These are the frequently asked questions page for the list of Evergreen Paid Support Services

1) Why do I need to use a vendor with EG?

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.

2) What questions should I ask the vendor(s)?

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.

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.

When hiring a vendor for development, ask how long do you have to find bugs or issues in their development without inquiring extra costs.

3) What information should I have available for the vendor(s)?

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.

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, 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.