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| | ====== Frequently Asked Questions ====== |
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| 1) Why do I need to use a vendor with EG? | These are the frequently asked questions for the [[faqs:evergreen_companies| list of Evergreen Paid Support Services]] |
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| | **A note on the word "vendor":** traditionally, a vendor is a merchant that sells products. Evergreen is not usually sold as a product, as it is freely available to all who want to use, modify, and/or distribute the software. In this document we're going to use vendor as a shorthand to refer to anyone, whether a company, or an individual, or a non-profit organization, that offers Evergreen "services" in exchange for money. |
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| | ===== 1) Should I use a vendor with Evergreen? ===== |
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| There is no requirement to use a vendor when using Evergreen, the code is freely available to be downloaded and installed by anyone. A library could choose to run Evergreen without the need of a vendor. The three most common situations where a library may choose to hire a vendor are for migration, support, and/or development. A library could choose to only use a vendor for the migration, and handle support and development on their own. Other libraries may choose to hire a vendor or vendors to handle all three. The more inexperienced a library is with Evergreen's features, proper configuration, and/or code; the more it is recommended that a vendor is hired at some point in the migration or for temporary tech support. | Though there is no requirement to use a vendor when using Evergreen, it may be convenient to do so. The software is freely available to be downloaded and installed by anyone, and there are no licensing fees or contracts required for using, distributing, or even modifying the software. |
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| | You should hire a vendor for the same reasons you would hire anyone--you want or need them to do work and/or you want or need to make use of their resources. With Evergreen you are free to develop in-house expertise in all aspects of the software, but you can also outsource it and develop in-house expertise at your own pace. |
| 2) What questions should I ask the vendor(s)? | |
| | Most Evergreen libraries use vendors in some way or another and are successful. There are also successful organizations that are entirely self-sufficient with Evergreen. Common vendor services include: |
| The questions you may want to ask a vendor will vary by the type of work that you may want to use the vendor for. When hiring a vendor for migrating to Evergreen, one key first question to ask is if the vendor has ever migrated another customer from your current ILS to Evergreen. You may also want to ask for a reference of one of their customers who was migrated from that same ILS brand and/or version. | |
| | * hosting |
| When hiring a vendor for support, make sure to ask how many library employees are allowed to submit support requests. Also, ask for expected response times to emergency help requests, and what hours of the days will they be available to respond to help requests. | * support |
| | * training |
| When hiring a vendor for development, ask how long do you have to find bugs or issues in their development without inquiring extra costs. | * consulting |
| | * customization |
| | * software development |
| 3) What information should I have available for the vendor(s)? | * data migration |
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| | Different libraries mix and match these services, performing some in-house and hiring one or more vendors for others. |
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| | ===== 2) How do I "vet" a vendor? ===== |
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| | ==== Questioning the vendor directly ==== |
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| | Just like you would interview a potential new hire, you should interview the vendor. You should ask for references, particularly from customers similar to you and/or receiving the same services. Additional questions may vary by the types of services you're looking for: |
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| | * hosting |
| | * What service-level agreements do you offer for uptime? What reparations do you offer for downtime? |
| | * What is your backup policy? Your disaster plan? What are the potential points of failure? |
| | * What redundancies do you have? Do you have more than one data center? What redundancies do they have? Power sources? Internet connections? |
| | * What are you responsible for and what is out of scope of a hosting contract? |
| | * support |
| | * What service-level agreements do you offer for response time? How do you escalate support tickets? |
| | * What support tiers do you offer? How many people may we designate to interact with your support system? |
| | * What are the normal support hours? Do you offer after-hours support? |
| | * What does support cover exactly, and what is out of scope of a support contract? |
| | * training |
| | * What are your policies for recording and redistributing sessions and training materials? |
| | * software development |
| | * How do you interact with the wider Evergreen development community? What can we expect concerning our changes ever making it into an official Evergreen release? |
| | * What are your policies for acceptance testing and bug reporting? |
| | * data migration |
| | * What experience do you have with the software we're coming from? Could you perform our data extraction? |
| | * Do you offer test loads? Do we have input in the data mapping? |
| | * What are your policies for resolving data-related issues post-migration? |
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| | ===== 3) What information should I have available for the vendor(s)? ===== |
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| Vendors typically would like to know upfront if you require the use of an RFP. Also, vendors would like to know if there is a need to wait until an upcoming fiscal year start date to be able to pay them for their services. Additionally, be ready to provide basic facts about your library. For example, be ready to answer how many bib records does your library have, yearly circulations, number of patrons, and number of libraries. Also, what features will be required to be supported by Evergreen. For example, will you want to use serials, acquisitions, or self-check. | Vendors typically would like to know upfront if you require the use of an RFP. Also, vendors would like to know if there is a need to wait until an upcoming fiscal year start date to be able to pay them for their services. Additionally, be ready to provide basic facts about your library. For example, be ready to answer how many bib records does your library have, yearly circulations, number of patrons, and number of libraries. Also, what features will be required to be supported by Evergreen. For example, will you want to use serials, acquisitions, or self-check. |
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| | ===== 4) How do I use this vendor list? ===== |
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| | This vendor list is provided as summary of vendors that have self-identified as companies or consultants that work with Evergreen. This list is intended to help save research time for existing or potential new members of the Evergreen community. The Evergreen community has required vendors to pass a limited set of requirements to be listed on this page, [[faqs:evergreen_companies:listing_policy|here are the requirements to be listed on the Evergreen Paid Support Services page]]. We strongly recommend that you always ask the vendors for references in the Evergreen community, or try to gather them yourself by asking around in the EG community. |
| 4) How do I use this vendor list? | |
| | |
| This vendor list is provided as summary of vendors that have self-identified as companies or consultants that work with Evergreen. This list is intended to help save research time for existing or potential new members of the Evergreen community. The Evergreen community has required vendors to pass a limited set of requirements to be listed on this page, for example [[insert here one of the requirements]]. We strongly recommend that you always ask the vendors for references in the Evergreen community, or try to gather them yourself by asking around in the EG community. | |
