Severity Levels
Severity
The severity of a support ticket is assigned according to the guidelines listed in the chart below.
- The examples provided show the typical nature of each severity level.
- Since it is not possible to define rules for every possible condition, permutation, or technical situation, these should be seen as general guidelines.
- The severity level is assigned solely by Vertican.
Availability
Severity Level 1, and often severity level 2, will typically require the client to be available to provide Vertican with information. Vertican personnel will inform the Client of the level of effort and availability that is required.
- If the authorized or designated client contact is not available to engage in this effort, Vertican may reduce the severity level.
- If the client refuses to implement the steps suggested to troubleshoot or correct the issue, Vertican may close the ticket.
Severity Level Guidelines
| Severity Level 1 |
| Critical Business Impact |
| Typical conditions include: |
| Critical issue occurring on production system preventing business operations. A large number of users are prevented from working with no procedural workaround. |
| Production application is down or experiencing a major malfunction that makes it non-operational. Loss of functionality that is mission-critical to the business. |
| Critical loss of application functionality or performance. No workaround exists. |
| Mission-critical functions are down or there is a substantial loss of service such that users cannot perform basic functions; e.g. users cannot log in, data cannot be sent. |
| A substantial portion of the Customer’s mission-critical data is at significant risk of loss or corruption due to Vertican systems. |
| An issue in which the product causes the Client’s network or system to fail catastrophically or that compromises overall system integrity or data integrity when the product is installed or when it is in operation (i.e., causing a system crash, loss or corruption of data, or loss of system security) and significantly impacts the Client’s ongoing operations in a production environment. |
| System hangs or crashes. |
| Impact is escalating quickly. |
| Severity Level 2 |
| Significant Business Impact |
| Typical conditions include: |
| Major issue occurring on production system significantly impacting business. |
| A large number of users are impacted by the issue, but they are still able to work in a limited capacity. |
| The program operates but is significantly limited. |
| Service interruptions to some, but not all, modules within a product. |
| A problem or issue is adversely impacting production operations, but the production system is not down. |
| Important tasks cannot be performed. Key workflows are not triggering as expected, the client is unable to bill, reports fail to be generated. |
| Significant performance degradation. |
| Important functionality is not available. |
| Impact is escalating. |
| Severity Level 3 |
| Normal Business Impact |
| Typical conditions include: |
| Issue causing a partial or non-critical loss of functionality on production system. A small number of users are affected. |
| Some system functions not available. |
| Minor performance degradation. |
| Small number of users impacted. |
| Impact is not escalating. |
| Severity Level 4 |
| Minimal Business Impact |
| Typical conditions include: |
| Issue occurring on non-production system, or question, comment, feature request, documentation issue, or other non-impacting issue. |
| Incorrect product behavior without impact. |
| Product question or enhancement. |