Service Level Agreement
This Service Level Agreement (SLA) applies to all SaaS Solutions listed in the Supplier’s Annex C. It contains only terms related to service levels and service delivery. It contains no pricing terms; service credits are described as a percentage of fees already payable under a Contract.
1. Scope and definitions
- Solutions: the DOME™ Pro and ARCH™ Pro Microsoft Excel add-ins, the hosting that delivers their program files, and the licence service that confirms a user’s subscription.
- Business hours: Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time, excluding Ontario statutory holidays. A business day is any day with business hours.
- Month: a calendar month.
- Monthly fee: the subscription fees paid by Canada under a Contract for the affected Solution, divided by the number of months in the subscription term.
2. Availability – performance
Commitment. Each Solution will be Available at least 99.5% of the time in each month.
Available means that the add-in program files can be loaded from dome.firstporter.com or arch.firstporter.com and the licence service at licensing.firstporter.com responds to licence checks.
Calculation. Monthly availability (%) = (total minutes in the month − minutes of unscheduled downtime) ÷ total minutes in the month × 100. At 99.5%, unscheduled downtime may not exceed about 3 hours and 36 minutes in a 30-day month.
Measurement. First Porter monitors each Solution with Microsoft Azure Application Insights availability tests, run from two separate locations so that each Solution is checked about every five minutes. Results are kept for 12 months, and First Porter is alerted by email when a Solution fails. On request, First Porter will provide Canada with the monthly availability figure for any month of a Contract.
Licence grace period. If the licence service cannot be reached, each add-in continues to work for up to 14 days from the user’s last successful licence check, so a licence-service outage alone does not stop users from working. Such an outage still counts as downtime.
3. Downtime definition – scheduled and unscheduled
Scheduled downtime is maintenance announced to Canada’s contact by email at least five business days in advance. It is performed outside business hours and does not exceed four hours in any month. Scheduled downtime is excluded from the availability calculation.
Unscheduled downtime is any period, outside scheduled downtime, during which a Solution is not Available. Emergency maintenance, such as an urgent security fix, counts as unscheduled downtime. First Porter will give as much notice of emergency maintenance as circumstances allow.
Exclusions. The following are not downtime: outages of Microsoft 365, Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Entra ID, which are services provided to Canada by Microsoft; problems with Canada’s own network, devices or configuration; suspension at Canada’s request; and events beyond First Porter’s reasonable control (force majeure).
4. Service credits – triggers and calculation
Trigger. A service credit applies when a Solution’s monthly availability falls below the 99.5% commitment in section 2.
| Monthly availability | Service credit (% of the monthly fee) |
|---|---|
| Below 99.5% and at least 99.0% | 5% |
| Below 99.0% and at least 95.0% | 10% |
| Below 95.0% | 25% |
Claiming. Canada requests the credit by email to support@firstporter.com within 30 days after the end of the affected month. First Porter confirms the availability figure within 10 business days.
Application. Credits are deducted from the next invoice under the Contract, or refunded if no further invoice will be issued. Total credits for a Solution in any month will not exceed 25% of its monthly fee.
5. Support services availability
- Period: support and maintenance are included for the full subscription term of each Contract, at no additional charge.
- Hours: business hours, as defined in section 1.
- Contact: email support@firstporter.com with the Solution name and version, the user’s name, a description of the issue and, if possible, a screenshot. Screenshots and messages must not contain Protected or classified information. For a Critical (Severity 1) issue, Canada may also telephone 613-889-5260.
- Communications: every request receives an email acknowledgement within the response time in section 8, and a reference number used in all later communication. Telephone and fax support are not offered for routine requests.
- Language: support is provided in English. Support in French will follow. The Solutions, their help and their release notes are available in English and French.
- Outside business hours: automated monitoring alerts First Porter to outages at any time. Critical outages detected outside business hours are investigated as soon as reasonably possible.
6. Self-service, knowledge base and online tutorials
- Each add-in includes contextual help (“Help for this sheet”) in English and French, available inside Excel.
- Product information and documentation are published at firstporter.com, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, subject to hosting availability.
- Release notes are published for every update.
7. Errors: severity level definitions
| Severity | Definition |
|---|---|
| 1 – Critical | A Solution cannot be used: the add-in will not load, or no licensed user can work, and there is no workaround. |
| 2 – Major | A significant feature does not work as documented, but users can continue working, for example with a workaround. |
| 3 – Minor | A minor defect, cosmetic issue or documentation error that does not prevent normal use. |
| 4 – Request | A question about use, or a request for an enhancement. |
First Porter assigns the severity level in consultation with Canada. Canada may ask First Porter to review it.
8. Mean time to respond and repair
Response time is measured from receipt of the request during business hours. Repair means a fix or an acceptable workaround.
| Severity | Response time | Target repair time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 – Critical | Within 4 business hours | Within 1 business day |
| 2 – Major | Within 1 business day | Within 5 business days |
| 3 – Minor | Within 2 business days | In the next scheduled update |
| 4 – Request | Within 2 business days | Considered for future releases |
First Porter reports its mean response and repair times for Canada’s requests on request.
9. Escalation path and procedure
First Porter is an owner-operated business. Every request is handled by, and escalates to, its owner.
- Level 1: support@firstporter.com, as described in section 5.
- Level 2: if a response time in section 8 is missed, or for any Critical issue, Canada may contact the owner directly: Luigi (Louis) Facchini, louis.facchini@firstporter.com, 613-889-5260.
- Level 3: unresolved matters may be raised by Canada’s Contracting Authority with the Supplier’s Representative named in the Supply Arrangement.
For a Critical issue, First Porter sends Canada a status update at least once every business day until the issue is resolved.
10. Available disaster recovery system
- Hosting: all First Porter services run in Microsoft Azure, Canada Central region (Toronto). The licence records use zone-redundant storage, kept as three copies across separate data centres within the region.
- Backups: licence records and service secrets are backed up daily, encrypted, to Microsoft Azure’s Canada East region (Quebec City). Backups are kept for 35 days, and restoring from them has been tested.
- Recovery: if Canada Central becomes unavailable, First Porter restores the add-in hosting in Canada East within 24 hours (recovery time objective). Licence records are restored from the most recent daily backup, so at most 24 hours of licence changes may need to be re-entered (recovery point objective). The add-ins’ web addresses do not change, so users and administrators have nothing to reinstall.
- Continuity for users: during a recovery, users keep working for up to 14 days from their last successful licence check. Workbook data is never stored by First Porter, so no client data needs to be recovered.
- Data location: production and backups stay in Canada.
- Testing: First Porter documents its recovery procedure and tests it at least once a year. The most recent test was performed on 16 October 2026.
11. Maintenance entitlements
During each subscription term, Canada receives all updates to the licensed Solutions at no additional charge, including patches, fixes, and minor and major releases. Updates are applied by First Porter in its hosting environment, so Canada’s IT staff install nothing. First Porter publishes release notes for each update.