Our Policies

Appendix 1 to our Terms of Service
Data Policy

We store your company’s name, address, telephone number and pertinent IT data in order to identify you, your PC, and to better serve you when you contact us. We do not share this information with outside entities. Your account information is available only to our internal staff who are bound by an NDA. We do not intentionally collect, store or share any other information about you. Our technicians are strictly prohibited from asking you for personal or private information such as credit card numbers, birth dates, user names and/or passwords. Please do not volunteer to give your password or any other private information as it is not necessary for troubleshooting.

Call Monitoring

We monitor support calls and/or remote connect sessions for training and quality assurance purposes.

Remote Control

Access to your computer is not arbitrary. If one of our technicians needs to connect to your computer to solve a problem, you will be required to grant him/her access via an invitation code. Once the technician has finished and the remote session has been closed, your computer will no longer be accessible to us.

Please do not contact the help desk prior to leaving for lunch or at the end of the day as our internal policies prohibit our help desk technicians from accessing unattended computers. MSP administrators may log in to unattended computers or perform automated background tasks such as maintenance, upgrades and updates, however, they access devices using their own log-in accounts.

Staff Policy

We require our staff to have an incident-free police record at the time of employment. In addition, we periodically screen our staff for felonies and/or on-line postings related to physical abuse, trolling, weapons, drug and alcohol abuse and/or unethical behavior.

Ethics Policy

Both our clients and our staff are prohibited from behaving in a socially unacceptable manner. Behavior such as rudeness, foul language, racial and/or discriminatory epithets are not permitted. We periodically monitor our phone lines, chat sessions and on-line postings for ethics violations.

Hours of Operation

Business hours are 10:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday-Friday and help desk hours are 8:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday-Friday. If you have an emergency during non-business hours, and you are on an MSP plan, please text the emergency support number that was provided with your onboarding welcome letter.

Contact Policy

To contact us for support, please call us and press option 2. You may also email helpdesk -@- sotamsp.com. We pride ourselves on being open and accessible and in order to maintain this tradition we ask that you do not call, text or email our management, sales or finance staff to request technical support. All service requests should go through the help desk e-mail address or telephone number.

Plan Change Policy

Our plans are priced according to the number of seats/users, or computers and servers on your network. The monthly charge may change if any of the preceeding factors are added or removed from your network however, the monthly charge may not fall below the minimum threshold outlined on your service agreement per month.

Payment Policies

Invoices are generated at the beginning of each calendar month if on a plan or at the time of servicing, in all cases payments are due withing 10 days of the invoice date. We may refuse service to clients that have past due invoices. Unpaid invoices over 30 days past the invoice date may trigger account closure and collection proceedings. A 20% collection fee will be assessed to invoices collected through a collections agency. Closed accounts are subject to prepayment terms and an re-on boarding/reinstatement fee in order to continue managed services.

Security Policies

We ask that you abide by our cybersecurity baseline policies which are derived from NIST and intended to prevent security breaches, data theft and data loss. You may opt out by signing a liability waiver. For a list of our baseline and recommended best practice policies, see our cyber security policies section.

On-Site

On site service is limited to repairing and maintaining existing cataloged topology and excludes topological changes. On-site service calls related to unauthorized changes or outside the scope of the plan are billed at our standard hourly service rate. In order to reduce/avoid on-site charges, we ask that companies create a written policy prohibiting employees from modifying, disconnecting or relocating IT assets without contacting us. We maintain detailed records and network diagrams in order to identify and resolve issues quickly and efficiently. When adding, moving or relocating equipment such as IP Phones, printers, PC's, etc. please coordinate with us so that we are apprised of the changes and are able to update our systems.

Pricing Policy

Our pricing for all managed services offered are always outlined within your MSA (Managed Services Agreement), and because our MSA is designed for our clients business, the cost for out-of-scope or break/fix services will differ greatly from those outlined here. As such, our typical pricing is as follows:

  • Onsite business hours 9am-5pm Monday-Friday — $100/hr (1 hour minimum, 15 minute increments thereafter)
  • Outside business hours and weekends — $150/hr (1 hour minimum, 30 minute increments thereafter)
  • All services use our hourly rate for on-prem and depending on the service, start at $75 for off-prem services.

While we like to keep it to a minimum, after hours work is a fact of life in most service businesses. As we are a technology company, we need to have some guidelines about after hours work.

1: Outside Business Hours (OBH) rates

  • Regular onsite business hours are 9am-5pm Monday-Friday. Outside business hours support is only available to managed services clients.
  • All labor outside these hours is billable at 1.5 times the regular hourly rate or 2 times the regular hourly rate for holidays. This includes MSA's.

2: Onsite access after hours

  • If after hours onsite work is requested, there must be someone available to get our technician in and out of the building or office as needed. In addition, someone from the client’s company must be present at all times while our technician is on site.

3: Unlimited FREE policy

  • For unlimited free remote support, remote virus remediation, or diagnostics, we reserve the right to assess a fee if we feel that this service is being abused.

Prices listed is for labor only and excludes sales tax, hardware/parts &/or software, backup media, materials or shipping of goods. Not all services we offer can be done on-site.

Warranty

SOTA MSP will not warrant any equipment purchased from us that fails as a result of physical damage or negligence, nor will we warrant any equipment not purchased from/through us.

Whats not Included with our Maintenance Agreement

Outdated Hardware

While we’d love managed IT services to work for every business, that isn’t realistic. There are some candidates that we realize managed IT services just won’t work for them.

A characteristic that these candidates share is the unwillingness to upgrade hardware.

Some businesses simply don’t prioritize IT. Whether it’s because you don’t rely on it heavily (although we’d argue against that) or think investing in technology can wait indefinitely, upgrades may not be on your radar or included in your budget. However, our MSA will require you to have a plan in place to upgrade end-of-life hardware and software. This allows your employees to efficiently do their jobs. Oftentimes, problems within your IT environment can be tied to these systems that are outdated.

  • Initial setup/onboarding. This is typically a three-day exercise, with a one-off cost. It includes:
    • Installation and supply of our device management software
    • Further detailed technical investigation into your infrastructure and creation of full system documentation
    • Set up of monitors and alerting into our helpdesk
    • Identifying priority areas for improvement
    • Determining security credentials
  • Projects and Infrastructure changes. For instance, set up of new computers and devices (workstation/laptop), setting up new equipment (expansion etc), and additions to, and modifications of installed systems. Contact us to quote for these services.
  • Managed Security Service. This is an separate service that can be purchased as an option to uplift your IT Support and is priced per device. This service utilizes a cloud-based cybersecurity platform.
  • Any other time required on site not covered by standard 'business as usual' (BAU) IT support.
  • Work outside of business hours (including weekends, national holidays, etc)
  • Support for workstations older then 4 years, or laptops older than 3 years.
  • Any systems running Microsoft Windows prior to Windows 10, or any system running Windows Home will not be supported for security reasons.
Businesses with a very small IT footprint

Technology is pervasive in businesses. Whether it is communicating with customers over email, keeping digital service records, or specialized programs for your business, technology is important in your daily operations. However, each business’s individual reliance on technology varies, and at times it may be small enough that it doesn’t require managed IT services. This can be the case for new businesses who are still building their IT infrastructure or for businesses that are primarily physical labor and only need a couple points of technology for scheduling, emailing, and record-keeping. The exception here would be a SOHO business.

Software

Certain software products are included with our maintenance plans. These products/licenses will expire and cease to function upon termination of service agreement and/or account closure. All other software purchases, leases and/or licenses are the fiscal responsibility of the client.

Applications & Training

The help desk does not provide computer or application training. While we often assist users in these facets, it is at the discretion of SOTA MSP. Users are expected to have basic computer skills and the knowledge necessary to operate their computers and applications in order to carry out their daily job functions.

Projects & Infrastructure

Infrastructure changes and build outs such as structured cabling, drilling, tunneling and other forms of construction as well as significant changes to network and/or workstation architecture, such as migrations, are excluded. The cost of these services are billable.