Support Services

IT Services will act as an expert concierge for academic units that enter service agreements with one or more third parties, either internal or external, who provide services and infrastructure to their research communities.

Support Coverage

Common support coverage and limitations apply. 

Staff, faculty, and graduate students explicitly declared in a service agreement between the academic unit and ECE IT Services have the benefit of in-depth assistance with

• Central research computing resources

• on-boarding documentation and guidance

• standard CMU software

• common engineering applications

• hosted shared storage

• University-wide services

• consulting services

• representation for specialized request submission to third parties on behalf of the client

ECE ITS reserves the right to decline an engagement with an academic unit if a third party is unsuitable as a provider.

Third Party Agreement Declaration

To qualify for concierge support coverage, all third-party service providers must be explicitly declared in a signed agreement between ECE ITS and the represented academic unit. ECE ITS will rely upon contracts with third parties to manage the service relationship with the academic unit, provide mutual feedback, escalate issues, and advise the academic unit on options for restitution if the provider fails to fulfill its obligations. Legal matters will be handled by CMU General Counsel. ECE ITS is not offering insurance for ill-defined agreements. ECE ITS is offering a value-added service upon which academic units can rely to minimize their effort-to-benefit ratio and realize the maximum value from their investment.

The following minimum information must be collected to fulfill the academic unit’s responsibility for full-disclosure of third party agreements.

• A full copy of the current contract terms including

  • service description(s)

  • agreement period

  • addendums

  • final cost

  • pricing structure and rates

  • support and service metrics such as time-to-resolution, performance,

  • penalty clauses, termination conditions and fees

  • exclusivity restrictions

• Complete contact information and procedures for contract disputes, problem escalation, service requests, customer feedback, billing corrections, and service changes.

Extraneous Client Engagements

ECE ITS does not mandate exclusive representation between the academic unit and third-parties. However, ECE ITS is absolved of service obligations in the event that an academic unit or covered member engages with a third party without fully disclosing the engagement details prior to or at the time of requesting assistance from ECE ITS.

Network services

Service subscribers use Andrew network services. Connectivity issues at the client endpoint are not covered. Problem resolution for connectivity issues will be escalated to the proper campus service provider.

Extra-administrative Services

Purchasing recommendations are offered with approval from the client. Clients buy and own all equipment using client-provided Oracle Strings. The client department is responsible for purchase order generation, procurement, and order verification.

Support Rate Calculation

Rates and fees are published on the ECE ITS documentation site. See Service Bundles and Rates.

Fees will be negotiated based on an estimate of the academic unit’s covered membership and expected community support demand. The starting basis will be the total number of faculty, staff, and graduate student FTE weighted for engagement level. For example

In the example above, an FTE factor of 0.355 would be applied to the published rate to derive the annual fee.

Fees will be billed directly to the academic unit on the first business day of each month for the services defined in this agreement.  Payment for services rendered outside of the framework of this agreement must be negotiated separately.

Coverage Term

Coverage shall be 1 year in duration from the start time specified and renewed each fiscal year thereafter until a formal request to terminate is submitted. Agreements shall not be less than 1 year in duration.