Covalent Software - Consultation
Management Service Definition
Consultation Management monitors all aspects of consultation exercises that involve customer input
to improving services. Customer involvement events such as focus groups, regular meetings, forums
or boards, scrutiny panels, residents’ federations, special groups for different groups of customers
such as disabled customers, inspectors, service satisfaction surveys etc. Records both the impact of
each event on the organisation and its value for money relative to the costs involved. Powerful
reporting engine is built into system, with library of templates and ad-hoc custom reporting.
Accredited to ISO27001.
Level of backup/restore and disaster recovery
Covalent is supplied as a hosted, managed service from a specialist datacentre where the software
and customer performance data is stored and maintained. This datacentre is built and run by our
specialist hosting partner, Rackspace Managed Hosting.
Covalent provides complete backup, storage and retrieval services utilising a powerful suite of
technologies paired with our backup best practices. Services include:
Scheduling. All backups are performed using a high-performance private network and can
schedule full, incremental or differential backup procedures. If the need arises, we can
quickly increase the frequency and scope of data backup and storage activities.
Integrity Testing. Experienced engineers test and confirm that all backups have been
performed correctly and that data is fully secured. Backups which experience any problems
are immediately replicated and re-tested. We employ enterprise software to manage
centralised data storage activities.
Storage Alternatives. There are a number of data storage alternatives, including on and offsite storage with reliable security. Clustered storage devices can be deployed to meet the
needs of high-volume, high-value data backup applications.
Service Implementation
Broadly a Covalent implementation involves three major elements:
1. Project Management and Consultancy: When we talk about “consultancy” in this context we are
talking about advice/guidance on configuring Covalent, not general management consultancy on
appraisal processes, culture change etc… Those are services which we can provide but which are not
part of our standard implementation approach
2. Data loading the information you want on Covalent. We do the majority of the work involved in this
during the first 12 weeks of your project following the kick-off date. During this time, you will gain
valuable experience of the data loading process and will have received your product training allowing
you to complete any final data loading, if any, yourselves. This element accounts for the bulk of work
completed on every implementation, so we have provided further details below
3. Site configuration and preferences setting.
Covalent project passes through 4 major milestones on the way to completion:
Project Kick-Off
An initial kick-off phone call to introduce you to the
implementation process and make arrangements
for the kick off meeting; to be followed by the kickoff meeting in customer offices to discuss the
implementation strategy in more detail.
Familiarisation
Customer uses the initial training guide and
workbook to familiarise themselves with Covalent
in advance of the initial scheduled on-site training.
Also begins collating and sending data to Covalent
that will be loaded onto the system.
Site Live
The Systems Administrator training is delivered
over a 2-3 day period, depending on the number of
modules bought. The customer’s Covalent site is
configured with customer’s preference settings and
a portion of the data loaded and the site is now
accessible for use by System Administrators.
An interim project review phone call is scheduled
with your Covalent Project Manager to review the
implementation so far and answer any questions.
Project Completion & Go-Live
Any remaining data loading completed. A Project
Completion Document is sent to customer, which
outlines the work that has been completed and the
data that resides on the customer site. Your site is
now supported by our Account Management and
Customer Support teams.
Weeks 1-2
Weeks 3-5
Weeks 6-8
Weeks 10-12
Service management details
The Covalent data centre is engineered to the highest levels, with extensive systems to address
security and network redundancy, enabling us to offer 99.999% infrastructure availability. Scheduled
maintenance and new release builds are completed over weekends or during the week outside of
office hours.
Helpdesk technical support is provided from 8am to 6pm every working day.
Regarding the datacentre itself, access is restricted by two-factor authentication including Biometric
hand scanners. The data centre is physically isolated from everyone but level three technicians. Public
access is strictly forbidden. All entrances and common areas are monitored 24x7 via closed-circuit
cameras.
The data centre's HVAC (Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning) systems are N+1 redundant to ensure
that, even in the event of an entire HVAC system failure, there is a duplicate system on standby to
take over. All air is circulated and filtered every 90 seconds to remove dust and contaminants. An
advanced fire-suppression system is in place to prevent any fire from spreading - in the unlikely event
that one could start. All cables to servers and routing equipment are securely tied down and cable
racks suspended from the ceiling provide dual routes for all cables.
Beyond simply providing redundancy in case a particular provider experiences downtime, our
proprietary networking technology allows our network operations team to actively probe the public
Internet for packet loss and latency and automatically reroutes traffic around these areas. This
ensures that traffic leaving the network is not bound for a part of the public Internet that is heavily
congested.
The connectivity providers are paid to make sure that packets of information are delivered quickly
and efficiently to the end users. This offers significant advantages over simply peering with the major
backbones. Peering agreements rarely include Service Level Agreements (SLAs) so no one is
accountable for lost packets at congested exchange points. Because Rackspace has SLAs with all of its
network partners, it can guarantee that all packets will leave the network at full speed.
Rackspace’s substantial bandwidth capacity allows us to accommodate even the largest spikes in
traffic. To ensure rapid delivery of content, it continuously adds network connectivity and new routes.
Low bandwidth utilisation allows for maximum uptime, even if multiple transit partners experience
simultaneous outages.
A comprehensive range of Server and Device Administration are provided as part of the service:
Network Administration - provisioning, deployment, testing and ongoing management of all
networking devices, including routers, switches, SSL accelerators, firewalls, and routing
tables.
Software Administration - installation and management of Operating System and supporting
software. This includes the provisioning, testing and deployment of security patches, service
packs, upgrades and revisions. By closely monitoring log files and other indicators, we can
provide valuable insight into site performance, traffic patterns, disk space usage and other
variables.
Application Administration - provision of remote administrative and application management
services such as managed backup, database administration and data migration.
Service constraints
All service non-availability is notified well in advance to customers and typically only occurs over
weekends, or outside of weekly office hours.
Financial recompense model for not meeting service levels
Covalent does not offer recompense related to service level as a matter of course
Training
Covalent’s programme of Training options for users of our software combines traditional instructorled classroom training with electronic & online learning delivered through a mix of media (help
documents, lesson plans, electronic tutorials etc).
We have put in place a menu of training lesson options that we then customise to suit each
customer’s particular requirements.
1_ Site administrator Training. Mandatory for all customers, provides full coverage of all
Covalent functionality in a three-phase programme. The price of this training is included in
the standard implementation package detailed above.
2_ “Train-the-Trainer” Training. Full range of Covalent training materials for customers who
want to deliver their own end-user training. The price of this training is £1500, and includes
the provision of all training materials for further use by the customer.
3_ End-user Training. Series of training session combining different lesson plans for endusers. The price of this training is £1000 per day.
SA Training programme. A Covalent trainer delivers a traditional, classroom based session,
concentrating on all the basics in using the Covalent system. This session is about 4 hours in length
and is limited to a maximum of 8 users in this SA Training programme. Our preferred location for the
SA training is at our offices in Taunton, Somerset, where users are free from the distractions of their
own office and can focus totally on the training. We can also be sure of having fully configured PCs on
which to do the training. The cost of users travelling to us is offset by the savings of our trainer not
having to travel to you. Alternatively, we are of course happy to do the training on your premises if
you prefer.
Ordering and invoicing process
Covalent requires a purchase order to commence a contract. Invoicing is in line with the agreed terms
of the contract.
For the final price agreed, the invoice schedule would be as outlined below. Invoices are due for
payment within 30 days of receipt.
The Annual Subscription Service Charge will be invoiced upon signing of this Agreement or
receipt of Purchase Order (the “Contract Date”) (“Payment One”);
The Services Charge will be invoiced on the date of the first Site Administrator training
(“Payment Two”).
VAT is chargeable on all Covalent prices and will be charged at the prevailing rate.
Termination terms
Either party may terminate the service agreement forthwith by giving written notice to the other
party, if the other party is in material or persistent breach of any of its obligations under this
Agreement and either that breach is incapable of remedy, or the relevant party has failed to remedy
that breach within 30 days of receiving written notice to do so.
The Customer shall have a right to terminate the Agreement forthwith by giving written notice to
Covalent in the event that Acceptance Testing fails three consecutive times.
The Support Contract shall be terminable by either party giving not less than three months notice
expiring on any anniversary of the Site Active Date
Data restoration / service migration
The data held on Covalent’s system remains the property of the customer and is fully available to the
customer on cessation of the service. All customer data can be extracted from the system in Excel
format reports.
Covalent confirms that it will purge and destroy all customer data from any computers, storage
devices and storage media after the end of the subscription period.
Consumer responsibilities
The customer responsibilities are limited to providing Covalent with data for loading and attending
the training sessions
Technical requirements
Covalent is based on the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 7.0 from Sun Microsystems, which must be
installed on every client accessing the Covalent service. Previous versions of Java will not run
Covalent. However, all Java-based applications that may have been previously deployed on a system
will run either unmodified on later versions of Java or older virtual machines will coexist with Java 7.0
(further information is available in a separate technical document for those requiring more details).
Covalent is a Java Webstart deployed application. Java Webstart is a software deployment tool
bundled with the JRE. It manages the automatic installation and updating of applications, which are
deployed using standard HTTP.
Details of any trial service available.
A trial service is available to all prospective customers, on terms to be agreed based on scope of the
trial.