeavours to meet when dealing with support ISSUES. There are three specific SLAs with regards to support. They are designated in the following order:
  • VERIFICATION SLA: The time within which GATE Village will put an ISSUE through the TRIAGE process. The CUSTOMER will be informed when this process is complete.
  • ACKNOWLEDGMENT SLA: The specific time within which a GATE Village department is responsible for acknowledging receipt of an ISSUE. As this is an internal process, no external notification will be made.
  • RESOLUTION/ACTION PLAN (RAP) SLA: The specific time within which GATE Village will either resolve the ISSUE, provide a work-around, or propose an action plan to the CUSTOMER.
• Inference Monitoring: is defined as the practice of infering a sub-system’s status by relying upon the successful completion of a different service relying upon the sub-system. For instance, successfully logging into GATE Village allows one to infer that: the web server is functioning and the database is functioning.
• Direct Monitoring: is defined as monitoring a specific service or sub-system directly by monitoring tools.