G7 Business Solutions Ltd

Unit4 Enterprise Resource Planning

Unit4 Enterprise Resource Planning provides an integrated cloud platform: Finance, General ledger, Budgeting, Accounting, Creditors, Debtors, Financial Planning, Cash and Income Management (Heycentric), Procurement, HR, Payroll, Talent Management, Expenses, Absence, Timesheets, Project Management accounting / costing, Research Funding Management (GrantsNow), Reporting/analytics, Asset Management, Source-to-Contract, Strategic Sourcing, Spend Analytics, Contract Management

Features

• Full coverage of ERP for Public Sector and Education sector
• Fully managed Azure Cloud solution with UK / EU datacentre
• Full suite of Student Management Systems
• Dual site disaster recovery
• Mobile applications available
• Supports collaboration
• Securly accessible from anywhere
• Comprehensive integration capabilities
• Integrated reporting tools
• Industry good practice business processes

Benefits

• Total low cost of ownership
• Ability to adapt to business change
• Sector specific functionality
• Upgrade elasticity
• Ease of Access
• Change when you change
• Working how you work
• Delivering what you choose
• Solution Completeness
• Secure cloud operation with Azure

£56 a user a month

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at g7info@g7bs.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

276866122510789

Contact

Julie Munt
01275 844650
g7info@g7bs.com

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: No
• Cloud deployment model:
  • Public cloud
  • Private cloud
  • Hybrid cloud
• Service constraints: Support in line with SLA's contained within G7 G Cloud 14 Service definition for Cloud Software
• System requirements: Fully Managed Cloud Service

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: For Unit4 - as per response times in their SLA within the service description. For the G7 Application Managed Service (see separate application under cloud support) - within 1 hour of the support request being raised. The G7 Application Managed Service is provided by G7 between the hours of 9:00 and 17:30, Monday to Friday excluding UK bank holidays. Additional charges would be incurred for weekend working.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: Web chat
• Web chat support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support accessibility standard: None or don’t know
• How the web chat support is accessible: Communicate with Unit4 or G7 support
• Web chat accessibility testing: N/A
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: Unit4 Customer Support covers:; • Deploy solution updates. • Management and maintenance of all infrastructure. • Network connectivity of Unit4 SaaS to public internet. •; Back-up and disaster recovery. • Security of application operating environment and infrastructure. • Monitoring of application and; infrastructure. • Performance tuning. • Trouble-shooting and resolving issues, both customer initiated and those raised by monitoring alerts. •; Database copy between environments upon request.; Incident logging and escalation is carried out through the Unit4 UK service desk 9am – 5pm, email or customer support portal both of which; are available 24x7. An Account Manager is provided for all Unit4 Customers.; Customers can then add the G7 Application Managed Service on top, where you pay for the time used and the rate depends on the hours chosen. This service can be used for issues, queries, training, development tasks and any other system admin functions. See G7 G Cloud 14 Pricing document for Cloud Support and G7 G Cloud 14 Service Description for Cloud Support.; A G7 account manager will be allocated, as well as a G7 support lead.; A weekly report of all calls made and times taken will be provided.
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: G7 offer 3 levels of training; project team training through classroom training, project team training through consultancy and training through the Application Managed Service.; Project team training is based on skilling up the project team. This is delivered through support courses with manuals or through 1 to 1 tutoring by one of our consultants.; Training via consultancy can be tailored to your requirements and tends to involve fewer people. ; Training is also delivered through the G7 Application Managed Service by explaining what we have carried out to resolve an issue and documenting it on the weekly support log. The time taken would be recorded alongside any other work put through the desk and totaled into the hours used per month.; G7 can also assist with a full end user training program.; There is also functionality within the product to assist in supporting end users such as the Knowly experience pack which allows both Super Users and individuals to make notes on tasks and actions on specific screens. System documentation is supplied in pdf format.; As part of on boarding onto the Unit4 SaaS platform, Unit4 will provide a Customer Success Manager and an intro session to the platform.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats: PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: Upon final exit Unit4 will export the final copy of the production database to a Unit4 controlled Azure storage location. The export will be in a format usable with the latest version of Microsoft SQL Server. Customers can manually download this export from this location. Unit4 will maintain a secure read only copy of the authorities production environment including database for a period of 1 month post exit; this copy will then be deleted unless the Customer informs Unit4 otherwise. Customer responsibilities for this additional service offering include;; - Customer access responsibility - control who has permission to download the export.; - Ensuring data privacy during and after download.; - Establishing, monitoring and managing the download process.; - Restoring or importing the export once downloaded.; - Licensing, operating and installing in the Customer's IT infrastructure any applications that will be used in the retrieval process and subsequent use of the export.
• End-of-contract process: Upon any termination of the agreement, Unit4 shall, provided that it has received a request in writing from the Customer, no less than 3 months prior to the scheduled termination date, continue to provide the software service to the Customer under the same terms for a transitional period of up to 6 months. Access to the software service during the transition period, will be subject to the fees set out in the applicable call off agreement, prorated on a monthly basis and payable in advance, based on the annual fees charged to Customer for the software service during the 12 month period immediately proceeding the termination date plus an additional 10%. During the transition period, Unit4 will provide cooperation and assistance as Customer may reasonably request to support an orderly transition to another provider of similar software, services, or to customer's internal operations. Such cooperation and assistance will be limited to consulting regarding the software service and will be subject to a fee based on Uni4's then current rates for Professional Services and such services will be set out in the call off agreement.; The customer has the option to continue with the G7 Application Managed Service.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
• Application to install: Yes
• Compatible operating systems:
  • Android
  • IOS
  • MacOS
  • Windows
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: Mobile service accessed through propriety apps or HTML5 rendered browser. Limited number of transactions still require full desktop client, typically high volume transactions
• Service interface: No
• User support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: Unit ERP provides a way of processing data, in a secure manner adhering to modern industry standards, but requiring some technical expertise. Unit4 ERP web services include options to create and maintain absences, applicants, employee balances, commitment transactions, customer master maintenance, document archive, employments, HR maintenance, masters and attributes, payroll transactions, position master file, project master file, rates register, resource master file, supplier master maintenance, timesheets, travel expenses, user status and maintenance, value reference rates, workflow. Where a web service is not yet exposed, ACT (Customisation Tool), can often be used to modify or expose new web services.
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats: Open API (also known as Swagger)
• API sandbox or test environment: Yes
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: Unit4 products are highly configurable through the application itself, so very few of our customers find a need to customise the solution. ACT is a customisation tool that is only available to Unit4 integration consultants and experienced service partners, such as G7, to increase the functionality of Unit4 products.

Scaling

• Independence of resources: In Unit4 cloud, processing resources are shared, but Unit4 monitors and leverages elastic resourcing to ensure all get sufficient to meet the SLA's, and to handle activity peaks. Azure provides the first level of network separation, upon which Unit4 adds further isolation using VNETs. In a dedicated service model a dedicated VNET is provided so all available network bandwidth is dedicated to a single customer. Unit4 customers always have a dedicated database to ensure data separation. In a dedicated cloud processing resources are also dedicated to a single customer.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: Service metrics for key performance indicators
• Reporting types:
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Regular reports
  • Reports on request

Resellers

• Supplier type: Reseller providing extra support
• Organisation whose services are being resold: Unit4

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: Up to Developed Vetting (DV)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations:
  • United Kingdom
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • Other locations
• User control over data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: Another external penetration testing organisation
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
  • Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type:
  • Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
  • Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
• Equipment disposal approach: Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: User can export their data in a variety of formats including .xls, .csv or xml
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data export formats:
  • XML
  • Direct to xls
• Data import formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data import formats:
  • XML
  • Direct from xls

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: TLS (version 1.2 or above)
• Data protection within supplier network: TLS (version 1.2 or above)

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Unit4’s service availability commitment for any given calendar month is that the Production Service will be available at least 99.8% of the time. Service Availability is calculated per month as follows: Total time - Service Outage divided by total time times 100 = greater than 99.8% “Service Outage” means the time (in minutes) that the Production Service is unavailable (as measured in accordance with this Section A, paragraph 1) in any month, but excludes any unavailability for those reasons set out below under the heading “Exclusions”; “Total Time” means the total number of minutes in any month; Exclusions Unit4’s service availability; commitment excludes any unavailability for the following reasons: • Planned Maintenance; • Unplanned Preventative Maintenance; • failure of; any circuits or connections provided by third party telecommunication providers or common carriers; • failure of any external internet service; provider or an internet exchange point; • acts or omissions of the Customer or any Users permitted to access the Production Service; •; behaviour of Customer applications, equipment or managed operating systems; • Force Majeure events (as described in the supplier terms).
• Approach to resilience: Available on request
• Outage reporting: Service outages will be reported via the Unit4 customer portal, which all customers will have access to.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: There is no direct user access to the servers in Unit4 Cloud; but read-only SQL access is offered to a replicated database. Internal Unit4 Cloud operations, (system and database administrators) have access rights to manage and maintain the Cloud Services provided to customers, which are regularly reviewed and a formal change-control and audit log documented. Guidelines and processes regarding access are governed by SSAE and ISO standard compliances that Unit4 has achieved. Unit4 Service desk staff do not have direct access to servers and the production database, so all changes are made by Unit4 Cloud operations.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least once a year
• Management access authentication:
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: You control when users can access audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: User-defined
• Access to supplier activity audit information: You control when users can access audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: User-defined
• How long system logs are stored for: User-defined

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: G7 - Citation. Unit4 - NQA Certification Limited
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 09/01/2020 for G7, latest 09/01/2023. 13/04/2022 for Unit4
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: The scope of this approval is applicable to: The design, development, provision and support of Unit4 software products and associated consultancy, technical and managed IT services. Statement of Applicability v2. The scope covers all UK actvities, and also include Global activities, hosting, SaaS etc.; For G7, it covers all activities.
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Other security certifications: Yes
• Any other security certifications:
  • ISO270017
  • SOC 1 (Type 1 and 2)
  • SOC 2

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: ISO/IEC 27001
• Information security policies and processes: Unit4 global SaaS Information Security policy can be provided upon request. Unit4 SaaS service holds the following: ISO 27001, ISO 27017, SOC 1, SOC 2, Cyber Essentials. G7 are also accredited to ISO 27001 Information Security Management and Cyber Essentials.

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: Unit4 Cloud relies on the expert services of Azure, who provided the underlying platform, network connectivity and System software. The Azure platform offers High Availability, Fault Tolerance, and redundancy at all levels, and components are automatically replaced at the end of their lifetimes or when failed – all contributing to the Unit4 system availability SLA of 99.8% Unit4 software, both Major Feature Releases and Service Updates, is updated automatically as part of the Unit4 Cloud service (with optional deferment). Deployments within Azure allow everyone to benefit from their experience of running highly secure and compliant online services.
• Vulnerability management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Vulnerability management approach: Deployments within Microsoft Azure allow everyone to benefit from their experience of running highly secure and compliant online services around the globe (such as Microsoft Cyber Defense Operations Centre, a 24x7x365 state-of-the-art cybersecurity and defence facility). Unit4 Cloud has implemented industry leading anti virus, intrusion prevention system and intrusion detection solutions (IPS IDS). Unit4 Cloud works with R&D teams to identify, mitigate and share information about known risks. Unit4 uses log monitoring and analyses to identify usage anomalies and exceptions. Software patches are applied during the maintenance window, but security patches are applied immediately.
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: Unit4 Cloud’s end to end service includes hardware and system software, monitoring, management and maintenance of the Unit4 software and environment in Unit4 Azure. A continuous 24x7x365 monitoring program is in place to detect and resolve infrastructure and application issues in order to meet Unit4’s application availability targets. The monitoring covers solution health, availability and response times. Priority 1 alerts generated are handled by Unit4 staff 24x7x365. See also the response concerning Incident Management Approach
• Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Incident management approach: Unit4 and Customer comply with their obligations in the following Policies and Procedures, which have been written to explain how to ensure your system is secure now and into the future: Information Security policy; Security Program; Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery; Acceptable Use Policy; Unit4's external facing information security policy can be provided upon special request with an NDA. Hence, there is a formal incident Management policy, and users may report incidents via the Unit4 Service Desk. Relevant incidents will be reported back to customers on the Customer Portal.

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Supplier-defined process

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Covid-19 recovery
  • Tackling economic inequality
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  G7 - G7 aims are to reduce our footprint as much as possible within the options available to us. We have an Environmental policy that all staff sign up to and which is externally audited as part of our ISO 14001 commitment. We are in rented office space, but we recycle etc.as much as we can. We do not believe we have a large environmental footprint, however the hybrid policy of working from home or the office, seeks to give employees a more flexible approach and less reliance on unnecessary fossil fuels. We have minimised paper output and continue to do so. Our aim is to move more of our servers to the cloud where we are able to schedule them to not be in use continually and therefore, they are effectively switched off during non-working hours. Some employee’s car share and we encourage this where possible. G7 publish our ISO 14001 renewal confirmation on our website and our email footers.; ; - The Unit4 cloud software is already carbon neutral and will be 100% powered by renewable energy by 2025. ; - Unit4 office consumables are sustainably sourced, and they introduced a recycling scheme for their hardware and electronic; appliances. ; - Unit4 embed sustainability in the sourcing and procurement processes, enabling their suppliers to be socially, legally, and ethically responsible. ; Unit4 has created a program for financing small agroforestry projects that bring both environmental and social benefits. Unit4 give; trees planted in Asia, Africa and South America the name of every customer, both existing and new, with whom they sign a deal. The thousands of trees will grow, absorb CO2, and encourage local biodiversity and economy. Unit4 were awarded the EcoVadis silver medal, in recognition of sustainability achievement.

  Covid-19 recovery

  G7 - G7 continued to offer all services through the Covid pandemic remotely and assisted many of our customers with the change of working in the office to working from home. Even now, many customers prefer to continue using the remote method of working. ; G7 now offer a hybrid of working in the office and at home for all employees, to help them better manage their work and home life balance. ; G7 carried out all appropriate Covid working conditions, when people came back into the office, including social distancing and rotation of staff.; Unit4 - Reflecting the people-first approach Unit4 lives by every day, their approach strongly aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals — the world's best plan to build a better world for people and our planet by 2030. Unit4 focus on three key areas in which they strive to make a true difference as a cloud software company through; their actions: education and employability through digital skills and inclusion, health and well-being, climate change and environmental sustainability: UN SGDs 3,4,12 and 13. Unit4 is committed to; helping communities and organisations recover from the impact of COVID-19. Their service activities can be carried out remotely in order to support businesses and organisations who are; adapting to new ways of working or have workforces that require flexibility in location and methods of receiving services. In response to the pandemic, Unit4 adapted to a remote working environment not just for their employees but also projects.

  Tackling economic inequality

  G7 - Full collaboration with our partners throughout the supply chain and during implementations.; All of the G7 consultants have access to Unit4 Community4U ensuring they are able to keep up to date and are encouraged to do so. This results in accreditations for both G7 and the individual. G7 positively encourage consultants to work together to broaden their own individual skill sets in 1-to-1 sessions, with further avenues of progression explored and encouraged, even where training is for indirect skills (i.e. Not necessarily Unit4 ERP based). G7 believe that additional indirect skill sets can widen and compliment an employee’s existing skill set, for their own development as well as for the company.; Unit4 's approach strongly aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals — the world's best plan to build a better world for people and our planet by 2030. Unit4 focus on three key areas in which they strive to make a difference as a cloud software company: education and employability through digital skills and inclusion, health and well-being, climate change and environmental sustainability: UN SGDs 3,4,12 and 13. Unit4 is committed to investing toward the creation of social and environmental value, supporting charities and investing in local communities. Unit4 are proud to partner with iamtheCODE, to support its; programs and activities with funds, time and skills of their people through mentoring and probono giving, and mobilisation of the Unit4; community at large. The first African-led global movement to mobilise governments, the private sector, philanthropic foundations, investors and civil society to advance STEAMED (Science,; Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics,; Entrepreneurship and Design) education, iamtheCODE aims to enable 1 million young women and girl coders by 2030. Through technology and digital literacy training, they are; tackling the current global STEAMED skills shortage in marginalised communities.

  Equal opportunity

  G7 - G7 aim to recruit locally for the Application Managed Service if we can, based on the skillset we require. However, we are a very specialist service-based organisation that is tied to one main software provider. We are always looking to recruit good people and we are prepared to interview such, based on personal recommendation from current staff. G7 are fortunate to have a good balance of male, female and cultural representation throughout. Any form of discrimination would not be tolerated.; Unit4 - Reflecting the people-first approach Unit4 lives by every day, their approach strongly aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals — the world's best plan to build a better world for people and our planet by 2030. Unit4 focus on three key areas in which they strive to make a true difference as a cloud software company through; their actions: education and employability through digital skills and inclusion, health and well-being, climate change and environmental sustainability: UN SGDs 3,4,12 and 13. Unit4 is committed to; ensuring equal opportunity for everyone. Together, we continue to build an inclusive culture that encourages and celebrates the diversity of our employees, where they all are seen as a real value to the company. Unit4 guarantee a fair consideration for employment,; without discrimination.

  Wellbeing

  G7 - As well as a flexible work at home policy, G7 also offer all employees flexible hours and a private health scheme. ; Weekly team meetings are held to discuss any issues etc. G7 offer a flat management structure which allows quick and uncluttered access to senior management. ; Although environmentally we encourage at home working, we are unlikely to move to a completely working from home system as we wish to keep a balance of colleagues working together for additional knowledge transfer and their own social welfare.; Unit4 - Reflecting the people-first approach Unit4 lives by every day, their approach strongly aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals — the world's best plan to build a better world for people and our planet by 2030. Unit4 focus on three key areas in which they strive to make a true difference as a cloud software company through; their actions: education and employability through digital skills and inclusion, health and well-being, climate change and environmental sustainability: UN SGDs 3,4,12 and 13. Unit4 Fit4U: initiatives to stay fit mentally and physically. Unit4 dedicates 1% of its time to giving back, enabling all employees to take 3 days a year to engage in; community activities of their choice. Since inception there have been over 400 volunteers spread across 24 initiatives including the collection of over 1,000 items of food and clothing to assist people in need.

Pricing

• Price: £56 a user a month
• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: No

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at g7info@g7bs.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.