This document outlines the standard Technical Service Level and Support Policy for Harvard Business Impact's hosted offerings:
- Harvard ManageMentor®
- Harvard Business Publishing Collection
- Harvard ManageMentor® Spark
- HBR Spark
- Leadership Skill Camps
- Learning Sprints
- Blended Programs
Service and Support
Harvard Business Impact provides two roles for organizations using Harvard Business Impact solutions: client administrators, and learners. Organizations must provide a point of contact to assume the role of client administrator within the client organization. The role of the client administrator is to manage the client’s learner accounts as well as raising issues to the Harvard Business Impact support team. Many of our client administrators prefer to direct their learners through their own internal support channels (we can provide materials to train the teams on our products).
To assist client administrators and learners in resolving account access problems, obtain additional information about our services or report suspected issues, telephone, chat and email customer service support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, except for Christmas Day, Easter Sunday and New Year’s Day.
- Chat: Via the link on the login page
- Email: productsupport@harvardbusiness.org
- Phone:
- Outside the US +1 (617) 783-7474
- Within the US (800) 668-6705
- Within India 000-800001-6935
Harvard Business Impact trains its support staff to respond to inquiries, ranging from basic questions about program usage to account credential issues and access problems. Harvard Business Impact's practice is to attempt to replicate the issue reported by the user as soon as we receive the ticket from our ticketing systems. In some cases, we may not be able to replicate the issue, and in these cases, we will attempt to reach out to the administrator (or to the learner if given permission) to obtain more details.
Harvard Business Impact will diligently work for the prompt resolution of defects and errors in our services and will respond to the client using a dedicated contact telephone number, email address, and/or chat for each support call. In the case of a system down condition attributable to Harvard Business Impact, Harvard Business Impact may utilize other means of communication for reporting of errors and conditions.
Severity Levels & Service Levels
Provided that the client communicates through the appropriate channels, Harvard Business Impact will respond to and complete correction of errors, defects and malfunctions, in accordance with the following schedule:
| Severity level | Definition | Support by Harvard Business Impact |
| Severity 1 (Critical) | Service (example, Harvard ManageMentor) is unavailable.
| Harvard Business Impact will make an initial response to a Severity 1 issue within two (2) hours after identification or notification. Harvard Business Impact will use commercially reasonable efforts to either remediate the issue or implement a workaround to allow services to be available for use within twenty-four (24) hours after the issue is replicated and confirmed by Harvard Business Impact. |
| Severity 2 (Urgent) | Feature (example, search in HBR Spark) does not work as documented and no reasonable workaround exists. The bug has a large impact on a significant number of users. | Harvard Business Impact will make an initial response to Severity 2 issues within four (4) hours of the same/next US business day after identification or notification. Harvard Business Impact will make reasonable efforts to remediate the issue or provide a reasonable work around for Severity 2 issues within three (3) US business days. |
| Severity 3 (Serious) | Key feature does not work as documented, but a reasonable workaround or maintenance plan is available. The bug has a moderate impact on a smaller group of users. | Harvard Business Impact will make an initial response to Severity 3 issues within one (1) US business day after identification or notification. Harvard Business Impact will make reasonable efforts to remediate or provide a reasonable workaround to Severity 3 issues within thirty (30) US business days and to incorporate Severity 3 fixes (if available) in the next upcoming release of the product or service. |
| Severity 4 | Enhancement request or bug having minimal impact on the functionality of the system (often cosmetic issues or minor inconveniences that do not significantly affect users). | Harvard Business Impact will make an initial response to Severity 4 requests within two (2) US business days after identification or notification. Severity 4 requests will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. |
Clients agree to appoint one person as the principal point of contact (usually, this is the same person as the administrator) for the communication of issues and requests to Harvard Business Impact and for the receipt of fixes, workarounds, and updates, if any. Additionally, clients may appoint another person as a back-up of the principal contact.
Uptime and Performance
The portions of our software application services which are operated by Harvard Business Impact will have at least 99.9% uptime, as measured monthly by a third-party industry standard application monitoring tool, excluding planned downtime during scheduled or identified service windows. The availability of Harvard Business Impact software application services for a given month will be calculated according to the following formula:
Availability = ((TMM-TMU)/TMM) x 100
Where: TMM = Total minutes in the month
TMU = Total minutes in month Unavailable
For purposes of this calculation, the Harvard Business Impact software application services will be deemed to be unavailable to the extent the applicable will not accept connections. Harvard Business Impact's records and data will be the sole basis for all SLA calculations and determinations
Latency of any data from the time Harvard Business Impact's server receives the request to serve such data to the time when Harvard Business Impact's server begins to serve such data shall be less than or equal to ten (10) seconds for most processes. Large data transfers – including routine processes involving large uploads, downloads and reports – are considered exceptions to this time expectation. Latency can vary based on geographic location, connection speed and other factors out of the control of Harvard Business Impact.
The below table outlines scheduled maintenance windows for Harvard Business Impact's various offerings:
| Harvard ManageMentor, Harvard Business Publishing Collection, HBR Spark, Blended Programs, Leadership Skill Camps, Learning Sprints | Friday nights between 9 PM and 10 PM US Eastern Time |
| Harvard ManageMentor Spark | Friday nights between 9 PM and 10 PM US Eastern Time and Saturday mornings from 12 am and 3 am US Eastern Time |
Harvard Business Impact will provide three (3) business days’ notice of any routine maintenance disruption required to happen outside of stated maintenance windows. Emergency maintenance will be performed when required by Harvard Business Impact and may not include advance notification.
Security Policies
The data created or supplied by a client of Harvard Business Impact is owned exclusively by the Harvard Business Impact client. Harvard Business Impact will keep confidential each customer's sensitive confidential information that we receive or become privy to as part of an established relationship, unless Harvard Business Impact is required by law to divulge it. Harvard Business Impact supports the privacy of client data that it manages by utilizing industry leading practices as understood by Harvard Business Impact for data privacy and security such as access controls, data encryption, and security monitoring. Harvard Business Impact also partners with managed service providers and SSAE-16 Certified data co-location centers to assure that the hardware, software, systems, and processes follow industry leading practices for data privacy and security as understood by Harvard Business Impact.
Harvard Business Impact uses third-party vendors in select cases. All third-party vendors are properly reviewed and governed by Harvard Business Impact to ensure they meet Harvard Business Impact's data privacy and security expectations and requirements. Harvard Business Impact also has a comprehensive information security exhibit as part of our agreements with third parties that details information security related expectations and requirements for third party vendors.