Content Comparison

Aspenware Hours Availability

The following timeframes will be referred to throughout this document as “Business Hours” and “After-Hours On-Call”.

Business Hours

8 am - 5 pm (Mountain Time), Monday - Friday, Holidays Excluded.

After-Hours On-Call Period:

• Weekdays (Holidays Excluded): 5 pm - 8 pm (Mountain Time), Monday - Friday

• Weekends and Holidays: 8 am - 8 pm (Mountain Time)

Holidays

Aspenware observes the following holidays. If one of these holidays falls on a weekend it is Observed during a workday.

• New Year's Day

• Memorial Day

• Independence Day

• Labor Day

• Thanksgiving Day

• Black Friday

• Christmas Eve

• Christmas Day

Service Level Guidelines

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Introduction

You have entrusted your online sales and key guest engagement platforms with us, and that is a responsibility we are honored to support you in and take very seriously. Our team of experts is here to augment and boost our customer’s teams 365 days a year. We have an experienced and talented team of mountain enthusiasts who understand the challenges that resorts face. You’re in good hands with our team of 9 ski e-commerce experts focused on offering top service to our customers with over 100 years combined of relevant experience in the areas that matter most, including e-commerce, software implementation, education, marketing, technical writing, SQL, customer service, Ski POS, and years spent working at ski areas.

Consequently, you can rest assured that you have a committed and professional team ready to collaborate and achieve your commerce and guest experience goals. We deeply understand that the way orders are fulfilled and managed in the resort can make or break the guest and staff experience. We focus on the overall experience from online booking, through to fulfillment, and the in-resort experience and have resources to guide you every step of the way to achieve your goals.

The goal of these guidelines to set clear expectations about what great services and benefits you have available to you in your Aspenware Annual Maintenance and Service Agreements. We appreciate your partnership and taking the time to learn more about the many services you have available to you out of the box, and also the additional professional services offerings that you can leverage periodically to further boost your implementation of Aspenware’s platforms, your overall guest experience, and operational efficiencies.

This document will first outline Level 1 (most urgent) to Level 4 (low urgency) support expectations around response times and resolutions. The Appendices dive into details about what exactly is included out of the box and what are professional services offerings, as well as what expectations we have for our customers to uphold to ensure that this partnership is the absolute best it can be. We value our customers so deeply and look forward every day to coming to work with you to help solve your problems, reach your goals, and hopefully, sometimes, brighten your day. Thanks for being our customer!

Meet the Service Team

Quick Sheet: What to Expect with Aspenware Service

With your annual maintenance and service agreement, you get access to

• Urgent (Level 1) Issue Support 365 days a year.

• Top-rate response and resolution times on level 1 - 4 issues. In a recent survey, customers are highly satisfied with Aspenware’s response and resolution times. 100% CSAT rate for 2021.

• A dedicated senior service representative who knows your business, products, and team to augment your fantastic team, as well as access to our 8 other experts as relevant.

• Monthly call where extra time on these calls can be used for strategy consulting, quick training, and best practice guidance.

• In our service, we focus on the overall experience from online booking, through to fulfillment, and the in-resort experience and have resources and support to ensure a fantastic end-to-end experience.

• Full access to our top-tier documentation and resources that are continually expanding and improving.

• Full access to strategic Webinars and Shared Training Sessions (Past recorded sessions and watch future sessions live)

• We release new versions of Aspenware Commerce with exciting features and fixes every 4 weeks. Continual releases mean your issues are addressed quickly and your business is continually gaining access to new features to drive innovation and revenue

• Aspenware brings the experience of implementing and strategizing with over 35 resorts to your service. All customers are a part of the community of top-tier resorts around the world, learning from and benefiting from each other.

• Aspenware can fully manage your Azure and Supported Platforms and proactively monitors the uptime of your site(s).

• Test environment for Aspenware Commerce

• Full details of included services in Appendices B, D, E, and G.

Want more? Aspenware’s team of experts can come alongside customers to drive strategic goals and augment your team to a greater extent with our professional services offerings.

• E-commerce “revamp” packages - We can evaluate, implement, and report on large to small-scale strategic improvements to the overall experience from online booking, through to fulfillment, and the in-resort experience.

• Focused training calls just for you. Want to dive deep on leveraging new features and functions and get refresh training on specific areas just for you and your team. We offer personal and customizable training calls on all things Aspenware and in some cases can dive into POS to ensure we cover capabilities end to end.

• Best practices consultations leveraging our deep experience and exposure to help customers optimize their guest experience and operational efficiency.

• Augment and support your team in configuring products and project management support to prepare for upcoming launches

• Full details of included Professional Services in Appendix F.

Aspenware Hours Availability

The following timeframes will be referred to throughout this document as “Business Hours” and “After-Hours On-Call”.

Business Hours

8 am - 5 pm (Mountain Time), Monday - Friday, Holidays Excluded.

After-Hours On-Call Period:

• Weekdays (Holidays Excluded): 5 pm - 8 pm (Mountain Time), Monday - Friday

• Weekends and Holidays: 8 am - 8 pm (Mountain Time)

Holidays

Aspenware observes the following holidays. If one of these holidays falls on a weekend it is Observed during a workday.

• New Year's Day

• Memorial Day

• Independence Day

• Labor Day

• Thanksgiving Day

• Black Friday

• Christmas Eve

• Christmas Day

Service Level Guidelines

A support ticket submission is required for all issues before they can even be triaged as a level 1 - 4. If an issue is received via another communication channel, it will not be considered an official request until it appears in Aspenware’s ticketing system. See Appendix A for ticket submission requirements.

Quick Sheet: Service Level Guidelines

Glossary for Service Level Guidelines

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Issue classified as a reproducible defect in the Supported Program or Documentation when operated on a Supported Environment which causes the Supported Program not to operate substantially in accordance with the Documentation.

Level 1 (Urgent)

Definition:

• Used when there is an error that causes the Software to entirely fail to function and/or crash the system on which the Software is installed (I.e. shop is entirely down, log in and create an account does not work, majority of guests can’t checkout.)

• Results in restricting the majority of guests from using the site and/or the customer’s ability to collect revenue are significantly impacted. For example, an error that makes a primary product* that was online prior unable to be sold online.

  • *A primary product refers to a product that drives 50% or more online revenue at the time the ticket is submitted, for example, lift tickets in the middle of winter.

• An error that prevents the majority of orders from transferring to the POS and the need to fulfill these orders is imminent due to guest arrival.

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Level 2 (High Importance)

Definition:

• Used when there is an error that causes supported elements of the Software to fail to operate in a material manner with no workaround but does not render the system on which the Software is installed inoperable.

• A level 2 error results in restricting a large number of guests from using the site or renders the ability to fulfill orders 3x more difficult than before the issue started.

• If a feature is used heavily at a particular customer but is not deemed a primary feature across Aspenware’s customer base, significant defects identified with this feature will be resolved as a Level 2.

Response Time: Level 2 issues will be responded to and resolved during Business Hours only. (The After-Hours On-Call Period is reserved for responding to and troubleshooting Level 1s). Expect the first response from a service agent within 8 9 business hours if submitted during business hours.

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• Software Defect - A visual issue that causes a significant hindrance to the guest. Inventory is being oversold on a non-primary* (see primary definition above) product because of a defect in the supported inventory functionality.

• Configuration Issue - The wrong product code was booked for a primary product in the Point of Sale.

• Infrastructure Issue - A plugin that is used was inadvertently uninstalled during the last upgrade.

Level 3 (Medium Importance)

Definition: Used when there is an error that produces an inconvenient situation in which the Software operates substantially in accordance with the Specifications but nevertheless causes or results in substandard or erratic performance. An example of a Level 3 may be an issue causing a Supported element of the system to fail but it is limited to a single device or a cosmetic error that significantly distracts from the guest experience, etc.

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• Software Defect - Extra spaces in Username and Email in the POS prevents login

• Configuration Issue - Support for test environment configuration around an upcoming product launch.

• Infrastructure Issue - Configuring new functions and plugins needed for taking advantage of a new feature for an upcoming product launch.

Level 4 (Low Importance)

Definition: Classification used when there is an Error that is minor or that is cosmetic in nature and does not result in reduced performance. (I.e. text changes or making the text more configurable, color changes, etc.)

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• Included Services - These infrastructure-related services are available at no extra cost and are considered part of a standard Aspenware Service Agreement.

  • Environment set up and configuration within Azure. Typically performed during the implementation phase of the customer life cycle.

  • Alert configuration and monitoring for Level 1 outages (see Monitoring section below)

  • Auto-scaling configuration and maintenance (see Auto-scaling section below)

  • Tracking SSL expirations and working with customers to retrieve new SSLs. Often this task requires customer participation.

  • Keeping Azure SKUs and infrastructure up to date with the latest Aspenware recommendations for optimized configuration.

• Available Add-on Services - Unless otherwise specified in your package, these infrastructure-related services are available but will require professional service fees and require planning/communication with Aspenware.

• Assistance in identifying and verifying the causes of suspected errors, and advice on bypassing errors in the system -Aspenware’s service team will work with customers to reproduce errors with supported features in the Aspenware platform, understand the root cause and whether there is a workaround so that we can prioritize and pass on issues to our development team, and help you bypass errors if possible according to our Service Level resolution times. (Refer to Service Level Guidelines for details around when to expect resolutions to reported software defects).

• Access to all Upgrades - As releases become available, the Aspenware service team equips customers to be prepared for and informed about what’s coming in an upcoming release. This includes support in testing, installing, and troubleshooting these releases

  • Manual scaling and Azure intervention for traffic surge events. If auto-scaling, which is included for all customers is insufficient to handle upcoming traffic surges, please notify and work with your Aspenware representative to manually scale up and down your Azure resources to accommodate traffic surges. Details on when to notify your Aspenware representative of upcoming surges are defined here https://hub.aspenware.net/main/Flash-Sale-or-Product-Launch-Scaling-Preparation.1298334147.html. In the event of a manual scale, professional service fees will apply for planning, scaling activities, and monitoring time. Scaling up and down activities are limited to business hours, so if a sale is running over a weekend, we’d scale you up on a Friday and down on a Monday. Note there are additional fees for Azure associated with manual scaling.

  • Queue-It is a 3rd party service Aspenware optionally provides its customers as an add-on. Queue-It is a virtual waiting room for high traffic events and requires a separate license and implementation. Queue-It provides digital queueing capabilities for planned, high-traffic events and a “SafetyNet” feature for unexpected spikes in traffic. Queue-It is the queuing system used by high-volume providers such as Ticketmaster, StubHub, Vail Resorts, and AXS.

    • It is recommended for customers that plan to utilize “flash sales”, which are characterized as an announced, scheduled release of limited inventory on a specific date and time.

    • If interested, contact your Aspenware account executive. Queue-It implementation times vary between 6-15 hrs and are charged at a professional services rate.

  • Aspenware can offer dedicated monitoring services leading up to and throughout the course of important launches and sales. These In-depth monitoring activities are only available as a professional service package. With this package, Aspenware will look at historical traffic trends and recommend scaling activities leading up to the event. If you have the Queue-It add on they will help guide you on using Queue-It for this event. During the event, they can monitor and tweak system levels alongside your team to ensure optimal performance during the event. Following the event, they can return systems to normal operating levels and report out on system performance, which can be used to guide future similar traffic events. Typically these services include 1-2 hrs to plan and consult on strategy, 1 hr before the event, the duration of the event when marketing communication is sent (varies), and 1 hr after the event to return systems to normal and report out on activities. These monitoring services require 10 days' notice to Aspenware and may not be available if the launch event is outside of standard business hours (8 am - 5 pm Mon - Friday, Holidays excluded).

B2: Customer Expectations around Azure Management

The following customer expectations must be upheld by the customer in order for Aspenware to achieve and maintain its Service Level Guidelines and provide the best service possible.

• Responsible for maintaining servers where Unity is hosted and keeping specs up to on these servers if Unity is hosted on-premise and not in Azure.

  1. Minimum server requirements for Unity application server

     1. Windows Server 2016 or 2019

     2. Processor -  2.60GHz 64-bit

     3. Installed memory (RAM) – 16 GB

     4. Disk space – 158 GB

• Unless otherwise specified, the customer responsible for paying monthly Azure hosting costs.

• Provide business hours and after-hours access to IT and networking personnel. After-hours contact will only be made for emergencies.

• Quick response/completion of tasks on SSL renewals when necessary

• Notify Aspenware of all high traffic sales events - defined here https://hub.aspenware.net/main/Flash-Sale-or-Product-Launch-Scaling-Preparation.1298334147.html

• To uphold our Service Level Guidelines, Aspenware designated staff needs adequate and continuous access at all times to a minimum number of services (All access to Azure, RTP|One, and the DB where unity is hosted, what else? what specific RTP permissions do we need? ) This cannot require a person approving access each day. If approval is required to access any of the on-premise or hosted applications, services, or servers, Service Levels cannot be guaranteed for these customers.

• Provide Aspenware with an updated list of contacts and contact information for monitoring alerting.

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Title

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Email

B3: Monitoring

Aspenware will monitor production Commerce, Identity, Arrival, and Unity URLs proactively within support hours and will contact the customer, notifying them of an outage if not reported by the customer, within the service level guidelines outlined above.

B4: Auto-scaling

To secure the platform against sudden outages due to unexpected volume, and to ensure optimal performance of all Commerce stores, Aspenware will set all production Commerce stores to auto-scale. This means stores will be able to handle unexpected gradual* heavy loads of traffic.

Autoscaling protects sites against heavy traffic but does not protect against sudden extreme surges in volume. For these surges, manual pre-scaling is required to be coordinated with your Aspenware representative. Read more here for details about when auto-scaling won't suffice.

B5: Scheduled/Unscheduled Aspenware Related Infrastructure Configuration Changes

Aspenware must be informed of all impactful Aspenware Related Infrastructure changes completed by the customer 5 days in advance or as soon as possible if unscheduled.

• Requests for changes within business hours - Aspenware can participate to help update its platforms for scheduled and routine infrastructure changes that occur within standard business hours (8 am - 5 pm Monday - Friday, Holidays excluded) at no extra professional service charge but must be scheduled 5 business days in advance with Aspenware.

• Requests for changes within the after-hours on-call period - Customers can request professional services to have Aspenware’s participation in networking/infrastructure changes that occur outside of business hours but within our on-call period (8 am - 8 pm Mountain Time). These requests must be scheduled 10 business days in advance and professional service fees will be charged for all activities completed outside of standard business hours.

• Requests for changes outside of business hours and after-hours on-call period - Networking/infrastructure changes made outside of after-hours on-call windows and business hours will not be considered. For example, if the customer is making changes at 2 am, the Aspenware portion could be completed starting at 8 am the next morning.

Appendix C: Incident/Outside Factors

When issues are raised, Aspenware will help identify the priority of the issue, its role in the issue, and in the case of issues where multiple parties are involved, help pull together / recommend any relevant partners for troubleshooting activities. It is ultimately the customer’s responsibility to align disparate parties and facilitate communication between responsible parties.

If it is determined that the responsibility for a reported issue is out of Aspenware’s control, Aspenware cannot be held to any stated resolution times for these incidents.

While some incidents may have a workaround to help lessen the impact of the issue, which Aspenware will do its best to identify a workaround, many incidents do not have a workaround and require a resolution that is out of Aspenware’s control, i.e. internet goes down at the customer ski area, Azure outage, IP address change, ransomware event, etc. Once the underlying issue is resolved, if there is anything required of Aspenware to resolve the incident, such as networking changes, etc. we will work promptly within outlined service level resolution times to support the customer in resolving the situation.

Appendix D: Included Support Services

These services are available at no extra cost and are considered part of a standard Aspenware Service Agreement. Any requested service not outlined in this section or Appendix B is subject to professional service fees and resolution will be handled at Aspenware’s sole discretion.

• A regular (typically monthly) sync call with your service rep to review AGENDA DETAILS HERE Jen Dixon

• Clarification of documentation, functions, and features - Our products are well documented and we love helping customers get the most out of these products by sharing relevant areas of documentation, links to articles, release notes, and configuration guides to answer your specific questions around your desired setup. If documentation is unclear, Aspenware services will provide additional color and direction to help you better understand existing documentation.

• • • Aspenware account executive. Queue-It implementation times vary between 6-15 hrs and are charged at a professional services rate.

  • Aspenware can offer dedicated monitoring services leading up to and throughout the course of important launches and sales. These In-depth monitoring activities are only available as a professional service package. With this package, Aspenware will look at historical traffic trends and recommend scaling activities leading up to the event. If you have the Queue-It add on they will help guide you on using Queue-It for this event. During the event, they can monitor and tweak system levels alongside your team to ensure optimal performance during the event. Following the event, they can return systems to normal operating levels and report out on system performance, which can be used to guide future similar traffic events. Typically these services include 1-2 hrs to plan and consult on strategy, 1 hr before the event, the duration of the event when marketing communication is sent (varies), and 1 hr after the event to return systems to normal and report out on activities. These monitoring services require 10 days' notice to Aspenware and may not be available if the launch event is outside of standard business hours (8 am - 5 pm Mon - Friday, Holidays excluded).

B2: Customer Expectations around Azure Management

The following customer expectations must be upheld by the customer in order for Aspenware to achieve and maintain its Service Level Guidelines and provide the best service possible.

• Responsible for maintaining servers where Unity is hosted and keeping specs up to on these servers if Unity is hosted on-premise and not in Azure.

  1. Minimum server requirements for Unity application server

     1. Windows Server 2016 or 2019

     2. Processor -  2.60GHz 64-bit

     3. Installed memory (RAM) – 16 GB

     4. Disk space – 158 GB

• Unless otherwise specified, the customer responsible for paying monthly Azure hosting costs.

• Provide business hours and after-hours access to IT and networking personnel. After-hours contact will only be made for emergencies.

• Quick response/completion of tasks on SSL renewals when necessary

• Notify Aspenware of all high traffic sales events - defined here https://hub.aspenware.net/main/Flash-Sale-or-Product-Launch-Scaling-Preparation.1298334147.html

• To uphold our Service Level Guidelines, Aspenware designated staff needs adequate and continuous access at all times to a minimum number of services (All access to Azure, RTP|One, and the DB where unity is hosted, what else? what specific RTP permissions do we need? ) This cannot require a person approving access each day. If approval is required to access any of the on-premise or hosted applications, services, or servers, Service Levels cannot be guaranteed for these customers.

• Provide Aspenware with an updated list of contacts and contact information for monitoring alerting.

B3: Monitoring

Aspenware will monitor production Commerce, Identity, Arrival, and Unity URLs proactively within support hours and will contact the customer, notifying them of an outage if not reported by the customer, within the service level guidelines outlined above.

B4: Auto-scaling

To secure the platform against sudden outages due to unexpected volume, and to ensure optimal performance of all Commerce stores, Aspenware will set all production Commerce stores to auto-scale. This means stores will be able to handle unexpected gradual* heavy loads of traffic.

Autoscaling protects sites against heavy traffic but does not protect against sudden extreme surges in volume. For these surges, manual pre-scaling is required to be coordinated with your Aspenware representative. Read more here for details about when auto-scaling won't suffice.

B5: Scheduled/Unscheduled Aspenware Related Infrastructure Configuration Changes

Aspenware must be informed of all impactful Aspenware Related Infrastructure changes completed by the customer 5 days in advance or as soon as possible if unscheduled.

• Requests for changes within business hours - Aspenware can participate to help update its platforms for scheduled and routine infrastructure changes that occur within standard business hours (8 am - 5 pm Monday - Friday, Holidays excluded) at no extra professional service charge but must be scheduled 5 business days in advance with Aspenware.

• Requests for changes within the after-hours on-call period - Customers can request professional services to have Aspenware’s participation in networking/infrastructure changes that occur outside of business hours but within our on-call period (8 am - 8 pm Mountain Time). These requests must be scheduled 10 business days in advance and professional service fees will be charged for all activities completed outside of standard business hours.

• Requests for changes outside of business hours and after-hours on-call period - Networking/infrastructure changes made outside of after-hours on-call windows and business hours will not be considered. For example, if the customer is making changes at 2 am, the Aspenware portion could be completed starting at 8 am the next morning.

Appendix C: Incident/Outside Factors

When issues are raised, Aspenware will help identify the priority of the issue, its role in the issue, and in the case of issues where multiple parties are involved, help pull together / recommend any relevant partners for troubleshooting activities. It is ultimately the customer’s responsibility to align disparate parties and facilitate communication between responsible parties.

If it is determined that the responsibility for a reported issue is out of Aspenware’s control, Aspenware cannot be held to any stated resolution times for these incidents.

While some incidents may have a workaround to help lessen the impact of the issue, which Aspenware will do its best to identify a workaround, many incidents do not have a workaround and require a resolution that is out of Aspenware’s control, i.e. internet goes down at the customer ski area, Azure outage, IP address change, ransomware event, etc. Once the underlying issue is resolved, if there is anything required of Aspenware to resolve the incident, such as networking changes, etc. we will work promptly within outlined service level resolution times to support the customer in resolving the situation.

Appendix D: Included Support Services

These services are available at no extra cost and are considered part of a standard Aspenware Service Agreement. Any requested service not outlined in this section or Appendix B is subject to professional service fees and resolution will be handled at Aspenware’s sole discretion.

• A regular (typically monthly) sync call with your dedicated service rep - Aspenware will be keeping a running list of topics and requests from customers ’ submitted tickets that we can review during this monthly call. We’ll keep track of customers' upcoming launches, product needs, and help create plans for future goals. Aspenware can notify customers of upcoming software releases, features, and updated documentation and resources during these calls. These calls are also a great opportunity for quick training or consultancy, for customers who want some extra hand-holding but don’t want to request professional services time. If you want professional services to go deeper, we can coordinate professional service meetings and projects during these calls as well.

• Clarification of documentation, functions, and features - Our products are well documented, both in providing the nuts and bolts setup steps, but also in providing guidance on how others have used features with success, why these features can benefit your business, and what exactly the end to end experience of each feature provides. Our service team loves helping customers get the most out of these products by sharing relevant areas of documentation, links to articles, release notes, and configuration guides to answer your specific questions around your desired setup. If documentation is unclear, Aspenware services will provide additional color and direction to help you better understand existing documentation.

• Assistance in identifying and verifying the causes of suspected errors, and advice on bypassing errors in the system -Aspenware’s service team will work with customers to reproduce errors with supported features in the Aspenware platform, understand the root cause and whether there is a workaround so that we can prioritize and pass on issues to our development team, and help you bypass errors if possible according to our Service Level resolution times. (Refer to Service Level Guidelines for details around when to expect resolutions to reported software defects).

• Access to all Upgrades - As releases become available, the Aspenware service team equips customers to be prepared for and informed about what’s coming in an upcoming release. This includes support in testing, installing, and troubleshooting these releases.

• Webinars and Shared Training Calls - Aspenware regularly holds strategic webinars and training calls to help customers get the most out of Aspenware platforms. These sessions are recorded and sent out to all customers. During webinars, we demonstrate creative implementations of Aspenware platforms that real customers have used with success so that all 35 of Aspenware’s customers can learn and grow from each other. There is ample time for Q&A and a variety of expert presenters from across the company leading these webinars. Shared training calls, like webinars, are scheduled sessions available for any customer to hop on, where Aspenware hosts in-depth training calls on various product configuration topics. On these calls, we record them, make them available in our documentation, and leave ample Q&A time for topical questions.

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