Service Level Agreement
and
Northwestern IT
Contents
1.0 Service Level Agreement Overview ................................................................................................... 3
2.0 Business Service Description ............................................................................................................. 3
3.0 Agreement Period .............................................................................................................................. 4
4.0 Maintenance ...................................................................................................................................... 4
5.0 Northwestern IT Responsibilities ....................................................................................................... 4
6.0 Customer Responsibilities .................................................................................................................. 8
7.0 Assumptions ...................................................................................................................................... 9
8.0 Requesting Support ........................................................................................................................... 9
8.1 Incident Response and Resolution Times.......................................................................................... 10
8.2 Service Request Response and Resolution Times .............................................................................. 10
8.4 Service Desk Metrics ........................................................................................................................ 11
8.6 Ongoing breach in service level ........................................................................................................ 11
9.0 Priority of service requests ............................................................................................................... 11
10.0 Amendments or Termination.......................................................................................................... 11
11.0 Support Outside of this Agreement ................................................................................................. 12
12.0 Billing Information ........................................................................................................................ 12
13.0 Cost of Agreement ..................................................................................................................................... 12
1.0 Service Level Agreement Overview
This document is a Service Level Agreement between Northwestern IT (service provider)
and the (customer), outlining the provisioning of IT services.
The purpose of this agreement is to establish service expectations, identify provider and
consumer responsibilities related to this service, specify how this service is supported, and
clarify service charges.
2.0 Business Service Description
Northwestern IT (NUIT) agrees to provide Endpoint device management and support as a
service to customer.
NUIT will: provide
• Device deployment – Procurement, Custom factory image loading including
enterprise licensed common applications, asset tagging and labelling, pre-delivery
and staging services, and system installation, system configuration and data
migrations. Delivers and installs your fully integrated systems to customer
designated user locations.
• Secure endpoint management - pre-configuration of security solutions and
installation of antivirus, data encryption and data backup solutions. Regular
application of Operating system and application software patches.
• Device Management - Agent monitoring to ensure proper tracking of device
lifecycle
• NUIT Service Desk - represents the entry point and first-touch support process for
all hardware and software service-related requests. NUIT delivers a strategic,
customized full-featured service desk that is driven by the goals of quality, value,
and customer satisfaction. NUIT service desk is accountable to resolve, track,
escalate and follow-up on all Endpoint systems related issues that affect customer
productivity.
• NUIT provides on-site Field Services support for endpoint systems, software, and
peripherals support. We assist with installations, moves, adds and changes, as well
as everyday hardware and peripheral support services.
Authorized service delivery providers will be dispatched to your End User when
hardware, software, or peripheral problems cannot be resolved remotely.
• Disposition and redeployment– NUIT delivers efficient, secure and simple
processes for data recoveries to disposals and refreshes. Ensures that system data
is destroyed for security purposes. Disposal of Assets and manages Employee
Purchase Programs.
3.0 Agreement Period
The period of this agreement is September 1, 2019 through August 30, 2020. Each year,
this agreement will automatically extend for one calendar year unless it is modified or
terminated as described in this document.
4.0 Maintenance
Maintenance of services provided in this agreement will be conducted in accordance with
established NUIT Change Management practices, and will occur during scheduled service
maintenance windows. Emergency maintenance, in response to service outages, may
occur with no advanced notice to service consumers. Maintenance or outages of other,
underlying or integrated, services may impact the services provided in this agreement.
Notification of service maintenance and outages is available at:
Service Status (https://service-status.northwestern.edu/).
Information on how to subscribe to email service alerts can be found at:
https://service-status.northwestern.edu/
5.0 Northwestern IT Responsibilities
The following list specifies responsibilities of NUIT related to providing the service set
forth in this agreement. Northwestern IT will be responsible for the following:
Workstations (desktop and laptop computers)
• Build workstations
o Install one of NUIT approved computer images
Dual booting or machines with multiple operating systems will be
assessed and approved by the Technology Support Services Director on
a case by case basis based on business, research or teaching need.
o Install additional software and or make additional updates to the endpoint
device
Upon request
Subject to security approval
o Include and manage
NUIT’ service automated software updating services (Kace/ JAMF)
Endpoint security software(Symantec Endpoint Protection)
Whole disk encryption (MBAM and FileVault)
o Ensure desired work space has functional electrical and network access
Make recommendations for electrical or network access and advise
CONDUITS and FM ordering processes.
o Purchase, deliver and install workstation in desired work space
o Troubleshooting wired or wireless network connectivity users, escalating to
TNS has required.
• Address user observed errors upon notification
o Conduct troubleshooting and remediation efforts
o Coordinate warranty work as required
Coordinate with Dell, Lenovo/CDWG for services (PCs)
Coordinate with Apple service technician (MACs)
o Provide temporary loaner computer
Upon request
If operationally necessary
Subject to availability
o Conference room and classroom support
Coordinate with Northwestern IT Audio/Visual team as need for
support issue
• Provide departmental fiscal office with semi-annual refresh notifications for
workstations.
• Assist with providing purchasing recommendations for new or replacement computers
• Provide major OS updates as required for vendor support (e.g. Windows “Creator
Updates”, MacOS 10.X point releases)
• Provide disposition of end-of-life devices
o Scrub data and remove hard drive
o Send devices to Northwestern University Surplus and/or donate to Student
Enrichment Services
Mobile Devices
The following support is offered upon request:
• Make purchasing recommendations for Northwestern University owned mobile device
• Configure mobile devise
• Configure email
• Coordinate activities with 3
rd
party vendors as required (University owned devices
only)
• Address user observed errors upon notification
o Conduct troubleshooting and remediation efforts
o Coordinate warranty work as required (University owned devices only)
Printers
The following support is offered upon request:
• Set up printers
• Organize for disposal of printers
OU Administration (CampusAD)
The following support is offered upon request:
• Add new users to CampusAD
• Create CampusAD accounts
• Grant access to resources control via CampusAD
• Delete users
• Manage Group Policies
Endpoint Management Services
Management of the following endpoint management software’s:
• Workstations will be patched no less than monthly for OS and application by use of
management software, including Kace, JAMF
• Full system backup of device including local machine stored data using Crashplan
o Monitoring of backup services will be provided, with either tickets generated
or user notification provided in the event that backups are not functioning
Box
The following support is offered upon request:
• Install Box client software, such as Box Edit, Drive and Sync
• Facilitate the creation of organization shares and group accounts
Multi-function devices
The following support is offered upon request:
• Configure printing and scanning access to a multi-function device.
• Address user observed errors upon notification
o Conduct troubleshooting and remediation efforts
o Coordinate warranty work as required
Installation and Troubleshooting of customer specific software
The following support is offered upon request:
• Northwestern IT will install all customer specific software and will work with the
user/experts in said software to ensure that the installation of these applications does not
destabilize other desktop or application functionality
• NUIT will work with the user/experts to contact the vendor of said software to
accomplish same, but will not act independently of the user/experts in contacting
vendors.
Out of Scope
The following services are explicitly not offered in this SLA.
• Management of personal devices
• Support for unmanaged devices such as servers, customer purchased devices
New Technology
Both Northwestern IT and the customer recognize that new technology adoption is
important to the mission of the university. The customer may be introduced or considered
for adoption during the course of this Agreement. At the mutual agreement of the NUIT
and the customer, joint testing, demonstration, or evaluation of such technology may be
undertaken.
If the customer adopts a new computing technology and desires that NUIT support it, then
the Customer Contact will consult with the TSS. If they agree that the new technology
has a limited effect on support time for the support personnel, then it will be incorporated
into the current support activities. Otherwise, the Customer Contact will follow the
procedure described in the section entitled “Support Outside of this Agreement”.
Computer Support Policies
Northwestern IT will support the University-owned computers of the customer based on
the following policies:
1. New purchases must meet the Northwestern IT recommended standards. New
purchases will be set up with the NUIT software image.
2. Existing computer hardware must meet the minimum hardware and operating system
standards.
3. Support level will be determined by the age of the machine
Computer Age Support level Support description
0-4 years
Full Support Northwestern IT will ensure the working order of the
computer, using reasonable staff time and support
resources
4-5 years
Best Effort Northwestern IT will spend up to one hour fixing an
issue. If the issue cannot be resolved at that time, NUIT
will recommend replacing the computer and facilitate the
recovery/transfer of data.
5 years or
older
Out of Support Northwestern IT will facilitate the recovery/transfer of
data, but will not attempt to resolve technical issues.
Legacy Computers connected to instruments
• Best effort support will be provided to computers connected to research equipment in
consultation with Northwestern IT’s Information Security Office
• Legacy equipment may need to be placed off network to avoid remote exploit or other
risk
6.0 Customer Responsibilities
The following list contains the customer’s responsibilities related to their use of this
service:
General
• Submit requests for services to the IT Support Center (by email, phone, or self-service
ticket entry)
• Submit notification of service interruptions or reductions to the IT Support Center
• Provide funding for the purchase of any equipment covered by this SLA
• Provide a list of the devices and their serial numbers for each device covered by this
SLA:
o Initial list will be provided from Kace export
o Updates and changes to support environment will be managed in Kace, or its
replacement for asset management
• Notify NUIT of devices to be added to the SLA throughout the year through the new
computer request form
Workstations
• Arrange to refresh workstations within four years of purchase
• Provide funding for the refresh purchase
Printers
• Purchase a service warranty for each University owned printer that includes break-fix
and full replacement
7.0 Assumptions
This service agreement assumes the following:
• NUIT will bill Customer for support activity outside of the scope of this agreement at
a standard service rate
• Overtime work will be charged at 150% of the standard rate
• After hours support work that requires support personal to return to work will include
a minimum charge of three hours
8.0 Requesting Support
Support tickets, pertaining to service incidents (break-fix) and requests, should be
submitted via the NUIT Service Desk
and include the following information:
• Customer contact information including: name, phone number, email address
• Brief description of the service issue
• Priority level of the incident or request
The Service Desk staff will provide first level support to resolve the issue. Issues that are
not resolved at first level will be escalated to Tier 2 support teams for resolution.
Telephone calls received by the Service Desk outside of scheduled support hours will
prompt callers to leave a message or page support staff for emergencies. The voice
messages will be responded to on next business day.
Customers are encouraged to check the NUIT
Service Status
web site
https://service-status.northwestern.edu/ for scheduled maintenance events and service
alerts.
Contact Information
Days
Hours
of
operati
on
Service
Desk
Phone: (847) 491-4357
(1-HELP)
https://www.it.northwe
stern.edu/supportcenter
/index.html
Monday –
Friday
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Saturday
Not Available
Sunday
Not Available
Summer Hours Monday – Friday 8:00 am – 5:00pm
CLOSED: Winter/Spring Break, University holidays
8.1 Incident Response and Resolution Times
All incident tickets are assessed for customer impact and urgency to determine priority. A
predefined Incident priority matrix is used as guidance in assessing incident priority.
Priority
Target
Response
Time
Target
Resolution
Time
Critical
(P1)
Immediate
2 Hour
High
(P2)
15 Minutes
8 Hours
Medium
(P3)
15 Minutes
24 Hours
Low
(P4)
4 Business
Hours
3 Business Days
NUIT aims to meet these targets 80% or more over a period of calendar month.
** We expect to provide a 15-minute response time and 2-hour target resolution time for all
incidents or requests received from deans, director and chairs, and their designated assistants
with a 90% of higher compliance target.
8.2 Service Request Response and Resolution Times
Request Priority Response Time Resolution Time
High 1 Business Hour 1 Business day
Medium, 4 Business Hours 3 Business days
Low 8 Business Hours 5 Business days
NUIT aims to meet these targets 80% or more over a period of calendar month.
8.4 Service Desk Metrics
NUIT Service Desk function will aim to meet the following target conditions for key performance metrics.
• 80% of calls answered or abandoned within 30 seconds (Service Level) Average
•
Speed of Answer: 30 seconds or less
•
Abandon Rate: 5-8%
•
First call resolution rate: 65%
•
Customer satisfaction rate: 85%
8.6 Ongoing breach in service level
In the event of an ongoing service level breach, NUIT will perform a root cause analysis and present
options to review and determine appropriate steps to mitigate, which could include increasing
staffing levels, process adjustments, or other remediation steps.
9.0 Priority of service requests
During periods of multiple simultaneous service requests, NUIT will allocate resources in
accordance with the following criteria:
1. High impact services (Mission Critical)
2. High volume services
3. Production services (opposed to training, quality assurance, test, development)
4. Time sensitive services
5. Other services
10.0 Amendments or Termination
This Agreement represents the entire agreement between the customer and NUIT and
supersedes all prior negotiations or agreements, written or oral, which are not included
herein. This Agreement may only be amended by written instructions executed by the
customer and NUIT.
Either party may end this
agreement
by providing 90 days written notice. All customer
assets, in the form of data or otherwise, related to this agreement must be obtained by the
customer before or on the date of termination.
11.0 Support Outside of this Agreement
Support under this agreement is recognized as a cooperative effort between customer, and
Northwestern IT. The expertise Northwestern IT is providing is support for only the items
outlined in this agreement. Should the customer determine there is a need for support for any
items not specifically outlined in this agreement; the following procedure should be
followed:
A request should be made, in writing or in electronic form, to NUIT outlining the service
requested. Note: requests for additional services should not be made to support personnel on
site.
Northwestern IT will create a proposal to deliver the service, detailing any new fees if
incremental staff or services are required, and forward it to customer for review. Once
approved by customer the proposal will be set forth as an addendum to this Agreement or as
a new agreement if the requested services are foreign to the intentions of this Agreement.
12.0 Billing Information
Customer (Major Administration Unit):
Fiscal Officer:
Phone number: Email:
Account: Sub Account:
13.0 Cost of Agreement
The below cost model only applies if there is not an existing Memorandum of
Understanding. If a signed MOU exists please refer to that for the cost of agreement.
Workstations: $525/year
Mobile Devices $525/year
Printers: No Charge (Limit one printer per workstation)
Multi-function Devices: No Charge (Limit one multi-function device per workstation)
Devices added mid-year prorated based upon applicable annual service charge for device.
