Attachment J-2 Master SLA 2-15.pdf

PDF 207 KB Posted

Attached to
Title IV Financial Aid Origination and Disbursement (TIVOD) System & Customer Services Transition Services
Solicitation number
91003124R0005
Issued by

About this file

This document appears to be an attachment titled "Attachment J-2 Master SLA 2-15.pdf" that contains a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for a federal contract opportunity. The SLA outlines 28 delivery standards with associated Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), frequency of deliverables, and processes/exceptions. These standards cover areas such as website availability, audit requests, batch processing, defect fixes, call center operations, data integrity, disaster recovery, and help desk support. The SLA is intended to be part of a larger contract for the "Title IV Financial Aid Origination and Disbursement (TIVOD) System & Customer Services Transition Services" solicitation, which is a two-phase solicitation being conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Federal Student Aid.

View the file

Other files

Show all 13

On GovTribe

Work with this file

  • Download the original file
  • Contacts named in this file
  • Similar government files
  • Ask GovTribe AI about this file

Text version

No. Delivery Standard Description Key Performance Indicators -

KPI

Frequency of Deliverable

Process and Exceptions

1 Applicant Web Site Availability Availability of the Applicant Web site including all the individual application and infrastructure components.

Applicant Website applications and infrastructure components are available 99.99% of the time during a calendar month.

Close of Business (COB) by agreed upon day of the month

Excludes scheduled down times, required processing outages and FSA provided technology service (e.g., telecommunications, networking, Person Authentication System (PAS)

2 Audit Repeat Audit Requests Respond to audit requests within 48 hours. Work with Information System Security Officer (ISSO) and Business Operations to close out audit findings

99% response to audit requests in 48 hours or less.

As requested.

3 Average Speed of Answer in the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) System

The average amount of time a user spends on hold in the IVR System

80% of users shall spend less than 20 seconds on hold

COB by agreed upon day of the month

The average speed or answer is measured from the time the user selects an option to speak with a customer service representative until a human customer service representative answers the phone. f the

4 Backup and Restore Create automated data backups on a nightly basis that can be fully restored within 3 hours.

Deliver backup statistics on COB by agreed upon day of week, including any restorations that were made

COB by agreed upon day of week.

Perform backup of EDMAPS data on a nightly basis that can be fully restored within a few hours to 1 business day. No exceptions.

Frequency of Deliverable

Process and Exceptions

5 Batch Processing Unprocessed school batches shall be reported to FSA by the Contractor by COB each day.

The Contractor shall review and resolve unprocessed batches within three (3) business days from identification

98% of unprocessed batches resolved within 3 business days of identification

COB Daily The target for each batch shall be measured from the date/time an incident is opened until the batch is processed and the incident is classified as resolved. l

6 Batch Response Time Number of batches responded to in one (1) hour or less Number of batches responded to in two (2) hours or less Number of batches responded to in twenty-four hours or less

95% of batches responded to in one (1) hour or less 97% of batches responded to in two (2) hours or less 99% of batches responded to in twenty-four hours or less

COB Daily This excludes unprocessed batches from schools requiring Payment Analyst review due to files submitted that did not match TIVOD XML standards, Frequency of Deliverable

Process and Exceptions

7 Defect (Bug) Fixes The Contractor shall ensure defect modifications and testing on all production issues according to the following standards:

- High severity: within 3 business days.

- Medium severity: within 5 business days.

- Low severity: on a timeline agreed to by FSA (usually by the next scheduled release).

90% of high severity issues RCA completed on time.

90% of medium severity issues RCA completed on time.

90% of low severity issues RCA completed on time.

Monthly No exceptions.

8 Call Abandon Rate Of the total calls received, the percentage of calls in the Interactive Voice Response System abandoned by the Customer after it has been routed to a Customer Service Representative (CSR) but before the CSR has answered the phone

< 2% of calls abandoned by the customer after routing to CSR but before CSR answers the phone

COB by agreed upon day of the month

No exceptions.

9 Call Center Surveys Current survey scale is 100% with a minimum average score at 80%.

95% of call center survey responses are 12 or above

COB by agreed upon day of the month

No exceptions.

10 Capacity Management Monitor and manage infrastructure, network, database, and software capacity and scale the infastructure capacity as needed to prevent incidents

Deliver Capacity Management report to FSA weekly

Weekly on a predetermined day

Frequency of Deliverable

Process and Exceptions

11 Change Management Work with FSA's established Change Management Process;

track every change to the Production environment and its impact, and review those with FSA weekly; maintain a change log; and have a way to backout of changes

Deliver and review changes to ensure system modifications meet predetermined need prior to changes going into Production on scheduled downtimes, and those that are scheduled within releases

Weekly on a predetermined day

Create process in conjunction with FSA team

12 Chat Average Speed of Answer

(ASA)

The average amount of time a user spends on hold in the chat channel

80% of the time, a user must spend less than 20 Seconds on hold

COB by agreed upon day of the month

The average speed of answer for the chat channel is measured from the time the user selects an option to chat with a customer service representative until a customer service representative answers the chat. .

13 Commingled Data Incidents The number of days required to resolve commingled data incidents. Commingled data is when different kinds or types of data are stored in a manner that 'common' access to such data occurs.

98% of commingled data incidents are resolved within 30 calendar days

COB by agreed upon day of the week

The 30-day turnaround time will not include time in which the Contractor is waiting on FSA, external trading partners, or schools for data or information necessary to resolve the incident.

14 Communication The Contractor shall notify FSA about any system-related issues within 24 hours of discovery.

100% of identified system bugs are communicated to FSA within 24 hours of discovery.

24 hours of discovery No exceptions.

15 Credit Appeals: Resolution Time

Percentage of all credit appeals resolved in a certain period following receipt of documentation or additional information from the applicant

95% of credit appeals resolved within 7 business days and 99% within 10 business days

COB by agreed upon day of the month

Phone downtime or interface systems failures outside of the Contractor’s control preventing Customer Service from meeting this performance measure are excluded.

Frequency of Deliverable

Process and Exceptions

16 Credit Appeals: Response Time

Percentage of all credit appeal inbound contacts receiving an initial response after receipt

99% of credit appeal inbound contacts receive a response within 5 business days

COB by agreed upon day of the month

Phone downtime or interface systems failures outside of the Contractor’s control preventing Customer Service from meeting this performance measure are excluded.

17 Customer File Delivery Meet agreed-upon file delivery schedules

95% of files delivered within 24 hours of the delivery schedule

24 hours File deliveries for NSLDS Customers, such as Financial Management System (FMS), Cohort Default Rates (CDR), College Scorecard, National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), Office of Inspector General (OIG), error acknowledgement.

18 Customer Satisfaction Score The average passing score for Customer Satisfaction based on surveys with a 5-point Likert scale

≥ 85% of surveys receive a passing score (≥ 3 out of 5)

COB by agreed upon day of the month

This customer satisfaction score is calculated based on customer responses to Customer Satisfaction survey including a 5-point Likert scale. A passing score requires a minimum score of 3 (out of 5) on the survey. This metric requires that at least 85% of surveys completed have a passing score. Penalty to be determined by FSA within 60 days of contract award.

19 Data Conflict Resolution and Data Integrity

The Contractor shall establish a specialized team for handling data conflicts to handle data conflict research and resolution in a timely manner. The contractor shall ensure data quality and integrity to perform RCA and resolution on reported data integrity issues in a timely manner.

90% of reported data integrity issues are researched/resolved by NSLDS contractor within 10 business days

Quarterly No exceptions.

Frequency of Deliverable

Process and Exceptions

Disaster Recovery The Contractor shall successfully restore the system within the defined Recovery Time Objective

(RTO)

Restore the system within 72 hours

Per Annual Disaster Recovery Test or Per Disaster

No Exceptions

Disaster Recovery (DR) Plan and Testing

Coordinate with EDMAPS owners to plan and conduct DR tabletop planning and testing, after determining whether DR should be from a cold or warm site

Deliver DR plan, conduct testing, and report on results

Twice, annually on a predetermined day

Eligibility Services Pre-screening (daily) files delivered by 10 AM and post screening (weekly) files delivered by 10 AM on Mondays to Central Processing System (CPS) / Free Application for Federal Student Aid Processing System (FAFSA)

99% of pre-screening and post screening files delivered within 24 hours of delivery schedule

Daily for Prescreening; weekly for Post screening

If there is a delay the CPS point of contacts, including Program Office SME, the COR and the CO ares notified by the deadline.

Frequency of Deliverable

First Time Correct Answer Percentage of calls resolved by the Customer Service Representatives on initial contact

% of First Time Correct Answers of sampled reviewed calls >= 95%

COB by agreed upon day of the month

The Contractor and FSA shall monitor and evaluate communications (telephone calls and emails) among Customer Service Representatives, schools, third party servicers, and borrowers. The Contractor shall monitor and evaluate a random sampling of communications. The results of the evaluations shall be collected and reported monthly. The purpose of the evaluations is to help confirm the information provided to schools, third party servicers and borrowers meets or exceeds the quality performance metric.

Phone downtime or interface systems failures outside of the Contractor’s control preventing Customer Service from meeting this performance measure

Funds Support Reconciliation Percentage of schools identified weekly and contacted not substantiating a drawdown occurring 30 or more calendar days prior, with elevated unsubstantiated cash dollar amounts per program, and are not experiencing system related issues

98% of schools contacted who substantiate a drawdown within 5 business days

COB by agreed upon day of the month

Phone downtime or interface systems failures outside of the Contractor’s control preventing Customer Service from meeting this performance measure

Frequency of Deliverable

Help Desk Notify Users and key stakeholders 5 business days prior to a scheduled production downtime or development release and send follow-up reminder 1 business day in advance. Notify FMS Users and key stakeholders within 30 minutes (during business hours) of an unexpected disruption and restoration of services for production environment. Provide status emails every 1 business hour until the system is operational. Successfully follow up on user requests within 8 business hours.

100% on-time notification of scheduled production downtime or development release. 100% on-time notification unexpected disruption and restoration of services. 98% of the time, response to user requests occurs within 8 business hours

COB by agreed upon day

Outlook date/timestamp of communications from the vendor compared to specified time per Service Level Agreement (SLA). Outlook date/timestamp of communications from the vendor compared to specified time per SLA. Monthly average - difference between the follow up Date/Time stamp and the creation of the Help Desk Ticketing Help Desk Ticket

26 Hours of Operation Contractor shall provide bi-lingual (English and Spanish) phone support to schools, students, parents, and borrowers Monday - Friday from 8:00 AM to 11:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. All incoming calls shall be routed through the existing TIVOD toll-free support number and routed to the appropriate Customer Service Representative with the purpose of responding to the caller issues

Phone support available from 8:00 AM - 11:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, Monday - Friday

COB by agreed upon day of the month

Call support shall not be provided on the following holidays: New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. Special holiday hours of operation from 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time shall be in effect for the three following days when they occur on a weekday: the day before Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and New Year’s Eve. Telecommunications scheduled maintenance and or unscheduled downtime are excluded.

Frequency of Deliverable

Inbound Email Messages Time to respond to inbound call center emails, from receipt to response

Respond to 95% of call center emails within 2 business days

COB by agreed upon day of the month

Initial inbound credit appeal email messages are excluded from this SDS.

Phone downtime or interface systems failures outside of the Contractor’s control preventing Customer Service from meeting this performance measure

Incident Management Severity 1 ticket resolution should be <=2 hours per ticket. Severity 1 tickets are incidents with no workarounds. Severity 2 ticket resolution <= 4 hours per ticket.

Severity 2 tickets are incidents that can get the system up and running with workarounds.

Resolve data conflicts, to include commingled records, identifier conflicts, corrective actions for OIG fraud data cases, and erroneous loan statuses, within 30 days. Real-time alert and identification of unplanned outage or incorrect operation.

Identify incidents due to coding, design, or configuration issues by developing a root cause analysis (RCA) and recommending a solution. Resolve incidents due to coding, design, or configuration issues within an agreed upon time frame 99% of the time. The percentage of new problems introduced by a Service Pack implementation as measured within 30 days from the Service Pack implementation date

99.997% aggregated adherence of Severity 1 incident resolutions; and 99.99% of Severity 2 resolutions. Service Pack Implementation Problems < 5 determined by dividing the new problems by the current number of tickets the pack was to resolve. 99% of the incidents and problems are successfully resolved within each of the tier levels outlined in tier management. 99% aggregated adherence of ticket reporting and mitigation timeframes. FSA is alerted 100% of the time within 5 seconds of a detected system outage or an operation failure. 99% of data conflicts resolved within 30 calendar days

COB by agreed upon day

The contents of a report measures if the Contractor on a weekly basis resolved open tickets within the specified times allocated for each Tier level

Frequency of Deliverable

Process and Exceptions

29 Incoming Batch Processing All batch files must be processed in less than or equal to 48 hours

99% of batch files are successfully processed in 48 hours or less

DOB Daily No exceptions.

30 Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Metrics Report

Using an automated system executing ITIL processes shall produce reports conveying the status of all SLAs, technology service desk reports of incidents and problem resolutions on a weekly basis

99% on time delivery weekly of SLA's to an FSA Point of Contact.

COB by agreed upon day of the week

All ITIL subsystems must be reported on, with contractual SLAs as met or unmet

31 Interfaces All System interfaces shall adhere to the documented file and data formats specified in the ICDs.

100% of interfaces adhere to the documented file and data formats daily

COB Daily The incoming and outgoing files shall adhere to documented file and data formats.

32 Project Kickoffs & Requirements Gathering

The Contractor shall ensure that Requirements Gathering meetings are conducted for every project either as part of the Project Kickoff Meeting or immediately after. The Contractor shall coordinate with FSA on attendees and provide a schedule for each individual CR.

The schedule shall include timeframes for each major milestone segment (ex. Kickoff, Requirements, Design, Coding, System test, IST, UAT Data Setup, UAT, Implementation, PIV) as a part of the slide deck.

100% of the time At every Change Request / project

Unless kickoff waived by FSA

Frequency of Deliverable

Process and Exceptions

33 NSLDS Reporting Tool Ad Hoc Availability

Availability of the NSLDS Reporting Tool Ad Hoc functionality including all the individual application and infrastructure components that result in availability of the application to the business

The NSLDS Reporting Tool Ad Hoc functionality are available 95% of the time during the Scheduled Hours of Availability (8:00 AM – 10:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, Monday- Friday)

COB by agreed upon day of the month

Excludes scheduled down times, required processing outages and FSA provided technology service (e.g., telecommunications, networking, AIMS, and PM)

34 NSLDS Reporting Tool Ad Hoc Availability

Availability of the NSLDS Reporting Tool Ad Hoc functionality including all the individual applications and infrastructure components that result in availability of the application to the business

The NSLDS Reporting Tool Ad Hoc functionality are available 95% of the time during the Scheduled Hours of Availability (8:00 AM – 10:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, Monday- Friday)

COB by agreed upon day of the month

Excludes scheduled down times, required processing outages and FSA provided technology service (e.g., telecommunications, networking, AIMS, and PM)

35 NSLDS User Database Provide access, support, training, and training materials

99% of all requests are processed within the agreed upon timeframe.

COB Daily This includes timely processing of all access requests. The training materials include, but is not limited to, the A130 NSLDS User Guide, the Data Dictionary, and Alation Overview.

36 Online Update Processing Online updates shall be processed in real time, but no longer than five (5) minutes.

99% of online updates take five

(5) minutes or less to process

COB Daily No exceptions.

Frequency of Deliverable

Problem Management Determination of the root cause of incidents, and implementation of a permanent solution

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) report delivery from incident resolution, including a solution approach to permanently solve the problem. 90% of issues RCA completed on time.

High severity production issues within 24 hours.

Medium severity production issues within 72 hours Low severity issues within 5 business days

Quality Monitoring The average quality score based on sampling of customer interactions

Average score ≥ 85% COB by agreed upon day of the month

Ensure that a statistically significant sample size of customer interactions are reviewed and scored. Quality definitions developed in collaboration with FSA. The quality score is based on the average of the scores for this sample. In addition, ensure that each agent receives a quality evaluation every month.

40 Query Conversions Meet query conversion and query support.

99% of standard query conversions completed in 2 weeks and complex query conversions conversations completed in 4 weeks within 24 hours of delivery schedule

2 weeks for standard queries and 4 weeks for complex queries

No exceptions.

41 Release Management Coordinate with FSA's business systems and owners to schedule releases of changes, feature upgrades, and software patches

Deliver and review changes associated with planned releases and their impacts with

FSA

Weekly on a predetermined day

No exceptions.

42 Response Time to Controlled Mail

Time to respond to postal mail from receipt to response

95% of mail receive a response within 2 business days

COB by agreed upon day of the month

The average time to respond to controlled mail channel inquiries.

43 Response Time to Fax Time to respond to fax inquiries from receipt to response

95% of faxes receive a response within 2 business days

COB by agreed upon day of the month

The average time to respond to fax channel inquiries.

Frequency of Deliverable

Response Time to Inbound Email Messages

Time to respond to inbound call center emails, from receipt to response

95% of emails receive a response within 2 business days

COB by agreed upon day of the month

The average time to respond to inbound email channel inquiries.

45 Response Time to Postal Mail Time to respond to postal mail from receipt to response

95% of mail receive a response within 2 business days

COB by agreed upon day of the month

The average time to respond to inbound postal mail channel inquiries.

46 Scanning Paper Mail All paper received passing the visual review are scanned and imaged

95% paper scanned and imaged within one (1) business day of receipt

COB by agreed upon day of the month

This excludes any document that fails the visual review or the scanning process.

47 Security Monitoring Establish security monitoring and management on infrastructure, network, database, data, data in-transit and at rest, software, and access by users and systems

Deliver Security Monitoring report, showing the full suite of security monitoring, what it showed, and any improvements or remedies that were put in

Monthly on a predetermined day

No exceptions.

48 Service Desk Tickets are reviewed and placed into different prioritization categories; High (Tier 3), Medium (Tier 2), Low (Tier 1). Response times vary by tier level. Inquiries from partners (schools, loan holders, Federal Loan Servicers) shall be acknowledged within 24 hours. Inquiries from ED staff shall be acknowledged within 2 hours.

95% of tickets prioritized as High are responded to within 3 business days. Medium tiered tickets are responded to within 4 business days and low tiered tickets are responded to within 5 business days; responded to or resolved

COB Daily Tiered response times based on prioritization. Tickets are prioritized into High, Medium, Low Tier categories.

49 Software Patch Management Maintain software patches with an eye on compatibility with other software in Production

Deliver Patch Management report, showing all the software patches that were applied, and when and why

Monthly on a predetermined day

Software Version Management Maintain N-1 software version on all software in Production

Deliver Software Version report, demonstrating that N-1 version is maintained; show

Quarterly on a predetermined day

Frequency of Deliverable

Process and Exceptions exceptions and explanations of those exceptions

Source Code Source code for software developed under the scope of this contract. This includes custom developed software, source code for the custom components of mixed custom- COTS solutions, custom components of mixed custom- SaaS solutions, scripts, batch files, application program interfaces (APIs), and any other software component is written in support of the contract.

Components licensed from third-party commercial providers (COTS or SaaS products) shall be administered through the software licensing process.

This document shall reflect approved changes and the impacts across the system and enterprise.

100% on-time delivery of the source code for software developed under the scope of the contract within 60 calendar days of implementation of approved changes into production.

30 days after approved changes are implemented into production

Source code documentation is linked to change management. The change control board's approvals triggers the initiation of the timed delivery of the identified document. All components necessary for FSA to operate, maintain, and compile the system are turned over to FSA.

52 Spreadsheet Submittal Processing

All users with spreadsheet submittal capability shall be able to validate and submit spreadsheets in real-time, but no longer than five (5) minutes of processing time.

99% of spreadsheet submissions take five (5) minutes or less to process

COB Daily No exceptions.

53 Staffing Provide staffing for FMS Help Desk from 7:30AM to 5:30PM daily, excluding weekends and federal holidays.

Date/timestamp of check-in/checkout of Help Desk

COB by agreed upon day of the month

Report daily statistics, excluding weekends and Federal Holidays

Frequency of Deliverable

Process and Exceptions

54 System Outage Time to notify FSA of customer service system outage impacting customer interactions

Outage notifications are delivered to FSA within 20 minutes 100% of the time

COB Daily No exceptions.

55 System Website Availability Availability of the Internal Operations Website to FSA managers including all the individual application and infrastructure components.

System Website applications and infrastructure components are available 99% of the time during a calendar month.

COB by agreed upon day of the month

Excludes scheduled down times, required processing outages and FSA provided technology service (e.g., telecommunications, networking, Person Authentication System).

56 Training Effectiveness The first-time pass rate for agent training

First time pass rate ≥ 85%.

Penalty for non-passing score

TBD

Aligned to Implementations

This metric measures the effectiveness of training by measuring the first-time pass rate for agent testing at the end of each training event.

57 Transmission of metadata to the designated core system

All images will be transmitted to the designated system

95% of images transmitted within one (1) business day of receipt

COB by agreed upon day of the month

This excludes any document that fails the visual review or the scanning process.

58 Uptime Monitoring Establish automated and continuous monitoring of all EDMAPS systems to notify the Operations staff of any uptime risks to prevent incidents

Deliver monitoring reports to FSA weekly under normal uptime metrics

Weekly on a predetermined day

No exceptions.

59 Web Sites Availability Availability of the System Web site including all the individual application and infrastructure components resulting in availability of the application to the business

System Website applications and infrastructure components are available 99% of the time during a calendar month.

COB by agreed upon day of the month

Excludes scheduled down times, required processing outages and FSA provided technology service (e.g., telecommunications, networking, PAS).

File details come from the government source that posted it. Updated .