Software Support
As has been covered in the Managing the Supplier section, the software supplier is likely to be required by the institution to provide support services and material necessary for the use and improvement of the software during its lifecycle.
The type of relationship between the organisation and the supplier will vary considerably depending on the nature of the initial contract (was it a development partnership?) and the number of customers already engaged with that supplier (are there regional User Groups through which customers collectively liaise with the supplier?).
As well as the supplier's support of the software through its lifecycle - upgrading for new statutory requirements or on the basis of change requests from the user community - the organisation itself will have an often-underestimated overhead in supporting the localised product. Depending on the type of product, the implementation model used and the extent to which the product's roll-out is centralised/devolved, functions covered by an internal software support team could cover ad-hoc data enquiries and reports as well as more likely tailored developments such as front-end portals.
It is likely that the institution will administer users' access rights and responsibilities at software level internally rather than rely on the supplier.
The Software Support remit covers a wide range of other functions, some of which are described below. A starting point for defining the skills required in this area of work is given in our Roles and Responsibilities for Production Support template.
