Service Level Agreement (SLA)

UC Berkeley DocuSign Service Level Agreement

Overview

This is a Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) between DocuSign Departmental Account Administrator (Administrators) and Users (DocuSign account users who are not Administrators) and the Departmental Data Proprietor, and bIT - Productivity and Collaboration Services:

This SLA covers 

  • Service Description 
  • Roles and Responsibilities 
  • Hours of coverage, including Response Times and Escalation 

This SLA shall remain valid until revised or terminated. Current version date: July 1, 2023. 

Service Description

Service Scope

DocuSign is an enterprise, cloud-hosted solution to manage document workflow requiring a legally or contractually binding electronic signature. bIT - Productivity and Collaboration Services provides campus access to DocuSign to reduce costs and time required to gather signatures and to manage the Envelopes in which the signatures are collected. 

The service is accessible toUC Berkeley employees including Faculty, Staff and Student employees who need to use it for University business purposes. Other uses and other users are not allowed. 

Individual employee access is granted via the employee’s home L4 department account Administrators. Each department that uses the campus DocuSign service must name at least two and up to four account Administrators, and one Data Proprietor in order to use the service.  Each person in these roles must adhere to this SLA and responsibilities as outlined in the signed copy of the Memorandum of Understanding they sign. 

Assumptions

DocuSign Service will be provided in adherence with any and all Federal, State, UC, or Campus related policies, processes, and procedures.

Roles and Responsibilities

Parties

The following Service Owners/Managers will be used as the basis of the Agreement and represent the primary stakeholders associated with this SLA:

Stakeholder Title / Role / Contact Information

bIT - Productivity and Collaboration Services Responsibilities

bIT - Productivity and Collaboration Services’ responsibilities and/or requirements in support of this Agreement include:

  • To meet response times associated with the priority assigned to incidents and service requests
  • To provide appropriate notification to Users for all scheduled maintenance. Users will be notified via our Active Account user list which is automatically generated when a user has an Active DocuSign account
  • Outages, scheduled or unscheduled are the responsibility of DocuSign as the enterprise application provider and not bIT - Productivity and Collaboration Services
    • The UC Berkeley Service Desk will also be informed and will post a notice of outages and resolution at UC Berkeley Systems Status
  • bIT - Productivity and Collaboration Services will not be liable for loss of, or damage to, your records or data, particularly due to User actions such as overwriting or deleting 

Administrators and User Responsibilities

  • Administrators and Data Proprietors will be responsible for making their Department Users aware that they are a first point of contact for all system questions
  • Administrators will open, manage and then close User accounts that are no longer active, or assist in transferring Users when the User is no longer a member of that Department’s L4, and Administrators will provide the DocuSign team with up-to-date contact information

Administrators and Users will: 

  • Leverage Service Now to request support from bIT, after the Departmental Account Administrators has been consulted
  • May send emails to esignatures-support@berkeley.edu for the DocuSign service team to respond to
  • Read all notices sent to them via email
  • Make themselves reasonably available to support the DocuSign team’s efforts to resolve a service related incident or request
  • Be responsible for providing accurate user accounts and permissions requests in writing. bIT - Productivity and Collaboration Services will not be liable for any exposure or loss related to a User incorrectly requesting access permissions to their implementation.
  • Be responsible for understanding how access rights are assigned to their DocuSign implementation

Administrators and Users are responsible for complying with:

RACI

Training Responsibilities

  • Administrators and Data Proprietors must take training prior to receiving access to the system. 
  • Administrators must ensure their department users have completed relevant training for the DocuSign role and responsibilities 

Requesting Service

Please send DocuSign support and service requests via email to esignatures-support@berkeley.edu

Service Response Times

All response times refer to standard business hours and days. 

High Priority request

Automated acknowledgment within 10 minutes

Evaluation and/or clarification request within 2 hours

All attempts made to resolve within the same business day  

Major Priority request

Automated acknowledgment within 10 minutes

Evaluation and/or clarification request within 4 hours

All attempts made to resolve within 2 business days

Standard Priority request

Automated acknowledgment within 10 minutes

Evaluation and/or clarification request within 2 business days

Resolution determined by specific situation

Scope Enhancement request

Automated acknowledgment within 10 minutes

Evaluation and/or clarification request within 5 business days

Resolution determined by specific situation

Hours of Coverage, Response Times & Escalation

Service Management Definitions

  • Inquiry Incident: Any failure, malfunction or abnormal performance of technology reported by the User to the DocuSign Service Team
  • Service Incidents: Any interruption in the normal functioning of a service or system is an incident. However, interruptions caused by network problems or other issues outside of the Berkeley DocuSign Service’s control are communicated to Users, but are not considered incidents requiring Berkeley’s DocuSign Service team’s mitigation
  • Response:A Response is defined as acknowledging receipt of the trouble ticket and providing a high level description of mitigation activities and timing.  Due to the unpredictable nature of Service interruptions for emergency fixes and unscheduled outages, it is not possible to specify the exact outage duration. 
  • Response Time: The time interval between the first intimation by the User of an Incident and communication from the DocuSign Service Team
  • Resolution Time: The time interval between the DocuSign Service Team’s first starting to resolve the Incident, whether remotely or at the Site Address, and the final resolution
  • Resolution: A return to the Service’s normal function 

Hours of Coverage

Workdays, usually consisting of Monday – Friday 8 AM - 5 PM, excluding holidays.

Notification of Service Unavailability

If the DocuSign Service is unexpectedly unavailable and is anticipated to be down more than 30 minutes, the DocuSign team will send a message to the user list. The UCB Service Desk will also be informed and will post a notice of the outage and its resolution at http://systemstatus.berkeley.edu

Prioritization

The DocuSign team will prioritize incoming requests as follows: 

High Priority Requests

Major Priority Requests

Standard Priority Requests

Scope Enhancement Requests

Service outage or a major application problem making it impossible to use the service

Large number of users are impacted and no workaround exists

Impact on a small proportion of user base or impact on a large number of users, but a workaround exists

A request for an enhancement or new feature in DocuSign not already granted to all accounts

Application does not save critical data correctly

Slow application response time; session timeouts; error messages

Users running a supported browser are affected, but can use an alternate browser

Examples include:

  • API Integration with another system

  • Specialized user management

Academic and Administrative Calendar deadlines jeopardized

Some application functionality is broken:

  • Envelopes are not routing accurately

  • Document intake

  • Alerts

Some minor application functionality is broken or not working as usual, but the service is still usable:

  • Problem creating new templates

  • Sophisticated workflow unavailable

Significant risk to safety, law, rule, or policy compliance

Specific users cannot log-in 

Significant impact on the delivery of instruction, or lasting impact on student academic performance.

Staff cannot gather student signatures for University business related paperwork

Significant impact on the course of normal business or work stoppage for the business of the Department. 

Departmental Account has no Administrators to add or close User accounts

Escalation

If you are not satisfied with the level of service on a request, contact the Service Desk at 510-664-9000, option 1. Escalation requests are categorized and processed as appropriate and will be responded to with the action taken.

Service Exceptions to Coverage

DocuSign Support service is not provided during the times listed below. However, if there is a specific need for coverage during one of these times, or an exceptional service request need, negotiated coverage on a cost-recovery basis may be available.

  • Campus Holidays - No coverage
  • Federal Holidays - No coverage
  • Weekends and Evenings - after 6 pm and between Friday 6 pm and Monday 8 am - No coverage
  • Emergency service coverage – As is possible with available staff and considering any physical constraints of the emergency such as a natural disaster

Maintenance

All enterprise services and/or related components require regularly scheduled maintenance (a “Maintenance Window”) in order to meet established service levels. These scheduled and unscheduled activities will render systems and/or applications unavailable for normal user interaction. 

All campus outages are published at bIT System Status page (UC Berkeley Systems Status)

There are three categories of service changes:

  • Planned Maintenance: Planned service maintenance is approved work that is planned and scheduled prior to the change
  • Unplanned Maintenance: Unplanned service maintenance is priority work that is unplanned due to an urgent repair to prevent failure. Unplanned service outages will be given priority (and communicated immediately) on a case-by-case basis depending on the type and urgency of the service failure
  • Emergency Maintenance: Emergency maintenance is defined as a service failure that affects the entire campus or significant number of users that requires immediate repair 

DocuSign undergoes patches and fixes on a monthly basis. More complex releases occur quarterly. DocuSign corporate offices determine this schedule.

Prior to planned maintenance, the DocuSign Service Team usually communicates to all active users before scheduled maintenance.

Emergency maintenance will be communicated via email to Administrators and Users, and will be posted to http://systemstatus.berkeley.edu. Emergency service announcements are usually communicated the day of the service failure. Off-hours service failures are communicated the following business day.

Pricing/Cost

Rates Process

The DocuSign service, including staff support, is fully funded through the Productivity and Collaboration Tools assessment. The following details what is included in our enterprise license:

Included with the License

Items covered by consortium funding include:

  • DocuSign license for Departmental Accounts
  • DocuSign maintenance and upgrades (provided by DocuSign as part of the license fee)
  • DocuSign data/document servers, maintenance and backup (provided by DocuSign as part of the license fee)
  • Access to DocuSign training and support materials 
  • DocuSign data and envelope storage (provided by DocuSign as part of the license fee)
  • User support, Departmental support, and API support that connects DocuSign to Google Drive, where allowed, and to Perceptive Content. Other API support may be considered on a case by case basis, pending approval, and allowable staffing.

Service Level Agreement Review

This Agreement is valid from the Effective Date listed above, and is valid until modified.

The Agreement will be reviewed and updated by bIT - Productivity and Collaboration at a minimum of once per year; however, in lieu of a review during any period specified, the current Agreement will remain in effect.

The Designated Review Owner (“SLA Owner”) is responsible for facilitating regular reviews of this document. Contents of this document may be amended as required. 

Designated Review Owner: Sina Carroll

Review Period: Annually or as needed to remain accurate

Previous Review Date: 2023

Next Review Date: 2025

This Agreement is posted to the following location and will be made accessible to all stakeholders: https://esignatures.berkeley.edu/service-level-agreement-sla