User support

User service levels depend very largely upon the preferences and needs of individual cleints. Most Activa clients opt for a full Software License and Maintenance arrangement that provides on-going user telephone support and software upgrades year over year. This allows supported clients to download software upgrades as soon as they are published and doesn't place any limitations on the number of support calls to the Help Desk. In all cases, support services are outlined in the Activa Service Level Agreement document.

Available support facilities are as follows;

The software documentation and on-line user manual is available through the application Help Menu, or alternately through the Activa e-Support portal. Both of these facilities link directly to our web server from the application and once the user is registered the first time the process becomes quite seamless.

User Help is also provided with your software and can be installed locally on your PC. We discourage this in favour of the on-line option as this documentation is always more up to date. We no longer produce a hard copy manual.

The support Help Desk exists to provide a support service to individual users by logging and solving incidents relating specifically to Activa products. It is open between the hours of 9.00am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday, excluding Australian Public Holidays. Outside of these normal business hours, urgent calls may be diverted to a mobile phone service.

The support Help Desk consultant will be your point of initial contact and primarily the contact that solves the majority of your support queries. If there are any queries that need to be escalated, the support Help Desk is backed up by consulting and development personnel.

E-Support is an on-line client information and support centre that offers users the following services, 24/7;

On-line system support takes two forms; user help and consulting. The License and Maintenance Agreement does not normally include on-line support because some clients do not permit on-line access to their corporate networks. However, there are often occasions where this is possible and is the most expedient and economical means.

In this context, ‘On-line support’ is defined as any service requiring internet based communications directly to a secure corporate network for the purposes of providing system diagnostics, user help, system configuration or update, data transfer, consulting services or any other approved procedures.

System design, configuration and data migration are greatly simplified by the use of standard format intermediate spreadsheets and flexible system import tools. Our experienced consultants can guide you through the initial tasks so that the establishment of your new system is as efficient as possible.

Activa is equipped with a comprehensive range of specialised import functions designed to import historical source data from CSV (Comma Separated Value) files or Microsoft SQL or Access databases. Your information is validated against the standard system protocols before populating the database and building the system structure.

We see this process as part of the training requirement to transfer the knowledge and skills to enable users to take full ownership of the system.

System Administration and general user training can vary depending upon the nature of the organisation, the scope of the system specification and the technical skills of the users requiring development training. We like to structure training to the maximum effect making sure that the essential skills are established before cut-over.

In recent years we have supported a trend to supplement the traditional training room day sessions with shorter, more structured refresher sessions over an extended period. Certainly, this lends itself more to on-line training sessions over the Internet and also helps to reduce the resource costs and scheduling difficulties in arranging formal classes. It also helps to replace the skills following the loss of an experienced employee.

Software upgrades, full version releases, notes and documentation are posted for download on the e-Support portal and nominated users can access these directly. Support personnel are always available to assist you in planning or assisting you with your upgrade process, if required.

Changes to tax legislation, statutory reporting requirements or simply new products or versions will give rise to new software releases. These occur on average once per year although there is no set period.

We have a tradition of providing assistance to our clients in an active consulting services role beyond the scope of normal contracted support arrangements. On-line system support services often include tasks that relate to the manipulation of data, reversal of user actions, mass import of new data from an external source, interpretation and/or extraction of system data beyond the normal specification of the product or development of new functionality.

If you have any special needs we can assist you to expedite these tasks with the minimum of fuss;

Support and consulting services can require the availability of client confidential system data. Since we prefer to shorten our support response times and minimise costs to ourselves and our clients, we maintain a secure FTP site to facilitate the efficient and confidential transfer of client data and other information. This service is available to all users upon request and is subject to our normal privacy and confidentiality terms.

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Article last updated : Mar 3 2011 5:25PM