Introduction

Highwire’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) outlines the service and support provided by Highwire to users of the Highwire application. The purpose of this SLA is to:

• Clearly represent the capabilities of Highwire’s support and services related to the Highwire application.
• Establish a shared set of expectations regarding the operation and support of the Highwire application.
• Provide a framework for communication with users regarding overall satisfaction.

Service Availability

Highwire will make commercially reasonable efforts to ensure that the software is available and operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days per year. Notwithstanding that generality, Highwire’s “Service Level” means availability of no less than 99.9% calculated on a calendar month basis, subject to Permitted Downtime, and based on a maximum score of 100%. 

Availability Calculation: For purposes of this SLA, Availability for a given calendar month is calculated as: ((Total Minutes in the Calendar Month – Downtime Minutes) / Total Minutes in the Calendar Month) × 100. “Downtime Minutes” means any period during which the Licensed Software is unavailable for productive use by Client, excluding Permitted Downtime. Availability shall be measured and reported by Highwire on a calendar-month basis and made available upon request. 

“Permitted Downtime” means planned or scheduled unavailability of the software that is necessary for the purpose of maintenance and/or upgrade. Permitted Downtime will not exceed 1 hour per month and will take place on non-business days during hours when use is expected to be the lowest. Users will be notified of any scheduled downtime at least 5 days prior to the work. Any maintenance that (i) exceeds one (1) hour in a calendar month, (ii) does not take place on a non-business day during a low-usage window, or (iii) is performed without at least five (5) days’ prior notice to Client, shall not be treated as Permitted Downtime and shall instead be counted as Downtime Minutes for purposes of calculating Availability under this SLA. 

Note that Highwire contracts with Amazon Web Services (AWS) for cloud storage; consequently, downtime may be contingent upon the nature of any AWS’ outage and response time. While the calculation of Downtime Minutes and any associated service credits) do not apply in cases of an outage or service failure of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Highwire has selected AWS as our cloud infrastructure provider due to their own extensive security certifications, including SOC 2 Type II and ISO/IEC 27001 certification. Highwire's agreement with AWS imposes data security and availability obligations materially consistent with this SLA, and Highwire fully leverages AWS’ real-time monitoring and alert systems to identify warning signs and availability incidents as soon as practicable, escalate outages promptly, and pursue any remedies available to Highwire under its own agreement with AWS.

Incident Response and Resolution

Highwire’s application provides a straightforward, easily understandable user interface that allows users of our system to quickly engage with us by various means depending on the level of service that is needed. Generally, this user support can be broken down into Self-Help and Help Desk Support.

Self Help

The Highwire Help Center is easily accessible from the Highwire website via the “Online Support” in the footer of each page and also directly within the application via the “Help” button in the upper right corner. Users can access help articles and videos to answer frequently asked questions. These self-help features empower users to easily access information and immediately resolve common questions and issues on their own.

Help Desk Support 

Highwire provides live technical Help Desk support Monday through Friday, from 8am to 5pm EST. After hours, users can submit a request to generate a ticket for our support team. For Critical severity incidents, tickets are automatically escalated to Engineering and are triaged seven (7) days a week. You can get a quick video overview of how to access the Highwire Help Center here. 

Initial Response

Initial Response is deemed to occur only when a qualified Highwire support representative, and not an automated or system-generated acknowledgment, begins investigating the reported issue and provides Client with (i) the assigned severity level, (ii) the name of the Highwire representative or team owning the issue, and (iii) the time by which the next status update will be provided. An automated ticket-creation confirmation does not, by itself, satisfy the Initial Response Time commitment.

The Highwire Help Center is powered by ZenDesk©, an automated ticketing system that immediately assigns a unique ticket to every inquiry, whether it was received by phone, email, or online chat, and tracks an issue from initial reporting through resolution. This automated tracking system provides metrics on response time and customer satisfaction to ensure that Highwire’s SLA is being met. The Highwire Help Desk is able to resolve 80-90% of tickets through a combination of troubleshooting and user education around issues like username and password problems, assistance with navigating application menus, uploading documents, etc. For more complex issues, the Highwire Help Desk representative will escalate the issue to Highwire’s Engineering Department for resolution in accordance with the table below:

Resolution vs. Workaround

A “Workaround” is a temporary measure that mitigates the impact of an incident without correcting its underlying root cause. “Resolution” means the permanent correction of the root cause of the incident, or the implementation of a remediation plan mutually agreed in writing by the parties. Where an incident is addressed only by a Workaround, the associated ticket shall remain open, and the Resolution Time clock shall continue to run, until a permanent correction or agreed remediation plan has been delivered.

If Highwire fails to resolve an internal Critical issue in accordance with the above-specified response deadlines, Client will be entitled to a service credit in an amount equal to 5% of the applicable monthly fees for each additional twenty-four (24) hour period that Highwire fails to remedy the issue, up to a maximum of one month’s fees.

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