Production Support:

Support Levels

L1 Support:

This is the initial support level responsible for basic customer issues. Also known as first line of support for a user – a help desk where once a call is logged, the nature of the problem/ request/ incident at a high level is ascertained in order to categorize it as an application level or an infrastructure level incident. Then the L1 support will follow a set down operational guideline within the context of the specific application/contract in order to trigger the call with the appropriate L2 call flagging mechanism.

L2 Support:

The Second line of support where once the nature of the problem is understood, the resolution is attempted. Most of the requests for support are usually resolved at this stage. The personnel who provide the support at this level are skilled and knowledgeable with advanced level of skills and competence and have a deep understanding of the application functionality and the inner workings. Most of the user questions like ‘how-to questions’ (those that could not be resolved/addressed at L1), user errors, feature malfunction, data errors, user errors etc. are all resolved at this level of support. Issues/requests that have a deeper impact or require changes to programming/code or configuration that could have interdependencies are not resolved or addressed at this stage. Such requests are passed on to L3 Support.

L3 Support:

This is the highest level of support in a three-tiered support model responsible for handling the most difficult or advanced problems. These are typically requests/incidents that result in code changes, enhancements, feature upgrades etc.. that are of minor nature which facilitate the users to carry out their day to day work more effectively. In cases where the effort or dimension of work increases a threshold, the work pack is then considered more as a project and not an incident and is treated differently.

L4 Support:

This is where the scope of support goes out of the provider’s organization into the original software vendor organization’s purview. For example, passing a call/incident on to IBM/Microsoft/HP as necessary in order for the problem to get resolved. The provider in this case does the third party liaison and would be responsible to track the open incident to closure by working with the original software vendor.