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Maintenance and support - good maintenance and support should include:
Full or multiple levels of software support and maintenance, which the user may subscribe to
A Service Level Agreement with escalation procedures
Support for your organisation, in your geographical location
Web based support portal eg with online fault / query submission, download fixes / product information
Help desk telephone support
Responding to queries / faults within the quoted time scales
Providing fixes to repair faults
Regularly (annually) releasing functional / legislative software upgrade(s)
Easy upgrade path
Provision for Software Escrow
Implementation assistance - good implementation assistance should include:
Initial user / familiarisation training
Software / system installation
Project management services
Business / system analysis
System tailoring and testing
Report development
Data take-on / conversion
Consultancy services
User training - good user training should include:
Flexible training courses such as:
- open courses
- bespoke / configurable user training, either on or off-site
Training courses via the internet, DVD, CBT, or training manuals
User documentation that is:
- clear and easy to read
- indexed and cross referenced
- and contains details of output screens, reports, system commands, error messages and corrective actions
Documentation that explains how the software should be:
- implemented
- used and controlled
Vendor / support organisation expertise and reputation - good vendor support organisation should have:
Accredited products eg ISO 9001: 2000
A financially sound and stable business, with clean audits of annual accounts
Good status and reputation with the software they are providing
A number of staff with the required expertise, to assist with implementation, provide maintenance and support and to develop future enhancements / new versions
A number of current users / customers who find the software satisfactory for their purposes
A number of users / customers who offer potential client reference site visits / enquiries
An ongoing / continual software improvement and development programme
Future software development plans that are in-line with your future needs
For additional ‘key software criteria’ visit: software efficiency criteria or
For other software criteria, click: Accounting software criteria / CRM software criteria / HR software criteria / Payroll software criteria
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