Service information for FY 20/21.
Application Development and Support
Software As A Service (SAAS) Development & Support helps business partners create and manage custom solutions on the Salesforce and SharePoint platforms. The group provides licensing, storage, hosting, and professional services. While primarily focused on custom solution development with the Salesforce platform, the group can also provide SharePoint support, feature enhancements, and third-party product acquisition.
Services and Rates
- Licensing: The user licensing costs incurred by SADS projects are charged back to the business partner, as listed below.
- Storage: When standard storage limits/capacities are exceeded, the team can provide additional storage, as listed below.
- Platform Support: Provides the required application hosting infrastructure. For SharePoint, third-party products that require external hosting beyond the normal Office 365 infrastructure would use platform support.
- Add-on: For non-standard product licensing, a service code is available to accommodate unique features only needed by certain clients.
- Professional Services (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced): MNIT staff and/or contractors develop, implement, maintain, and/or support projects and applications. Basic, Intermediate or Advanced Professional Service codes may be used to recover costs. SharePoint Office 365 licensing is included in Enterprise Software Bundles, and covers support for service break/fix issues. Advanced troubleshooting and implementation of non-core SharePoint capabilities may incur professional services charges.
Operational Standards and Policies
- All application development work is project-based, with associated management, documentation, and professional services requirements.
- Services are subject to staff availability. If necessary staff support is not available in a timely manner, MNIT may work with business partners to find vendors capable of following team development guidelines.
- Salesforce and SharePoint are large products with many capabilities. MNIT attempts to define the “core” and “non-core” capabilities of these products as a reasonable boundary for determining Basic, Intermediate and Advanced professional service levels. The boundary is not always clear and/or may change over time as software vendors frequently adjust their cloud product features and capabilities.
- When business partners make use of a non-core capabilities it will be difficult for MNIT staff to assist with support issues. For this reason, MNIT staff will expect business partners to maintain and share design, management, and governance documentation related to use of the capability.
- Salesforce and SharePoint are subscription services delivered by vendors through a cloud infrastructure. As vendor features change, there may be upgrades and changes that necessitate rework and/or changes to the professional services work product provided by MNIT. This work may require additional payments.
Security Considerations
During all Salesforce and SharePoint professional services engagements, MNIT staff and/or contractors will be exposed to business partner data. It is up to the business partner to determine whether access to this data requires MNIT staff to have special security clearances and/or authorizations.
