If you are thinking of going with a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution such as LexisNexis’ Practice Advantage (the SaaS version of Time Matters), be sure you take a carefully look at the Service-Level – or you could be in for some unpleasant shocks. The SLA should contain at least the following points, some of which are obvious, some of which may be less obvious:
– Avoid anything that would allow a vendor to cause a breach of confidentiality
– Specify levels for uptime, response time, support coverage, and escalation of issues (you don’t want to get stuck on hold with first-level support for hours)
– What if you want to get out of the contract? Is there a lead time for cancellation? Who owns the data then? Are you guaranteed access to the data in a useable form (usually this means the equivalent of getting a standalone version of the SaaS program).
– Is there a provision to have a backup of the data on a local server? This is the reverse of the usual “Internet Backup” scheme - here your data is on the internet and your backup is local, not the other way around.
– Normally the vendor is responsible for software updates. What if a software update fixes one problem but creates a new one, such that the “fix” is worse than the original. Will the vendor agree to roll back any patches – at the firm’s sole discretion?
You can be almost guaranteed that very few, if any, of these types of provisions are contained in a standard SLA. As always, Read the Fine Print!! Companies are trying to push everybody to SaaS formats (much more profitable for them), so right now it is a buyers’ market.
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