SupportAbility subscription termination process
When an organisation decides to terminate their SupportAbility subscription, there are several important considerations beforehand. The Considerations when terminating a SupportAbility Subscription article, linked below for reference, outlines these in detail and is a recommended starting point.
This article focuses on the Termination process including how to notify SupportAbility of your organisation's intention to terminate your SupportAbility subscription, when the installation is taken permanently offline, accessing the data and document extracts, and the final destruction of all data relating to your organisation.
Audience: Authorised Representatives, Executive Management
Summary
The following list summarises the content of this article. Click on the links below to take you to the relevant sections:
- Summary of the steps involved in the Termination Process
- Notifying SupportAbility of an organisation's intention to terminate
- When is an Installation taken permanently offline?
- Final Data/Document extracts
- Final Data Destruction
- Reinstating a SupportAbility Subscription
Summary of the steps involved in the Termination Process
The termination process includes the following steps:
- Provider notifies SupportAbility of their intention to terminate their SupportAbility subscription.
- A minimum of 30 days' notice, prior to the subscription renewal date, is required.
- A Customer Success team member contacts your organisation to discuss your requirements and provide guidance around key considerations when terminating.
- SupportAblity updates customer support and billing records accordingly and forwards the Termination Authorisation form for completion.
- Provider completes and returns the Termination Authorisation form to formalise the termination and set an agreed termination date.
- (optional) If a provider is planning to digitally upload SupportAbility data to an alternative system, SupportAbility can provide an early set of data-only or data/document extracts, prior to your organisation's installation being taken offline, for the purpose of mapping fields of information between the two systems.
- A minimum of 10 business days prior notice is required.
- This is a chargeable service. A quote can be provided upon request.
- Secure links to the Extract files are provided via email, and the password to access these links is sent separately, for security reasons, via SMS.
- Provider downloads the data/document files, checks the contents, and notifies SupportAbility immediately if they encounter any issues.
- The Extract files are automatically destroyed 7 days after provision, after which time they are no longer accessible.
- SupportAbility takes the provider's installation permanently offline on the agreed termination date.
- SupportAbility provides the final data/document extracts approx. ten business days following the installation being taken permanently offline.
- Final extracts can be provided prior to an installation being taken offline if required, however, no further data should be entered after this time.
- There is no charge for this service.
- Secure links to the data and document extract files are provided via email, and the password to access these links is sent separately, for security reasons, via SMS.
- Provider downloads the data/document files, checks the contents, and notifies SupportAbility immediately if they encounter any issues.
- The final extract files are automatically destroyed 7 days after provision, after which time they are no longer accessible.
- SupportAbility destroys ALL data relating to your organisation, including the installation and backup files, 30 days after the final data/document extracts have been provided, (assuming they are provisioned after the installation is taken offline).
Notifying SupportAbility of an organisation's intention to terminate
When an organisation decides to terminate their SupportAbility subscription, notification of this intention must be communicated via email to support@supportability.com.au by one of your organisation's Authorised Representatives or a senior manager within your organisation.
Notification of intention to terminate a SupportAbility Subscription must be advised within a paid subscription period i.e. prior to the subscription period end date.
Upon receipt of this email, we will contact your organisation via phone to clarify your organisation's requirements for termination, including determining a suitable termination date and the timing for the provision of data extracts.
The Subscription Termination Authorisation form will then be emailed to the person who notified us of the termination, for completion and signing by a senior person in your organisation i.e. Director / Chairperson of the board / CEO / Managing Director.
The form will include the termination date as agreed in the call, which is generally in alignment with the end date of a subscription period.
Returning this signed document constitutes official notice and authorisation to terminate your organisation's SupportAbility subscription.
When is an Installation taken permanently offline?
When a SupportAbility subscription is terminated, the unique installation is taken permanently offline on the last day of the subscription period, or an earlier date as agreed, as stated in the Termination Authorisation form.
From this point onwards no further access to the installation will be possible, thereby no further data may be entered or viewed, and no further operational processes may be completed e.g. entering Client or Staff information, adding Journal evidence, generating payroll data or billing assets such as Bulk Payment Requests (BPRs) or Invoice Batches.
Broadcast Message
An optional step in the process which is at the discretion of your organisation, is to post a broadcast message in SupportAbility alerting staff to the upcoming subscription termination and a date when access to SupportAbility will cease.
This is configured by your organisation and would appear on every user's Dashboard.
Information on how to action this is available in the How to configure a Dashboard Broadcast Message for all Staff article linked below for reference.
Final Data/Document extracts
A final set of data extracts and document files are provided as part of the standard exit process and there is no charge for this service.
Generally speaking, these are provided approximately ten business days after the installation has been taken permanently offline.
If an earlier additional set of data/document extracts has already been provided as arranged, the final set will still include all of the data over the history of your subscription as it is not possible to provide partial data extracts or extracts commencing from a specific date.
Data/Document extracts format
The data/document extracts include all of the information and uploaded documents (including photos) that have been entered into your SupportAbility installation from inception to the date of extraction.
This includes both active and inactive records but does not include user monitoring logs or deleted records.
The data extract files are provided in CSV format, which is essentially a 'raw' data format, ideally suited for the importation of data into another software system. Therefore, specific data is not easily identified manually.
More information regarding this is outlined in the Considerations when terminating a SupportAbility subscription article, linked below for reference.
Accessing the Data extracts
Secure links to the data extracts and document files are emailed, usually to an organisation's Authorised Representative, however, these can be sent to another nominated person if required.
For security reasons, the password to access these links is sent separately via SMS to the same person's mobile.
It is important that your organisation downloads these files as soon as possible and checks the contents, as SupportAbility only keeps these files for 7 days after which time they are automatically securely destroyed.
If you encounter any issues with the files, please notify SupportAbility immediately via email to support@supportability.com.au.
Final Data destruction
By default when a provider terminates their SupportAbility subscription, we are no longer responsible for storage of your organisation's data on your behalf.
The responsibility then passes to your organisation to store all historical information to meet NDIS and legal requirements.
In addition to this, we are obliged to permanently delete all your data upon termination as per Australian privacy law.
Therefore, 30 days following the provision of the final data/document extracts, assuming your installation has already been taken offline, SupportAbility will securely destroy all remaining data associated with your organisation, including the installation and backup files. After this time, it will no longer be possible to access any data relating to your organisation from SupportAbility.
Reinstating a SupportAbility Subscription
Once a provider has terminated their subscription and all data pertaining to their installation has been permanently destroyed, it is not possible to resurrect a terminated installation. This is common with most cloud-based software.
It is also not possible to reinstate an installation by uploading previously provided data/document extract files or any other files to SupportAbility.
Therefore if your organisation wishes to recommence a SupportAbility subscription after termination, a new installation would need to be created and all required data would need to be re-entered manually.
A set-up fee would apply, which would be added to the first annual subscription invoice.