Signing example
Sign a service level agreement online
The part of a service level agreement anyone argues about later is the response time table, so that is the page worth marking. This four page schedule for a hosted patient records platform puts the customer's initials on the targets, runs 99.5 per cent availability against a five row credit table, and invites both sides at once because neither signature depends on the other.
The document, with its fields
The pages as a signer sees them, with the signature, name, title and date fields placed where each party has to complete them.
Service Level Agreement
1. What this schedule covers
This schedule sets the service levels for the hosted patient records platform that Northgate Cloud Services Ltd, company number 8842017, of 3 Fenwick Yard, Bristol BS1 5TR, called the Provider, runs for Rowan Health Group Ltd, company number 6620941, of 88 Aldermoor Road, Bristol BS4 2NQ, called the Customer. It sits under the master services agreement and does not change it. Where a word is defined in the master agreement it carries the same meaning here.
| Term | Meaning in this schedule |
|---|---|
| Service window | Every day of the year, 00:00 to 24:00 UK time, apart from planned maintenance. |
| Planned maintenance | Up to 6 hours a month, notified 10 business days ahead, between 22:00 and 06:00 Sunday. |
| Downtime | Any full minute in the service window when the platform cannot be reached, or when a clinical record cannot be opened or saved, measured by the Provider's external checks from three locations. |
| Month | A calendar month. A part month is measured on the days in it. |
2. Availability
The Provider will make the platform available for at least 99.5 percent of each month's service window. On a 30 day month that allows 3 hours 36 minutes of downtime. Planned maintenance inside the notified window is not downtime. Time lost to the Customer's own network, to a third party integration the Customer chose, or to an outage the Customer asked for is not downtime either, and the Provider must be able to show which of those applied before excluding a minute.
| Measured month | Minutes in the window | Target at 99.5% | Downtime allowed |
|---|---|---|---|
| A 30 day month | 43,200 | 42,984 | 3 h 36 m |
| A 31 day month | 44,640 | 44,417 | 3 h 43 m |
| February, 28 days | 40,320 | 40,118 | 3 h 22 m |
The Provider publishes a monthly availability figure within five business days of month end, with a line for every period of downtime, its cause and its length. The figure is calculated from the Provider's own monitoring, and the Customer may ask for the raw check log for any month within twelve months of it.
3. Incident priorities and response times
Priority is set when the incident is logged, by the Provider's duty engineer, using the table below. The Customer may ask for a priority to be raised and the Provider answers that request within the response time for the priority claimed. Response means a named engineer has the incident and has told the Customer so. Restoration means the service is usable again, with or without a workaround.
| Priority | What it means | Response | Restoration target | Update every |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P1 | Platform unreachable, or clinical records cannot be opened, for all users | 15 minutes | 4 hours | 30 minutes |
| P2 | A core function unavailable for a whole site, or a data integration stalled | 1 hour | 8 business hours | 2 hours |
| P3 | A function degraded or unavailable for some users, with a workaround | 4 business hours | 5 business days | Daily |
| P4 | A question, a cosmetic fault or a change request | 1 business day | 20 business days | Weekly |
Business hours are 08:00 to 18:00 UK time on working days. P1 and P2 are answered every day of the year. A P1 that is still open after four hours is escalated to the Provider's operations head, and after eight hours to its managing director, without the Customer having to ask.
3.1 How an incident is raised
- P1 and P2 by telephone to the duty line, confirmed by email within 15 minutes.
- P3 and P4 through the service desk portal, which timestamps the log.
- Every incident gets a reference on logging, and that reference is quoted on the monthly report.
- A P1 closes only when the Customer's named contact agrees it has closed.
4. Service credits
If availability falls below the target in a month, or if the Provider misses a P1 or P2 response time more than twice in a month, the Customer may claim a credit against the next monthly fee. A credit is the Customer's only financial remedy for a missed service level, and it does not stop the Customer ending the agreement for repeated failures under clause 5.
| Measured availability | Credit, as a share of the monthly fee | Also triggered by |
|---|---|---|
| 99.50% or better | None | Nothing |
| 99.00% to 99.49% | 5% | Three missed P2 responses |
| 98.00% to 98.99% | 10% | Two missed P1 responses |
| 95.00% to 97.99% | 20% | A P1 open longer than 12 hours |
| Below 95.00% | 30% | A P1 open longer than 24 hours |
The Customer claims in writing within 30 days of the monthly report, quoting the incident references it relies on. The Provider applies an agreed credit to the next invoice. Credits in any twelve month period are capped at 30 percent of the fees for that period. Where two rows are triggered in the same month, only the larger credit applies.
4.1 Chronic failure
Three months in any rolling six that fall below 99.00 percent, or two P1 incidents longer than 12 hours in the same quarter, are a chronic failure. On a chronic failure the Provider produces a written improvement plan within 10 business days, and the Customer may end the agreement on 30 days' notice without a termination charge at any point in the following 60 days.
5. Reporting, review and exclusions
The parties hold a service review each quarter, on the monthly reports, the incident list and the improvement actions still open. Either side may ask for an extra review after a P1. The Provider is not responsible for downtime caused by the Customer's equipment or network, by a change the Customer made or asked for, by a third party service the Customer contracts with directly, or by an event outside either party's reasonable control, and it must say which exclusion it is relying on within five business days of the incident.
6. Data, backups and exit
| Obligation | Standard |
|---|---|
| Backup frequency | Full nightly, transaction logs every 15 minutes, held 35 days |
| Recovery point objective | 15 minutes of data |
| Recovery time objective | 4 hours for the platform, 8 hours for reporting |
| Restore test | Twice a year, evidenced in the quarterly review |
| Data location | United Kingdom only, including backups and support access |
| Exit extract | Within 20 business days of a written request, in the documented export format |
The Customer's data stays the Customer's data. The Provider holds it under the data processing terms in the master agreement, and this schedule does not vary them. A restore from backup is not a service credit event in itself, but the downtime it causes is.
7. Changing these levels
These service levels may be changed only in writing, signed by both parties. The Provider may raise a target without the Customer's signature and may not lower one. A trial of a higher target runs for a stated number of months and reverts unless both parties sign to keep it.
Execution
Both parties are invited at the same time; neither signature waits on the other. The Customer's IT lead signs and dates below, and the Provider's operations head signs the block beside it.
Who signs what
- Priya Venkatesan, IT lead, for the Customer
- Initials beside the incident response table on page 2 · Signature and stamped date on page 4 · Email link, no code
- Marcus Oyelaran, operations head, for the Provider
- Signature block on page 4: Name, Title, Company, Date · Email link, no code · Invited at the same moment as the customer
The signing journey
Step 1
Four fields, two recipients
The schedule is uploaded and both signers added. The customer gets an initials spot on page 2 and a signature and date on page 4; the provider gets a four line block beside them.
Step 2
Sign in order stays off
Nothing here requires a sequence, so both invitations go out the moment Send is pressed and the status page shows two Waiting badges at once.
Step 3
One drawing covers two spots
The customer draws once and the portal fills the page 2 initials and the page 4 signature from it, counting Signature 1 of 2 and 2 of 2 as it scrolls to each.
Step 4
The provider types two lines
Title and Company are typed into the block by the provider. Name comes from the recipient record and the Date line stamps itself, so only two of the four lines are typed at all.
Step 5
Completion waits for the slower side
The envelope completes when the second signature lands, whichever side that is, and the certified copy is emailed to both signers and the sender together.
Every field, and who fills it
Four fields. One initials spot in the right margin under the incident logging list on page 2, where the response and restoration targets have just been set out. One signature and one stamped date for the customer on page 4. One block for the provider beside them, printing a role heading in capitals and then Name, Title, Company and Date, of which the signer types only two. Everything else is already fixed: the 99.5 per cent target, the downtime allowance worked out for a thirty, thirty one and twenty eight day month, the five credit bands and the backup standards. None of it is a blank for anyone to fill, which is deliberate on a document whose numbers are the point.
How to adapt this envelope
A customer whose procurement team signs as well adds a second recipient on that side, and the switch can stay off if neither has to precede the other. A higher target for a trial is a different number in the same table with the same initials spot beside it. And where the SLA is agreed alongside the master agreement, the two go into one envelope as a single PDF, so one certificate covers both.
What the signed schedule and certificate show
The completed PDF carries the customer's initials in the right margin of page 2, a signature and a date reading Sep 20, 2026 on page 4, and the provider's block beside it with the role heading in capitals over four printed lines. The certificate lists both signers on Email link, each with an IP address, a consent timestamp and the document hash at signing. Because the order switch was off, the event log shows both invitations going out together, and the two signatures landing after them in whatever order the signers got to it.
What makes this signing flow work
The initials sit on the table that gets quoted
P1 at fifteen minutes and a four hour restoration target is the line that gets read out during an outage. Putting the customer's initials on that page means the response times were marked as read, by the person who has to rely on them, rather than buried three pages into a schedule nobody initialled.
No order, because neither side goes second
An SLA is a schedule to an agreement both sides already signed. Nothing in it requires the customer to commit before the provider, so the order switch is off, both links go out together and the schedule was in force the same afternoon rather than after a day of relay.
The block names the entity, the signature does not
The provider's block has Title and Company switched on, so page 4 reads the operations head's name, their job title and Northgate Cloud Services Ltd under a role heading. The customer's side is a plain signature over the rule the schedule already prints, which is all a named individual needs.
Questions people ask
Does a service level agreement have to be signed at all?
Where it is a schedule to a signed master agreement, that agreement usually binds it already. Signing it separately is about evidence: the initials show the targets were read, and the certificate fixes who agreed to the credit table and when, which matters the first time a credit is claimed.
Why are the two sides invited at the same time?
Because nothing in the schedule depends on who signs first. The order switch is off, so both links go out on Send and either side can finish first. Turning it on would make sense only where one party has to see the other's commitment before making their own, which is not true here.
Can the customer initial and sign in one go?
Yes. One drawing fills both the page 2 initials and the page 4 signature, with the portal header counting Signature 1 of 2 and 2 of 2 and scrolling to each in turn. A longer schedule with a spot on every page works the same way from that one drawing.
How much downtime does 99.5 per cent allow in a month?
On a 30 day month, 0.5 per cent of 43,200 minutes is 216 minutes, or 3 hours 36 minutes, which is the figure in clause 2 and in the schedule's own table. A 31 day month allows 3 hours 43 minutes. Planned maintenance inside the notified window does not count against the target, so a month can carry both and still meet 99.5 per cent.
What happens if one side declines?
The envelope moves to declined, no further stamping happens, and the sender is emailed with the reason typed into the decline box. Because the switch is off, the other side may already have signed; that signature sits in the working copy but the schedule never completes.
Can the targets be changed after sending?
No. A sent envelope is locked and the editor redirects to the status page from then on. A wrong number means withdrawing the envelope, which expires both live links and emails everyone that it was withdrawn by the sender, then sending the corrected schedule as a fresh envelope.
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Sources
Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .