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  2. Service Level Agreements

Service Level Agreements

The service tiers: Basic, Custom, Advanced, Academia

The purpose of the WebPublish Service Level Agreements is to define roles, responsibilities, and expectations for the WebPublish Service.

The WebPublish Service (hereafter referred to as “the Service”) is intended to support groups at Queen’s University who wish to leverage Queen’s web hosting and content management system (CMS) to manage a website.

Clients can choose between four service tiers: Basic, Custom, Advanced, Academia

The individual Service Level Agreements (SLA) are shared in PDF format here.

The differences between the service tiers:

Topic Basic Custom Advanced Academia
Purpose ...to manage a website. ...to manage a website, with the added technical flexibility to customize their site appearance. ...to manage one or more sites, with full technical flexibility over site themes and modules. ...to support ֱ faculty members in managing a professional profile website.
Note: for research groups and labs the Basic service tier is most appropriate.
Platform Drupal 9.0
Hosting Hosted in the Queen’s multi-site instance of WebPublish Hosted in its own container on the IT Services Azure servers. Hosted in ֱ multi-site instance of WebPublish
Themes and Modules The site will include a preset WebPublish theme and a variety of pre-styled features and layout options. In addition to the built-in WebPublish features and templates, the client will be granted the necessary permissions to customize the site’s CSS. In addition to the built-in WebPublish features and templates, the client will be granted the necessary permissions to install their own themes and modules, and manage site permissions. The site will include a preset WebPublish for Academia theme. In addition to the pre-styled features and layout options included in Basic, it will include several features designed with Faculty in mind.
Go-live Review Once submitted by the client for publication, the Website Governance Committee will review the website and work with the client to resolve any accessibility, usability, or policy compliance issues before it is made available for public viewing. The site must meet the requirements listed in the WebPublish Usage Guidelines. Once approved, IT Services will coordinate a time to make the site public. Once submitted by the client for publication, the site will be reviewed by IT Services to ensure it does not contain any WCAG 2.0 Level A or Level AA errors that fall under the responsibility of Content Editing. Once Approved, IT Services will coordinate a time to make the site public.
URL The site will be made live at a URL that has been requested and approved through the Website Governance Committee. The approval of URLs is guided by Queen’s Internet Domain Name Policy, recognized best practices for URLs, and pre-existing Queen’s domain name architecture.
Support and Training The client will be eligible for WebPublish training and support, as detailed in the IT Services Responsibilities section of this document. Clients may refer to online instructions/tutorials
Reporting The website will be configured with Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. Google Analytics is a web analytics service provided by Google that tracks and reports on website traffic. The Google Analytics property will be owned and managed by University Relations, but may be shared with Site Owners and Site Administrators by request (recommended). Site owners/administrators may also request that other Google Analytics properties be added to the site. An account will also be created for the site in Siteimprove, a web governance software that can be used to manage quality assurance and accessibility compliance. Site Owners/Administrators can access the site’s Siteimprove reporting by submitting a . An account will be created for the site in Siteimprove, a web governance software that can be used to manage quality assurance and accessibility compliance. Site Owners/Administrators can access the site’s Siteimprove reporting by submitting a . The website will be configured with Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. Google Analytics is a web analytics service provided by Google that tracks and reports on website traffic. The Google Analytics property will be owned and managed by University Relations, but may be shared with Site Owners and Site Administrators by request (recommended). Site owners/administrators may also request that other Google Analytics properties be added to the site. An account will also be created for the site in Siteimprove, a web governance software that can be used to manage quality assurance and accessibility compliance. Site Owners/Administrators can access the site’s Siteimprove reporting by submitting a .
Upgrades and Patches IT Services will lead major upgrades to the system and apply security patches as needed. IT Services will lead major upgrades to the system and apply security patches to modules supported as part of the Basic Service. Clients will have an opportunity to test the changes before they are applied to the site in production. IT Services will lead major upgrades to the system and apply security patches to modules supported as part of the Basic Service. IT Services will make updates available for the clients to test and apply at their own discretion. IT Services will lead major upgrades to the system and apply security patches as needed.
Fees There are no fees associated with the Service.
Access to System The client can access the authoring environment on campus to manage their content, using their Queen’s NetID and password. The authoring environment can also be accessed off campus via the Queen’s VPN.
Service Availability The targeted availability of the Service is twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Clients should expect occasional but infrequent service interruptions or slowdowns, both planned and unplanned. Where it is necessary to schedule system maintenance that necessitates a service outage, IT Services will do this outside of regular business hours (Monday to Friday 8:30 – 4:30 pm) whenever possible. Site Owners will be notified of the scheduled maintenance in advance of the outage.
Support Requests Support requests can be submitted using the to.
Client Responsibilities
  • use the IT Services to seek help for issues related to WebPublish.
  • promptly inform IT Services when they no longer require the Service.
  • be responsible for the content on their site.
  • ensure that their content adheres to the WebPublish Usage Guidelines
 in addition to the responsibilities of the Basic Service, clients will...
  • be responsible for maintaining any customizations to their site themes
  • be responsible for testing updates to the system in development prior to implementation in production
 in addition to the responsibilities of the Basic Service, clients will...
  • notify IT Services when they install a Contributed Drupal module. Contributed modules must meet the following criteria:
    • Module must have a stable release
    • Module must be covered by the Drupal security advisory policy
  • notify IT Services when they install a Custom module and will ensure that it is added to DevOps. Modules will be subject to a code review; if any issues are identified, the client may be asked to revise or discontinue use of the custom module
  • must subscribe to the Drupal security newsletter at drupal.org
  • monitor and update and themes and modules that are installed outside of the base service offering
  • test and apply non-critical updates provided by IT Services within three months of release
  • test and apply critical security updates provided by IT Services within 72 hours
  • ensure that they retain the web developer resources required to maintain their instance for the duration of their Advanced usage, as outlined in the prerequisites
  • If a client no longer wishes to maintain a site in the Advanced service level, they will be responsible for migrating their content from Advanced to their desired service level.
  • use the IT Services  to seek help for issues related to WebPublish
  • promptly inform IT Services when they no longer require the Service
  • be responsible for the content on their site
  • ensure that their content adheres to the WebPublish Usage Guidelines
IT Services Responsibilities IT Services will...
  • offer on-demand training in the form of recorded videos that covers the basics of using WebPublish 3, and routinely update training and tutorial information
  • respond to incident reports
  • respond to day-to-day requests for support
  • communicate any intended service changes or updates to the client
  • apply routine updates and critical security patches to the system
 In addition to the responsibilities of the Basic Service, IT Services will...
  • provide step-by-step instructions on navigating the Custom service configuration
  • apply updates in a development environment that matches the user’s production instance prior to rollout. 
 IT Services will...
  • refer clients to University Relations for an introductory training session when the Advanced instance is provisioned. This session will cover an overview of DevOps Repo, and Pipeline functionality as provisioned for WebPublish 3.0 Advanced.
  • communicate any intended service changes or updates to the client
  • provide step-by-step instructions on navigating the Advanced service infrastructure
  • monitor and maintain the modules and features included in the Basic Service offering
  • provide routine updates to the system, which will be available for clients to test and apply
  • apply critical security patches for modules included in the Basic Service offering within 72 hours of notification and will make the update available for clients to test and apply
  • IT Services will provision the Advanced environment within two weeks of receiving approval from the Website Governance Committee (i.e., please allow up to four weeks from the time of request submission for your instance to be provisioned.)
  • If a client no longer wishes to maintain a site in the Advanced service level, IT Services will provide an equivalent site in the desired service level; however, we will not migrate content on behalf of users.

IT Services will....

  • offer on-demand training in the form of recorded videos that covers the basics of using WebPublish 3, and routinely update training and tutorial information, including step-by-step instructions for using Academia-specific features.
  • respond to incident reports and day-to-day requests for support.
  • communicate any intended service changes or updates to the client.
  • apply routine updates and critical security patches to the system.
Changes to the Service Level Agreement The Service Level Agreement for each tier of the WebPublish Service will be reviewed regularly. Should any changes to the Agreements be required, site owners will be notified.
Termination of Services Queen’s University IT Services reserves the right to terminate the agreement at any time. This would not be done without good reason and IT Services will communicate those reasons in advance. Violations of any of Queen’s policies and procedures or the WebPublish Usage Guidelines will be addressed on a case-by-case basis and could result in the temporary or permanent deactivation of the site.
Learn More Start exploring the Tutorials section of this website... Getting Started with Custom Getting Started with Advanced Getting Started with Academia