Shade Inc. ("Shade", "we", "us" and/or "our") provides support for our cloud platform ("Services") to our customers ("Customers", "you") based on their selected plan level. These Support Terms describe how we provide support and our commitments to our Customers (as may be further defined in our agreement with you, "Support Services"). We provide updates regarding any status changes in our Services via our status page. This source provides information and you should check this source first before seeking support.
Capitalized terms used in these Support Terms but not defined here will have the meanings given to them in our Terms of Service or any Terms and Conditions associated with an Order Form, as applicable.
Scope and Limitations
Overview
We provide Support Services that are directly related to our Services, including: ShadeFS, Cloud Storage, Bring Your Own Storage, Metadata Management, Sharing, Search, and Billing. Support Services will only be provided when requests are made to us from a member of an active Shade account.
Support Services will be provided when our Services are used in accordance with our documentation and required best practices outlined below. Where this is not the case, we will provide Customers with this information.
Terms within separately negotiated customer agreements may supersede the scope and limitations outlined in these terms.
Regarding billing issues
If you believe your invoice or billing receipt is incorrect, we strongly encourage you to contact our Customer Success team rather than filing a dispute with your card provider. Should a payment dispute be filed before getting in touch with us, we are limited in terms of the action we can take to resolve the matter. Once a dispute has been made with the card provider, the account associated with it and all deployments under it may be suspended until it has been resolved.
Requests for billing amendments must be made within 1 month of the date of the invoice or billing receipt. We reserve the right to decline any requests for billing alteration made beyond 1 month after the date of the invoice or billing receipt. Deleted accounts are ineligible for refunds.
Required Best Practices
If you are struggling with performance issues during file streaming, we ask that you first evaluate the following components:
Your internet connection and speed
Ensure that you have sufficient storage for your cache and proper configurations of your NLE editors (example Audio Waveform Generation turned off in Premiere Pro)
before reaching out for performance related issues.
Where We Support You
Community support forum
All Customers have access to our Community Forum. This is the preferred forum for questions regarding best practices, workflows, implementations, and all discussions in the forum serve as a shared resource to help other Customers. Customers on our Hobby plan are expected to use the Forum to discuss suspected platform issues. Our Customer Success team may monitor questions and discussions in the forum.
Submitting a support ticket
Support Services will be provided to Customers who submit a support ticket when:
The Customer holds a current paid subscription with Shade (e.g. an Enterprise or Pro tier subscription).
The Customer holds a current Hobby plan with Shade, and
The request is in relation to a billing issue, or
The request is in relation to a login or registration issue.
The request adheres to the required best practices and the scope and limitations, as outlined in these terms.
A request can be submitted via our website, or application, or with the direct appointed customer support representative, enterprise customer portal, or shared slack channel defined at the time of the arrangement. Additional inquiries can be sent to support@shade.inc.
Shade does not guarantee the availability or validity of any advice or Support Services, or offer support, outside of the approved support channels identified above, or for any of our services or third-party services or other products which do not fall within the scope of our Services.
Requests for advice or Support Services outside of the above communication channels which otherwise adhere to the scope and limitations within these terms may be referred to one of the above communication channels.
When We Support You
Responses
Our team aims to respond to all paid subscription requests promptly and as soon as possible. Customers are prioritised based on their plan and the severity of their issue as described below. We only commit to respond to Customers with an Enterprise subscription, using the target response time guidelines below.
While we endeavour to resolve support requests consistently, the member of our team handling a request may be changed at any time.
Enterprise target response time guidelines
The table below outlines our target response time guidelines for our various support tiers of the Enterprise subscription. Our target response times relate to the time it takes for Shade to respond to your initial request. Your Support Services tier is indicated on the order form for your Enterprise subscription (unless otherwise stated, Enterprise subscriptions are default on standard).
These guidelines only apply when submitting a support issue or creating a case in your team’s designated support center or shared slack channel. All severity level issues must be submitted and labelled during the submission of a support ticket in order to be subject to the SLA terms below. Support through other channels (including forums) is not subject to our standard SLA or negotiated SLA (unless we otherwise agreed in writing), and we may request that you submit a Support Services ticket via the agreed upon channels.
Business hours are 9:00am to 5:00pm Eastern Time, Monday through Friday, excluding Shade observed holidays.
Customers may initiate support tickets during Support Hours by sending a message to their Shared Slack Channels or via their designated support center.
Issue Severity
A severity level is assigned to all paid subscription Support Services tickets upon creation. The severity assignment will be selected by the Customer when submitting a Support Services ticket. We may set, upgrade and downgrade the severity level of Support Services tickets in our sole discretion. For example, if available, a temporary resolution may be provided to mitigate the material impact of a given problem, resulting in the reduction of the severity of a case. Severity levels will also be adjusted downward as your technical issue is mitigated or if you, the Customer, do not assist or provide us with needed information. Messages in a shared slack channel that are not properly submitted with a severity level assigned by the Customer or our appointed customer support team will not be subject to the standard or negotiated SLA.
Severity 1
A severity 1 issue is reserved for the most critical cases. In nearly all cases this type of issue relates to a production deployment. Examples of this type of issue include, but are not limited to:
A drive being unusable or unmountable.
The app not listing customer’s files
Public link not properly displaying files or not working for client delivery
Severity 2
A severity 2 issue is used when a problem is not impacting the ability to complete projects or work. Examples of this type of issue include, but are not limited to:
A proxy not properly being generated or a preview failing
A search result returning back in an improper order due to an incorrect search algorithm
Severity 3
A severity 3 issue is a request for information, an enhancement, or documentation clarification regarding our Services but where there is no negative impact on use of the Services.
Etiquette
Regardless of how and where Shade provides Support Services, you must communicate in a professional and respectful manner. We do not tolerate communications that are objectionable (as determined in Shade’s sole discretion) in any manner, including, as examples only, any communications that are abusive or that use profane language. Shade reserves the right to cease providing Support Services if you engage in any such objectionable communications.
