The Super User Role & Responsibilities

What is a Super User?

A designated Super User (or “Support Representative” or “System Administrator”) is responsible for providing support to users within the client organisation. This role is critical to the success of the client organisation in achieving it’s objectives and vital to realising the full potential of the Claritum procurement platform.

The Super User must have the appropriate communication skills to help users operate the Claritum system effectively, work closely with management to align business processes and the Claritum system to maximise efficiencies and optimise reporting. They also require the technical skills and product training to work effectively with the Claritum Support Team to quickly resolve open issues, whether by additional user training, system configuration, additional functionality or rectifying a problem. The support contact will be the Client’s interface to Claritum Support and will be notified of all issues that surface within your organization. They will be responsible for escalating issues to Claritum as necessary, after an initial triage investigation.

Role of a Super User

Triage - triaging user requirements to define whether training/familiarisation requirement, software configuration or software problem
Adoption - ensuring system adoption, defining user training and ongoing education programs
Compliance - advising / enforcing process compliance
Solutions - identifying business process and software process gaps and defining work- arounds or change requests
Monitoring - monitoring of system and service performance (speed, uptime, helpdesk response times)
Satisfaction - tracking and reporting user satisfaction
Client Requirements - aligning client requirements and Claritum roadmap
Reporting - advising and providing client management on data and reporting
Infrastructure - liaising with client IT/technical teams to ensure client meets recommended infrastructure requirements
Updates - communicating status of planned and unplanned updates and maintenance
Problems - working closely with Claritum support team to resolve any problems identified and reporting to users and management on resolution
Benefits - ensuring clients maximise benefit of Claritum - user adoption, best practice workflow, savings and efficiencies, reporting etc
Updates - evaluating updates and approvals
Support - utilising and sharing Claritum helpdesk and support materials

Super User Responsibilities

The Super User (Customer Administrator) will:
Serve as the primary point of contact between the customer and Claritum Support Services.

Open all Service Requests on behalf of the customer.
Work with the Claritum Support Services department to resolve each service request.
Work with the Customer IT team and other as necessary to collect and maintain all system and end user data stored within the Claritum systems.
Provide complete and accurate system and end user data to ensure the integrity of data within the Claritum systems.
Obtain additional resources, such as IT team members, who may be needed to expedite the resolution of an issue upon request of Claritum Support Services.
Receive release notes and other support notifications from Claritum Support Services.
Distribute all support notifications to appropriate individuals within their company.
Share service request status with appropriate individuals within their company.
Escalate supplier issues upon request of Claritum Support Services.
Be fully trained on the Claritum systems and (where applicable) work with the Customer’s Help Desk to resolve any Level 1 service requests.
Work with the Customer Trainer(s) to ensure all end users are properly trained on the Claritum systems.
Ensuring the accuracy of the Customer Administrator contact information is critical to the success of Claritum systems support. Please notify Claritum Support Services immediately when changes to this information are made.

Tips for Efficient Use of Claritum Support Services

Claritum Support Services is committed to being your most valued business partner by ensuring that you can implement and use Claritum Services successfully. Any information you can provide regarding the issue the user is experiencing could have a significant impact on how fast the issue is diagnosed and resolved. The following tips will help you as a customer administrator derive the maximum benefits from using Claritum Support services.

Keep Relevant Information Readily Available

Be prepared to have access to ALL information that a Support Analyst might need to help in resolving your issue, including:

Your name , company name and contact telephone number and email address and advise on best time to reach you
If calling on an existing service request, please provide the Case number issued to you when the request was first opened.
The names of affected and/or interested individuals within your organization (e.g. end user name)
Any relevant contractual information.

Identify the Service Request

Identify the service request as precisely as possible to help Claritum Support isolate the issue to a specific component of the Claritum Services (e.g. RFQ, Claritum e-Procurement, Claritum Analysis, Claritum Supplier Network). If necessary, we may contact you for further clarification or to request your permission for Claritum to reset the user's password for testing purposes.

Configuration Details

Keep your implementation configuration information easily accessible to the Support Analyst at all times. Please have information available as clearly as possible.

Examples of relevant configuration details may be:

End user name and associated corporate entity
Supplier name
Browser version
Operating System

Access to Relevant Personnel

Ensure that all relevant team members within your organization are available for consultation. Arrange to conference them in or to have a web based meeting whenever possible to avoid delays in problem resolution.

Error Messages

Provide accurate error messages, symptoms and forward relevant error e-mails / attachments when available. This will allow Claritum Support to troubleshoot issues faster with the appropriate information.

Problem Replication

Provide problem replication details if possible, (or help recreate the problem by providing all relevant information, files, etc.), so Support can quickly recreate the problem if required. Please note that it is much faster to troubleshoot or provide a workaround/fix if we can replicate the problem. Please be ready to authorize us if we need to login as the end user to recreate the problem (some problems might be tied to the end users’ profiles, so Claritum Support will need to login as the end user to research the reported error further).

Minimum replication information required:

Name and email address of the user logged in.
Area of the system where the problem was seen (including URL if possible).
Customer Name
Supplier name (if relevant)
Any related Reference numbers e.g. Job Ref, Quote Ref, Order Ref etc.
Screenshots or exact text of any error messages
Operating System used
Browser used (including version number)
A detailed list of steps that show how to reproduce the problem.

Service Request

Every support service request by a customer will be assigned a unique number for tracking the service request. Always refer to your service requests by referencing the Service Request number assigned on the initial call (or email acknowledgement).

Keep an active list of your incidents that are currently open.

Claritum Support Description

The Claritum Support Services department provides Level 2 and 3 support for Claritum customers. Service requests may be open for such areas as administration, configuration, troubleshooting of Claritum services, documentation/information requests, enhancement or feature requests, etc.
The ‘live’ instance of the Claritum platform used by the customer for trading with customers and suppliers
Only once the first phase of a project is implemented, project support by the Support Services department begins. Support is provided remotely via web, phone, and email and does not include onsite assistance, services include;
Web-based Solution Bank with solutions to known problems
Email updates on logged support cases
Case logging, prioritization, diagnostics and resolution within service level agreement criteria
Electronic downloads of documentation
Updates. Enhancements and new releases of the product
Patches and fixes for errors that cause the software to be not in material conformance with the functionality requirements as defined in the Claritum Statement of Work

Claritum Support does not extend to;

Level 1 Support
The ‘test’ instance of the Claritum platform used by the customer for evaluation of new features, training and familiarization
The ‘evaluation’ instance of the Claritum platform used by the customer for evaluating the software prior to purchase
Third party software issues, unless subscribed through the Claritum Service Hub
Set-up, configuration, re-configuration of hardware or software (including Claritum software) archiving and system tuning
Professional consulting or onsite support
Consultation, error correction, research or other assistance with respect to customized code, templates, mapping, processes, trading partner profiles, communication scripts other than documents, templates and processes included in the software
Hardware and devices such as firewalls and routers
Third Party Internet services and networks, any third party servers on the internet(except as contracted by Claritum for server and database management) any third party software or hardware owned or licensed by the Customer or any customers of the Customer or any telephone service
Software training and education
Development of, changes to, or assistance with interfaces to other systems or automation equipment.
New customizations or software extensions, changes to existing customizations or modified reports or labels

Support Escalations

The Service Request escalation process is in place to assist our customers who are not satisfied with the resolution process and or progress on a service request. The effect of escalation is to focus management attention on the appropriate allocation of resources for a particular Service Request.

How Does The Escalation Process Work?

Claritum Support Services has defined a set of escalation procedures in order to serve our customers' needs. Cases can be:

Escalated internally within the Claritum Support organization, or
Escalated to the Claritum Engineering organization.
Escalated to the Claritum Management Team.

Escalation is initiated whenever:

Progress is stalled and more senior expertise is required to further troubleshoot the problem.
Problem is due to a bug or defect.
Problem has a serious business impact on customer's environment.

Escalation Process within Support Services

Customer informs the Support Analyst that they would like to escalate the incident. This must be where possible done using the telephone as it is often best to speak directly with the Support Analyst to ensure full understanding of the reason to request the escalation
The Support Services Analyst will contact their Manager within 90 minutes of the escalation request. The Manager will listen to the customer’s issue until it is understood and determine with the customer an acceptable resolution plan.
The Manager will document the conversation and the resolution plan in the Support Services system.
The Manager will follow up to ensure the plan is followed and/or reset the customer’s expectations.
The Manager owns the escalation until the issue is resolved.

Escalation to Claritum Engineering

Claritum Support works very closely with the Claritum Engineering organization to resolve customer issues in a timely manner.
Once an incident is escalated, it is reviewed by the Support Manager, who will ensure that all relevant information like configuration details, details on the re-creation of error in-house, order details, error messages etc. are provided in the escalated Service Request.
Engineering then assigns appropriate engineering resources to isolate the technical defect and to try and resolve the problem. Once the defect is fixed and after appropriate QA testing, the appropriate Claritum Service will be updated with the changes.
The Support Manager will review the escalated incident daily and ensures that appropriate resources are allocated to the problem and that progress is made toward resolution.
The Support Manager ensures that the resolution is communicated to the customer.

Escalation to Claritum Management Team

Claritum Support works very closely with the Claritum Management team to resolve customer issues in a timely manner.
Once an incident is escalated to the Claritum Management Team, the complete history of the incident in reviewed and a determination is made as to what action(s) will be taken to resolve the problem.
The Customer is then notified of the actions agreed and if appropriate further updates will be communicated to the customer until the problem is resolved

Tracking and Reporting of Issues

The Customer will be able to track progress of any reported issue or service request through the Claritum Online Self-Service Portal, or if they are a nominated contact will be able to view this through the Customer Portal. This will detail all cases logged (via Phone, email and or self-registration) and the various statuses associated with each issue or service request.

In addition to this, Claritum can provide additional reports on-line through the Customer Portal or as part of the Account Reviews which will detail

Network Performance for the period – system availability, uptimes etc
Number and Status of Outstanding Service Requests – will include response / resolution times against all Cases

Additional Reporting Requirements can be discussed and subject to terms being agreed with your Project / Account Manager.

Closure of Issues

Claritum Support Services is committed to resolve all support inquiries in a timely and satisfactory manner.

Due to the communicative nature of the troubleshooting process, it is necessary for the Support Analyst and the Customer to participate in the process. When a Support Analyst does not hear from the customer in a timely manner, the Analyst will make 3 attempts (each spaced at least one business day apart) to contact the customer during their normal business hours. If no further contact is received from the customer, the Service Request (SR) will be placed under ‘Closed’ status. Customers can always call back to reopen this SR and initiate further work. This is necessary to allow the Support Analyst to focus on higher priority open and active issues.

Incidents will be placed in ‘Closed’ status in the following situations:

Resolution is provided to the customer
Customer reports back that they no longer have the problem and agrees to close the issue
An acceptable workaround is reached on the problem

Knowledge Base 1.9

Part 9 - The Super User Role and Responsibilities