Service Level Agreement
This SLA sets out the availability, support, and maintenance commitments for Sous-Chef. It forms part of the Terms of Service; capitalised terms have the meanings given there.
1. Definitions
- Business Day — Monday to Friday, excluding South African public holidays.
- Business Hours — 09:00–17:00 SAST on Business Days. Support is asynchronous (section 4); Business Hours exist only to measure response targets.
- Monthly Uptime Percentage — for a calendar month: (total minutes − Downtime minutes) ÷ total minutes × 100, excluding Excluded Downtime.
- Downtime— the service's core application is unavailable or returns errors for all reasonable requests from an organisation, as measured by our independent uptime monitoring.
- Excluded Downtime— downtime caused by: (a) Scheduled Maintenance; (b) platform-wide outages of our hosting sub-processors or other force-majeure events; (c) the Customer's equipment, connectivity, or misuse; (d) suspension under the Terms; (e) beta or preview features.
- Scheduled Maintenance — maintenance inside the window in section 5, or announced at least 48 hours in advance.
2. Availability commitment
We target a Monthly Uptime Percentage of at least 99.5%.
Availability is measured by an independent third-party uptime monitor probing the production application. On request, we will share the relevant month's uptime report with any paying Customer.
3. Service credits
If the Monthly Uptime Percentage falls below the target in a month, the Customer is entitled, on claim, to a credit against its next invoice:
| Monthly uptime | Credit (% of that month's fee for the affected organisation) |
|---|---|
| Below 99.5%, at least 99.0% | 10% |
| Below 99.0%, at least 97.0% | 25% |
| Below 97.0% | 50% |
How to claim:email the support address in section 4 within 30 days of the end of the affected month, identifying the organisation and the dates and times of the Downtime observed. We verify claims against our monitoring records and apply valid credits to the next invoice (or refund the credit on an annual plan's final cycle).
Credits are the sole and exclusive remedy for failures of availability or support levels. Credits in any month cannot exceed 50% of that month's fee, and have no cash value except as stated above.
4. Support
Support is provided by email only, at sous.chef.south.africa@gmail.com. There is no telephone or live-chat support. In-product documentation and guides are available to all plans.
Support is asynchronous: response targets are measured in Business Hours and Business Days, and work on issues proceeds within them.
4.1 Severity levels
- S1 — Service down: the production service is unavailable for the organisation as a whole.
- S2 — Major function impaired: a core function (scheduling, leave, payroll-relevant records, document signing) is unusable with no workaround.
- S3 — General: all other bugs, questions, and requests.
4.2 First-response targets
| Severity | Lite | Standard | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| S1 | 1 Business Day | 8 Business Hours | 4 Business Hours |
| S2 | 2 Business Days | 1 Business Day | 8 Business Hours |
| S3 | 3 Business Days | 2 Business Days | 1 Business Day |
A "response" is a substantive acknowledgement from a person (not an auto-reply) that triage has begun. Resolution times are not guaranteed; we work on S1 and S2 issues with priority and keep the Customer informed at reasonable intervals until resolution.
Enterprise Customers receive a named contact and may agree bespoke support terms in an order form, which then override this table.
5. Maintenance and releases
- Maintenance window: Sundays 00:00–06:00 SAST is reserved for maintenance. Downtime inside the window is Excluded Downtime.
- Routine deployments are zero-downtime and may occur at any time. Larger platform updates are batched into approximately quarterly releases; where a release requires disruptive maintenance outside the window, we give at least 48 hours' notice by email.
- We may perform emergency maintenance without notice where required to protect security or data integrity; we notify affected Customers as soon as practicable afterwards, and such downtime counts as Downtime (not Excluded) unless caused by a sub-processor outage.
6. Data-protection service levels
- Security-compromise notification: without undue delay and in any event within 72 hours of becoming aware, per the Operator Agreement.
- Self-serve data export (including the POPIA data-subject export) is available at all times the service is available, including during suspension and the post-closure export window.
7. Review
We may update this SLA under section 20 of the Terms (30 days' notice; material reductions trigger the cancellation right). The SLA version in force when a month begins governs that month.