CSCS Service Level Targets
CSCS offers IT services on an 'opt in' basis for departments of the School of Clinical Medicine. This document will outline our delivery targets for the services that we support.
Customers
CSCS provides services to departments who opt in to receive specific IT services directly from CSCS. In some instances departments take CSCS infrastructure as a service and manage the direct support of their end users themselves. The following service targets may not apply consistently to both types of service provision.
Services and our Service Catalogue
We keep our costs as low as we can by offering standard services and delivering them in a consistent fashion. For that reason, any requests that go outside of what has been established will need to be carefully considered by CSCS to assess the impact to our existing services, staff, processes and tools and may well not result in a change to our service in the short term. To request something that is outside of the normal services provided by CSCS, you can contact the Service Desk for a link to the enhancement request.
Response and resolution of Incidents and Service Requests
CSCS strives to provide a consistent and appropriate experience for all of our customers and end users. Due to the nature of the University we do not have absolute control over some the technical parts of our infrastructure so we express these as targets. We report against our targets monthly to the Clinical School senior management team.
We classify incoming contacts to CSCS as either Incidents or Service Requests. Incidents are typically when something is broken, down, severely impacted or not working as expected. A Service Request represents a request to add, amend, or remove a service from our service catalogue. Incidents and Requests are subject to different procedures and targets as outlined below.
Incident Prioritisation
When an incident is logged, our staff will set an impact and urgency score based on the information provided. This calculates a priority of low, medium, high or critical. The higher priorities go to issues that stop someone from working, with a view to getting them to a working state either by a fix or a workaround.
Below is the matrix calculating priority based on impact and urgency. It shows the impact on the left and urgency across the top which gives a score used to assign the priority (Low-Critical).
High | Medium | Low | |
|---|---|---|---|
Single Person | Medium | Low | Low |
Multiple People | High | Medium | Low |
Entire Campus | Critical | High | Medium |
Incident Response Times
We aim to acknowledge and respond to a new incident within the time frames outlined below. Note these are expressed in working hours.
Critical = 1 hour
High = 2 hours
Medium = 8 hours
Low = 8 hours
Incident Resolution Targets
We aim to resolve an incident within the time frames outlined below. Note these are expressed in working hours and days.
Critical = 2 hours
High = 8 hours
Medium = 72 hours
Low = 14 days
Request Response Times
We aim to acknowledge and respond to a new request within the time frames outlined below. Note these are expressed in working hours and days.
Critical = 1 hour
High = 4 hours
Medium = 16 hours
Low = 3 days
Service Request Resolution Targets
We aim to resolve a service request within the time frames outlined below. Note these are expressed in working hours and days.
Critical = 4 hours
High = 2 days
Medium = 4 days
Low = 7 days
External Providers
Where a service request or incident must be escalated to a third party (for example a supplier or UIS), CSCS will stop counting the time to resolution of the ticket until the issue is passed back to us. CSCS will chase on your behalf if the supplier does not respond in a timely manner.
Service Uptime and Availability Commitments
We aim for our services to be up and available for use 99% of the time during working hours.
Change Windows and Notifications of Works
We have a weekly change window from Wednesday 17:30 to Thursday 08:00 (14.5 hour window). If we are completing non-disruptive maintenance (which involves no downtime or impact on users) this will take place during this period with no notification.
Planned outage / downtime – notification for planned outages/downtime during a vulnerable period will be sent 6 days beforehand (the Thursday before). Then a reminder will be sent the day before the outage.
Unplanned outage / downtime – As soon as possible, subsequent updates to be sent as soon as more information becomes available, or workaround is implemented.
CSCS Working Hours
The CSCS support teams working hours are 09:00 am - 5:00 pm weekdays, excluding bank and University / School holidays or closures. There may be occasions when you receive contact outside of these core hours but there is no obligation to respond.
In order to keep our staff trained and informed, we may hold staff events typically no more than once per quarter which will result in the closure of our service for up to half a day for the event. This will be communicated in advance.
Monitoring and After Hours Activities
We monitor our infrastructure outside of working hours and should any part of the core functionality fail we will attend and intervene. We consider the following to be core functionality: the core network (not departmental switches), firewall, cyber security incidents, break ins. Other service such as ability to log in, Group Drive access, VPN and email are provided by UIS and you can view the service status by going to this page: https://help.it.cam.ac.uk/portal/servicestatus?btn=93.
Contacting CSCS
Self-Service Portal : https://itsupportcscs.haloitsm.com/portal/home. You can log incidents and service requests and track the progress of your open issues here.
Telephone : 01223 336261 (open during Service Desk working hours, 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday excluding Public Holidays)
Email : CSCSservicedesk@medschl.cam.ac.uk which will automatically log a ticket within our self-service portal.
In person: CSCS are not currently open to drop-in visits. You must prearrange your visit by speaking with our Service Desk.
The CSCS Service Desk acts as your single point of contact into the team on the telephone, self-service portal or in email.
Feedback
We welcome feedback, both positive or constructive about CSCS services. We have a dedicated mailbox for this purpose, and a copy of your email will go to the CSCS Management Team who will review and respond accordingly. The email address is: cscs-list-feedback@medschl.cam.ac.uk
Surveys
Surveys are automatically sent from the Service Desk after a ticket has been closed so you can indicate satisfaction or concerns with how the ticket was handled. An example is shown below.
