Courseplay Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Overview

This Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) covers the services provided by Firstventure Corporation Private Limited (“FCPL”, “Company”, “we”, “our” or “us”), and is made between FCPL and you (“Client”, “Customer”, “you”). Services covered by this agreement include web-based training software hosted by FCPL on the Cloud (“Internet”). This agreement does not cover any services not provided by FCPL. By using FCPL’s website or web services, you are agreeing to comply with and be bound by the following service level agreement.

Architecture

Courseplay uses a three-tier system to manage the application, database and content. Courseplay is currently hosted on Amazon AWS infrastructure, using Amazon EC2 for the application, Amazon RDS for the database and Amazon S3 for the content. Individual SLA’s for each of these services can be accessed by clicking on their respective links above.

Database Region: Mumbai, India (ap-south-1)
Database Engine Version: 5.7.mysql_aurora.2.10.2

Service Uptime Guarantee

Service Uptime is the total time in a calendar month that the FCPL Online Training Platform (“Courseplay”, “Platform”, “LMS”) is available through the Internet to deliver online training, provided that the Client has established connectivity. FCPL takes responsibility for Platform availability within the FCPL network, however FCPL cannot be held liable for upstream problems outside of FCPL’s network. FCPL guarantees a 99.5% Monthly Uptime Percentage, which calculated by subtracting from 100% the percentage of minutes during the month in which the Platform was in the state of being Unavailable. Monthly Uptime Percentage measurements exclude downtime resulting directly or indirectly from any Platform SLA Exclusions (defined below). Unavailability is defined as a period in which 100% packet loss to FCPL’s website is experienced, which is determined to have been caused by a problem in FCPL’s Network as confirmed by FCPL.

Scheduled Downtime

Scheduled Downtime is any FCPL-scheduled interruption of Services, for the purpose of upgrades, maintenance or replacement of any network, database, system or server components in order to provide better client service. Scheduled downtime occurs during notified downtime periods, with as much warning as possible via e-mail with a minimum of 24 hours’ notice. Major software and server updates are typically on the last Tuesday of every month between 1700-1800 hrs IST. Scheduled maintenance may also occur on Saturdays any time between 2200-0200 (+1) hrs IST.

Backups

FCPL will back up the Platform Database in a commercially reasonable manner. However, FCPL is not responsible for lost data. Backups will be stored by FCPL for no longer than 30 days. FCPL will provide an electronic copy Client Data upon written request by Client. Clients are advised to download and store their own reports on a regular basis.

Information Security Policy

FCPL will take commercially reasonable steps to prevent unauthorized access to FCPL’s online learning platform, content, user data and confidential information stored on FCPL’s server computers. This includes firewall protection, data encryption, SSL encryption, IDS systems, Anti-Malware software, and policies and practices based on industry standards. FCPL’s data security policy is defined as follows:

Information and vital services to be made available with minimal disruption to team members and clients as required by the business process.
The integrity of information must be maintained. This means that the accuracy and completeness of information must be safeguarded by protecting against unauthorized modification.
Confidentiality of valuable and sensitive information, not limited to research, third parties, personal and electronic communications data, will be assured by protecting from unauthorized disclosure or unavoidable interruptions.
Daily snapshots of the software, content and database are taken and recovery has been tested to ensure any data can be recovered and restored in case of a major failure or disaster.
Information Security Awareness Training is made available to every employee every 12 months. Attendance and completion of the training is recorded.
All breaches of information security, actual or suspected, are reported to and investigated by the relevant authorities not limited to the FCPL CEO and System Admins who oversee Incident Response. The staff understand their roles and responsibilities in handling incidents and have a comprehensive and well-tested incident response plan ready.
Appropriate access control is maintained, and information is protected against unauthorized access.
Each employee has a signed and valid NDA with the Company
Controls are in place so that Client data may not be modified by anyone other than the FCPL CEO
Client data can also be viewed but not modified by the Product Lead for support purposes
The production infrastructure is not accessible by any other employee of the Company
FCPL uses industry standard data security measures like strong passwords and two-factor authentication for AWS Console access
Firewalls are set up on all servers as a security measure
Root access is disabled on all servers for added security
GDPR EU, GDPR UK, ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 27001:2013 certifications are currently valid

Training

Live instructor-led training is available to Clients via webinar or in-person as per the Agreement. SOPs for L1 issues or a pre-defined hand-holding period over phone and email will be available for all new Clients.

Minimum Hardware and Software Requirements

Computers and Laptops

Operating System: Windows 7 or later, MacOS 10.9 or later, Linux Kernel 3.10 or later
Software: Respective Audio and Video Drivers
Browsers: Google Chrome v75+ | Mozilla Firefox v67+ | Apple Safari v12.0+ | Microsoft Edge v75+
Hardware: Sound card, Speakers or Headphones, Monitor
Internet Connection: Required. As some of the content requires streaming, FCPL recommends a minimum download connection speed of 512 KBps.

Mobiles & Tablets

Minimum horizontal screen size: 786 px
Software: Respective Audio and Video Drivers
Device RAM: 2GB
Device Storage: 50 MB minimum, additional 1 GB for content recommended
Operating System: iOS 13 or later, Android 6.0.0 or later
Browsers: Google Chrome v85+ | Mozilla Firefox v80+ | Apple Safari v13.0+ | Microsoft Edge v85+
Internet Connection: Required. As some of the content requires streaming, FCPL recommends a minimum download connection speed of 512 KBps. Due to the presence of video content, FCPL recommends End Users use a Wi-Fi connection to prevent high data charges from the End User’s mobile service provider.

IT Networking Requirements

In order to access Courseplay, FCPL requires that incoming and outgoing connections be opened on ‘*.courseplay.co’ and ‘s3.amazonaws.com’ for ports 80 and 443.
In addition, video streaming from *.courseplay.co must be white listed.
Lastly, all emails coming from ‘courseplay.co’ and ‘firstventure.co’ should be white listed to ensure important notifications, reminders and other communications are received.

IT Restrictions

The following soft restrictions are in effect for file uploads and can be increased upon request. It is highly unlikely that either of these restrictions should ever be violated. To ensure learners do not lose interest, FCPL recommends uploading content that is not longer than 20 minutes in length.

Max Upload File Size: 250 MB. If the file is larger than 250 MB, it may not upload
Max Upload Timeout: 600 seconds. If the upload takes more than 10 minutes, the upload will “timeout” and fail.
Recommended File Size: 40 MB is the recommended file size for SCORM packages to ensure the best user experience

Supported Formats

The following formats are supported as module types on Courseplay:

Images: .png, .jpeg, .jpg
Slideshows: .pdf
Videos: .mp4
SCORM: All editions and versions of SCORM supported. SCORM 2004 2nd Edition is preferred. 40 MB or smaller file size recommended. File names should not contain special characters.
In case of other formats like proprietary MS Office formats (e.g. .xlsx, .docx, .pptx) they can be converted to SCORM or uploaded as Web Content by hosting on a third-party server. Support for these formats is coming soon.

Why are SCORM packages recommended to be only 40MB?

The 40MB file size is not a constraint but a recommendation to ensure the content runs smoothly on all devices based on FCPL’s experience with different clients and SCORM modules. There is a setting on most e-learning authoring tools that allows you to easily compress all images and videos at the time of exporting the SCORM package.

Please note that large SCORM packages hurt end users in two ways: (1) the content might not run smoothly due to the large size and (2) it takes up a lot of their data bandwidth. FCPL has found in the past that large SCORM packages means that employees complain more about the amount of data that the content consumes which will give learners a negative experience.

Email Requirements

If you plan to have more than 1,000 registered users on the platform or upload more than 1,000 registered users at a time, FCPL strongly suggests that Clients bring their own SMTP server. Clients are requested to share their SMTP server details with FCPL’s support team and FCPL would be happy to set it up for you.

Performance Standards

FCPL has outlined certain benchmarks by which the performance of Courseplay will be judged. All tests were conducted on a 1 Mbps internet connection. If Clients would like specific benchmarks to be appended to this list, an email to support@courseplay.co should be sent.

Action	Average Response	Max Accepted Response
Upload Video File	10 Seconds per MB	12 Seconds per MB
Play Slide Show	2 Seconds	3 Seconds
Course Module Page Load	10 Seconds	12 Seconds
SCORM Module Load	12 Seconds	18 Seconds

Concurrent Users

Courseplay uses an auto-scaling server architecture that automatically provisions additional servers at times of heavy server load, however this feature takes 5 minutes to execute. This feature allows FCPL to drastically reduce server costs and pass those savings on to FCPL’s clients. FCPL offers a minimum soft restriction of 150 concurrent burst users (CBU) per client at any given time. FCPL cannot guarantee performance if the allocated CBU has been exceeded by the client within a period of 5 minutes.

Minimum Soft Restriction: This means that this restriction can be increased by clients on request.

Concurrent Burst Users (CBU): CBU means that 150 users can safely login simultaneously within a period of 5 minutes, after which FCPL’s auto-scaling policy will kick in and concurrent users will no longer be an issue.

Release Cycle

Major updates of the core platform are typically released once every 2 months on the 3rd Tuesday of the month (subject to last minute changes). Mobile app updates typically follow 2 weeks after the core platform updates. Clients with their own dedicated infrastructure and apps have full control over their own release cycles up to a certain extent.

Technical Support

Support tickets should be emailed to support@courseplay.co with details of the issue and we will resolve the issues at the earliest. Please ensure that a full screenshot is provided and that the screenshot is not cropped. Any additional details like the name of the module, browser version, etc. would be very helpful in resolving the issue as quickly as possible.

For serious problems on production environments that involve all users or severe degradation of performance that involves all users, immediate intervention will be attempted 24×7. Bugs that do not impact on all users or requests for clarification will follow the following procedure:

Taking Charge: The incident is registered by the User, a ticket number is assigned and the request is saved in the help desk system
First Response – Email Follow Up: Before interaction with the customer over email, the staff will aim to diagnose and resolve the problem stated in the initial request. Screenshots or other information to clarify the problem might be requested. The User may be contacted via phone during business hours if further information is needed.
ETA: The customer will be informed about the estimated time for resolution of the problem and the customer will be updated if ETA would vary
Workaround: The support team will first deliver a workaround to the client so that the impact on business goals is minimum.
Fix: The support team will then work to fix the issue on a permanent basis either in parallel or after the workaround is delivered.
Resolution: The client will be informed once the issue has been permanently resolved.

Business Hours

Business Hours are defined as 0900 hrs to 1900 hrs IST Monday to Friday. During business hours email, chat and phone support are available. Outside of business hours, in case of critical issues, a phone call is required for immediate resolution.

SLA Violation Credit

SLA Violation Credit occurs when FCPL’s Service Uptime guarantees are not met or a User is unable to use the Platform after three separate attempts separated by minimum 15-minute intervals. In these cases, FCPL will credit the Client as per the schedule below.

In order to request a credit, you must email us screenshots depicting the outage within 7 business days of reported violation at: support@courseplay.co with “SLA Violation Credit” in the subject line. Your request logs that document the errors or outages should also be provided, with confidential information replaced with asterisks. SLA Violations will be reviewed by FCPL’s personnel during Business Hours.

If the Monthly Uptime Percentage of such request is confirmed by us and is less than the Service Uptime Guarantee, then we will issue the Service Credit to you within one billing cycle following the month in which your request is confirmed by us. Your failure to provide the request and other information as required above will disqualify you from receiving a Service Credit. A Service Credit may only be awarded once a month.

SLA Violation Credits are calculated as a percentage of the total charges paid by you for the Platform for the period in which the Unavailability occurred in accordance with the schedule below. This excludes one-time payments for services such as payments made for custom add-ons or content. In case of Quarterly, Annual or Three-Year billing, the amount will be calculated as per the method specified.

Monthly Uptime Percentage, Maximum Resolution Time and their corresponding Service Credit Percentages:

Stage 1 Violation

Less than 99.5% Up-time in a month but equal to or greater than 99.0%
Between 1 and 3 issues exceeding the Maximum Resolution Time in a month
A 12.00% Service Credit of the Monthly Billing Amount will be awarded, plus
A 4.00% Service Credit of the Quarterly Billing Amount will be awarded, plus
A 1.00% Service Credit of the Annual Billing Amount will be awarded, plus
A 0.33% Service Credit of the Three-Year Billing Amount will be awarded.

Stage 2 Violation

Less than 99.0% Up-time in a month but equal to or greater than 98.5%
Between 3 and 5 issues exceeding the Maximum Resolution Time in a month
Between 2 and 8 hours of workaround time for P0 any incidents
A 30.00% Service Credit of the Monthly Billing Amount will be awarded, plus
A 10.00% Service Credit of the Quarterly Billing Amount will be awarded, plus
A 2.50% Service Credit of the Annual Billing Amount will be awarded, plus
A 0.83% Service Credit of the Three-Year Billing Amount will be awarded.

Stage 3 Violation

Less than 98.5% Up-time in a month
More than 5 issues exceeding the Maximum Resolution Time in a month
More than 8 hours of workaround time for P0 any incidents
A 48.00% Service Credit of the Monthly Billing Amount will be awarded, plus
A 16.00% Service Credit of the Quarterly Billing Amount will be awarded, plus
A 4.00% Service Credit of the Annual Billing Amount will be awarded, plus
A 1.33% Service Credit of the Three-Year Billing Amount will be awarded.

We will apply any Service Credits only against future Platform payments otherwise due from you. Service Credits will not entitle you to any refund or other payment from the Company. Service Credits may not be transferred or applied to any other account. Unless otherwise provided in the Agreement, your sole and exclusive remedy for any Unavailability, non-performance, or other failure by us to provide the Platform is the receipt of a Service Credit (if eligible) in accordance with the terms of this SLA.

Escalation Matrix

For issues that take longer than the “Maximum Resolution Time” to resolve, Clients will be awarded a SLA Violation Credit. Feature requests are not covered under this SLA. Contact details for all members of the escalation matrix will be shared at the time of kick-off and also provided in the implementation plan.

Level 0: Self Service

Users may access the self-service support page available on Courseplay to view Frequently Asked Questions (General FAQ’s), create a support ticket (Feedback & Assistance) or view Courseplay Version details (About).

URL: clientname.courseplay.co/support

Anticipated Issues: How to create a category, how to change settings, how to create an announcement

Owner: No owner

Estimated Response Time: Instant

Level 1: Internal Support

Users may use the form on the Support page (L0) or use an internal client-side help desk to request basic support and troubleshooting. In case the issue is identified as a software bug or cannot be resolved within 20 business hours for whatever reason, it is pushed to L2 along with a screenshot of the problem.

Anticipated Issues: Password related problems, how to add a specific module type to a course, how to change profile photo, replying to a discussion post

Owner: Client Point of Contact or Dedicated Support Resource

Estimated Response Time: Client defined

Level 2

The Support team at Courseplay takes over. A L2 technician at Courseplay is limited to only solving known issues and escalate new issues immediately to L2. If the issue is not ‘Solved’ or ‘In Progress’ within 20 business hours, it is also pushed to L3.

Anticipated Issues: Client configuration, bulk upload quiz questions, troubleshooting, change database values, exploit of known bugs

Owner: Courseplay Support Team

Contact: support@courseplay.co or +91 22 4939 0000

Estimated Response Time: 2 to 4 business hours

Maximum Resolution Time: 30 business hours from time when Company first received ticket

Level 3

In case a bug or a critical feature modification is discovered, or if a new problem is found, the L3 technician is contacted and the Lead Developer is also informed. A L3 technician is present or former member of the product development team and has minimum 3 months of experience and familiarity with the product. If the issue is recognized as a top business priority incident, or not ‘Solved’ or ‘In Progress’ within 20 business hours, it is pushed to L4.

Anticipated Issues: New problems, network or server fixes, database administration, features not working as expected

Owner: Operations Head or VP Tech (unidentified calls may not be answered)

Estimated Response Time: 2 to 4 business hours

Maximum Resolution Time: 20 business hours from time when Company first received ticket

Maximum Workaround Time: 6 hours from time when Company first received ticket

Level 4 or P0 Incidents

If the problem cannot be solved by a L3 technician or there is a top business priority incident, then L4 team is contacted. The FCPL CTO and FCPL CEO are immediately informed of the issue. Based on the problem, AWS support team or third-party consultants may be involved as well. The issue is typically resolved within the same day. Data loss is unlikely but possible. If an issue is pushed to this level, 24×7 phone support is provided to the client with the problem until the issue is resolved.

Anticipated Issues: Server failure, database failure, system crash

Owner: FCPL CEO (unidentified calls may not be answered)

Estimated Response Time: 45 minutes

Maximum Resolution Time: 12 hours from time when Company first received ticket

Maximum Workaround Time: 2 hours from time when Company first received ticket

SLA Exclusions

The Service Uptime does not apply to any of the following cases:

Third-party server hardware failure e.g. AWS
Scheduled downtime
Problems outside of FCPL’s network (upstream providers, or client’s inbound connection) not effecting 100% loss to FCPL’s network
Interruptions or failure of individual service caused by Client or their agents, employees or customers to their service, including inaccurate configuration, 3rd party software, client abuse or over utilization of resources, hacked client servers, attacks, exploits, or failure to acknowledge a maintenance contract
Unavailability, suspension or termination of Services that result from a policy or clause described in the Platform Licensing Agreement
Factors outside of FCPL’s reasonable control, including any force majeure event or Internet access or related problems beyond the demarcation point of the Platform
Domain Name Server (“DNS”) issues outside FCPL’s control, including, without limitation, DNS propagation or any delays in the registration or transfer of domain name due to domain registrar or registry issues; browser, host file or DNS caching that may make your website appear inaccessible when others can still access your site.

Cyber Security Incidents

In case of a “Cyber Security Incident”, where external parties have unlawful access to confidential data on the Platform, the respective clients will be informed along with the required nodal agency for computer security incidents. For cases where the breach takes place in India, CERT-IN will be notified. All such notifications of an incident will take place within 6 hours of FCPL’s team acknowledging the issue.

Support SOP

Please find below the details of support portal process to provide requisite support with the project:

Please raise the query for Courseplay with support@courseplay.co
The necessary details such as Department, Subject, Description of the Issue, Priority and Classification have to be filled while submitting a ticket
Files can also be uploaded such as snapshots to describe the issue in a better way
Please note that if you are raising a ticket from e-mail id, provide the priority in the mail. If a ticket being shared with no priority, the same would be treated as LOW
Do define the Priority (as all issues wouldn’t be Show Stoppers or of High Priority) so that most important issues of all locations can be resolved first
In order to connect with the client in the real time, please ask your IT Team to connect via Zoom, Google Meet or any other web conferencing tool of your preference

Please note: FCPL’s SLA doesn’t apply for tickets raised of following categories:

Change Request
Implementation Activities
Training
Product Dev level changes

SLA and Service Suspension

This SLA will not be enforceable by Clients with any outstanding payment that is overdue for 30 days or greater. In addition, FCPL reserves the right to suspend technical support services for clients with payments overdue for 30 days or greater. In the event that outstanding payments are overdue for 60 days or greater, FCPL reserves the right to indefinitely suspend all services until the Client has cleared all pending dues.

2023 Calendar

Standard support is typically offered during business days however support may be slower than normal on the below office holidays:

Date	Month	Day	Holiday
26	January	Thursday	Republic Day
7	March	Wednesday	Holi
7	April	Friday	Good Friday
1	May	Monday	Maharashtra Day
15	August	Tuesday	Independence Day
19	September	Tuesday	Ganesh Chaturthi
2	October	Monday	Gandhi Jayanti
15	November	Wednesday	Diwali (Bhai Duj)
25	December	Monday	Christmas

2024 Calendar

Date	Month	Day	Holiday
1	January	Monday	New Year
26	January	Friday	Republic Day
25	March	Monday	Holi
29	March	Friday	Good Friday
1	May	Wednesday	Maharashtra Day
15	August	Thursday	Independence Day
2	October	Wednesday	Gandhi Jayanti
1	November	Friday	Diwali
25	December	Wednesday	Christmas

Data Retention

Records for Audit Trails and Notifications will be retained for ready access for the last 6 months. Records older than 6 months will be stored offline in cold storage.

Records for users, learning and other activities will be retained for a minimum of 7 years for all records, including those that have been deleted from the front end. In case of account termination, data will be permanently deleted within 3 months of the date of termination.

Updates and Additional Information

FCPL reserves the right to update and amend this policy as it is deemed necessary or appropriate to do so. Please check back often on courseplay.co/sla to be appraised of any changes.

Additional information can be found by going to the legal page on FCPL’s website or by emailing us with any questions, comments or concerns you may have at support@courseplay.co.

Effective Date: 1st January, 2016

Last Updated: 20th December, 2022

Changes Made: Escalation Matrix updated