Support

Ex Libris is committed to providing customers with timely and accurate customer service. We hire highly skilled professionals with extensive library experience; many of these individuals are degreed librarians. New staff members participate in our ground-up training program to become proficient in all areas of our products, from installation and implementation to general application support. To keep our support staff informed, we conduct regularly scheduled refresher programs that include knowledge sharing with our implementation group.

Access to the Ex Libris support staff is provided five days a week, 8:30 am to 5:30 pm, U.S. Central time. Support for critical issues, such as a down system, is provided 24x7 including weekends and holidays.

Ex Libris customers have access to our Salesforce Customer Portal, which allows customers to open, update, and track support Cases handled by Ex Libris Support. Each Case is assigned a Case number for tracking, and is included in all communications about a particular Case. Customers also have access to the Ex Libris Customer Center, which provides central access to product documentation, Ex Libris news, the Salesforce system, and other customer resources via a single secure login provided by Ex Libris.

Requests for Support sent as Cases from our Salesforce system are assigned response levels to help us prioritize issues, communicate in a timely manner and provide a means for us to measure our performance.

For down systems or components, support is available around the clock, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Requests for Support sent as Cases from our Salesforce system are assigned response levels to help us prioritize issues, communicate in a timely manner and provide a means for us to measure our performance. Response levels to reported cases are as follows:

Response Level	Description	Initial Response
I	The Service is not available	1 hour
II	An inoperable production module	2 hours
III	Other production performance related issues, typically a module feature working incorrectly	1 business day
IV	Non-performance related incidents, including: general questions, requests for information, documentation questions, enhancement requests	2 business days

A library’s relationship with Ex Libris does not end with implementation Go-Live. Rather, Ex Libris is committed to ensuring that a customer’s needs continue to be met through various channels. Our dedicated Ex Libris Support team is available to assist customers with any product-related issues that they cannot resolve on their own. This includes robust self-service online help tools as well as direct interactive assistance via the CRM for logging and receiving updates on cases submitted. The CRM can be accessed from the Ex Libris customer portal.

Access to Alma training materials continues throughout the library’s subscription to Alma. These sessions are regularly updated to reflect new developments and changes in system functionality, and are excellent resources for a refresher in a specific subject or in training new staff. Each Alma release includes videos of the release highlights and customers are invited to the Alma “Ask the Expert” sessions that allow customers to ask questions about using the Alma system and incorporating best practices. Customers are also welcome to register new Alma administrators for the monthly Certification program courses.

As the institution's needs evolve, more hands-on assistance with optimizing workflows or enabling new system features might be required. For this reason, Ex Libris offers additional Expert Services for libraries that are already in production. During an Expert Service engagement, a product expert may analyze opportunities for workflow efficiencies, set up new services, or build custom reports. These and other services can be adapted as the Library’s unique requirements develop.

Ex Libris also supports a robust Alma community that engages its members through an array of channels. These include the Product Working Groups, which work with the Ex Libris development team; the community-managed listservs, Alma-L and Primo-L, where libraries share experiences and best practices; the Ex Libris Development network, where libraries and Ex Libris share extensions that take advantage of the openness of Ex Libris product; and user conferences such as ELUNA, IGeLU, and regional user group meetings.

Support incidents are logged on behalf of the reporting institution. All users of the Ex Libris Support Center have the option to share individual support cases or all support cases with other users of the Support Center. Alternatively an institutional login to the Support Center could be shared with other members of a consortium in order for them to see that member’s support cases.

Email alerts will be sent to the designated users of the Support Center for the institution which has logged the support case.

See detail under: Collaborative Networks - General