Soprano Connect: SMS Appointment Reminders

Service scope

Software add-on or extension: No
Cloud deployment model: Public cloud

Private cloud
Service constraints: Multi-tenant SaaS architecture.
Support for international messaging has some country-specific limitations.
The delivery of messages via our services is dependent on third party carriers and may be impacted by technical and network coverage issues that are outside our control (e.g. due to a handset being out of range or switched off).
System requirements: Internet connection

Web browser for portal access

User support

Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
Support response times: All requests are automatically acknowledged with ticket reference within 5 minutes (24x7x365).
Average time to respond within 60 minutes. Replies to client's queries are given within one business day.
Critical and Major issues are replied within 30 min - clients should additionally call in case of Critical and Major incidents.
User can manage status and priority of support tickets: No
Phone support: Yes
Phone support availability: 24 hours, 7 days a week
Web chat support: No
Onsite support: No
Support levels: Level 1: Customer service team is the main contact point for the customer. The team replies to questions, provisioning requests, initiates investigations and escalates to L2 when needed;
Level 2: Operations team investigates and solves issues such as bugs or break fixes, or escalates to L3;
Level 3: Development team develops patches for bugs to be applied by L2 team.

Customer Service availability Mon - Fri 08:00 - 17:00 - on UK business days.
- All email communication requests (sent to ticketing system) average time to respond within 60 minutes.
- Hotline phone service replied within 45 seconds.

For Critical and Major incidents only : 24x7x365 availability services
- Emergency phone service replied within 45 seconds.
- On Call Duty Manager available within 1 hour.
Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started: Full on-boarding support provided, including:
- Requirements definition
- Account and user on-boarding
- API integration support
- Support team onboarding call to customer is offered
- On-line training via webinars
- Special training provided if required (additional services)
- Full on-line help portal
Service documentation: Yes
Documentation formats: HTML

PDF
End-of-contract data extraction: Messaging data can be extracted via reporting suite
End-of-contract process: The service will continue to roll on a monthly basis at the end of the minimum term agreement.

Using the service

Web browser interface: Yes
Supported browsers: Microsoft Edge

Firefox

Chrome

Safari

Opera
Application to install: No
Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
Differences between the mobile and desktop service: Access via standard supported browsers from any device.
Service interface: No
User support accessibility: None or don’t know
API: Yes
What users can and can't do using the API: Multiple low/no-code APIs available, including HTTPS, SMPP, SMTP, SFTP/FTPS, Connect API (RESTful, both real-time and batch mode)

Send/receive messages

Specific APIs for:
- Creation and management of lists, groups and contacts
- Emergency alerting
- Two factor authentication (2FA)

Below is brief description:
HTTPS API to send/receive messages via URL
SMPP API to send/receive messages from an SMP app.
SMTP API to send SMS messages based on an email.
Connect API is a REST-ful API to process messages in both real-time and SFTP batch mode; A single API that supports 4 channels – SMS, RCS, WhatsApp and Email
Voice API is an efficient way of sending voice messages through file attachments, text-to-speech functionality or by invoking action-based objects.
SFTP/FTPS API enables customers to retrieve Lists that are placed on SFTP/FTP/FTPS servers.
Authenticator API to send SMS messages to enable 2FA.
API documentation: Yes
API documentation formats: Open API (also known as Swagger)

PDF
API sandbox or test environment: No
Customisation available: Yes
Description of customisation: SMS Sender ID - names (alpha tags), virtual mobile numbers and short codes supported

WhatsApp and RCS official business accounts with company branding

Platform supports:
- Account Hierarchy
- User roles/permissions
- Cost centre allocation
- Portal look and feel can be customised

Scaling

Independence of resources: Soprano Connect is a highly scalable solution. The capacity exceeds current and short-term forecast message volumes. We maintain a robust review process to ensure that our infrastructure has sufficient capacity. The threshold for initiating additional capability is typically when 60% of available capacity is being utilised. This ensures that the solution can deal with spikes in volume and that additional capacity is in place well in advance of anticipated volume increases.

Analytics

Service usage metrics: Yes
Metrics types: Soprano Connect includes a reporting suite that enables users to view customisable reports on the portal, as well as export and schedule reports. There are three main types of report:

1. Summary reports – a summary of the number of messages sent and received on a per user, cost centre or sub-company basis.

2. Message reports – full details of the messages sent and received during the specified time period. Report content is customisable.

3. Performance reports – information on the number of messages and the latency of the solution.

4. Account report - account specific reports for auditing.
Reporting types: Real-time dashboards

Regular reports

Reports on request

Resellers

Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
Government security clearance: Up to Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

Asset protection

Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom
User control over data storage and processing locations: No
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: Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
Equipment disposal approach: A third-party destruction service

Data importing and exporting

Data export approach: Messaging data can be exported manually from the Soprano Connect web portal, or this can be automated via SFTP.
Data export formats: CSV
Data import formats: CSV

Data-in-transit protection

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

IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
Data protection within supplier network: TLS (version 1.2 or above)

IPsec or TLS VPN gateway

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability: Target availability 99.9%
Approach to resilience: Soprano Connect is based on a High Availability Disaster Recovery (HADR) architecture. It is deployed in two secure UK data centres, with intra-site redundancy in the primary data centre and full geographical resilience provided by the secondary (DR) site. All data is replicated in real-time on the primary site and near real-time to the secondary site.
Outage reporting: Soprano Connect has a public status page that gives real-time information on the status of the solution. Users are able to sign up to receive email alerts from the status page.
This page is also used to notify users regarding planned and emergency maintenance activities.

Identity and authentication

User authentication needed: Yes
User authentication: 2-factor authentication

Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)

Dedicated link (for example VPN)

Username or password
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Soprano Connect supports role-based access, with further access control being provided by licences. Users are only able to access the features that are associated with their given role and assigned licences.
Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
Management access authentication: 2-factor authentication

Username or password

Audit information for users

Access to user activity audit information: Users receive audit information on a regular basis
How long user audit data is stored for: Less than 1 month
Access to supplier activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for: Between 1 month and 6 months
How long system logs are stored for: Between 1 month and 6 months

Standards and certifications

ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: BSI Group - Certification number IS721583
ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 11 July 2020
What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: Support by Soprano outside UK and Australia.
ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
CSA STAR certification: No
PCI certification: No
Cyber essentials: Yes
Cyber essentials plus: Yes
Other security certifications: No

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: Soprano has all policies and controls in place as necessary for ISO 27001 certification.

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach: Soprano has a formal change management process, with any changes to the production system controlled by Production Change Request (PCR). All PCRs are tracked, risk assessed and authorised before deployment. After deployment, all changes are verified by our Quality Assurance (QA) team.
Vulnerability management type: Supplier-defined controls
Vulnerability management approach: All web-facing systems or services are subject to penetration testing and vulnerability scans on a regular basis and following major changes, with all code changes being peer reviewed and assessed against OWASP top 10 vulnerabilities.

All critical security vulnerabilities found in security testing must be fixed before deployment.

All security vulnerabilities found in “in life” security testing must be fixed in accordance with the following timescales:

• Critical – 24 hours
• High – 1 month
• Moderate – 4 months
• Low – 1 year
Protective monitoring type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Protective monitoring approach: Our hosting partner conforms to ISAE 3402 Type II Service Organisation Control
Incident management type: Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Incident management approach: We have 24x7x365 telephone support for critical and major incidents, in addition to our standard telephone and email support. We provide updates on incidents via Soprano Connect's status page throughout an incident until resolution.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice: Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Public sector networks

Connection to public sector networks: No

Fighting climate change: Fighting climate change

Soprano's CPaaS platforms send over 10 billion+ SMS messages per year, these digital messages are reducing the number of trees that need to be felled for paper-based messages, trees are the ultimate carbon capture and storage machines. Like great carbon sinks, woods and forests absorb atmospheric carbon and lock it up for centuries. They do this through photosynthesis.
Covid-19 recovery: Covid-19 recovery

COVID 19 has changed the world and SMS messaging has played a massive part in ensuring people have been informed of changes that were implemented due to covid, ensuring that we are informed of our vaccination appointments in order to help protect our health, ensure that patients don't miss virtual appointments, informed PCR test result,
these little messages that are delivered in a 160 character SMS have been instrumental in aiding COVID 19 recovery.
Wellbeing: Wellbeing

SMS has always played a part in ensuring the well-being of people, by informing them of appointment reminders so they don't miss appointments or to inform the of test results, in normal times Soprano's CPaaS platforms are used to send over 5 million+ SMS messages per day to NHS staff and patients, during the pandemic these reach peaks of 20 million+ per day to keep patients informed, in a constant time of change these message help their mental wellbeing as they felt they were getting information that could save their lives.

Pricing

Price: £0.02 to £0.03 a unit
Discount for educational organisations: No
Free trial available: No

Soprano Connect: SMS Appointment Reminders

Features

Benefits

Service documents

Framework

Service ID

Contact

Service scope

User support

Onboarding and offboarding

Using the service

Scaling

Analytics

Resellers

Staff security

Asset protection

Data importing and exporting

Data-in-transit protection

Availability and resilience

Identity and authentication

Audit information for users

Standards and certifications

Security governance

Operational security

Secure development

Public sector networks

Pricing

Service documents

Cookies on Digital Marketplace

Soprano Connect: SMS Appointment Reminders

Features

Benefits

Pricing

Service documents

Framework

Service ID

Contact

Service scope

User support

Onboarding and offboarding

Using the service

Scaling

Analytics

Resellers

Staff security

Asset protection

Data importing and exporting

Data-in-transit protection

Availability and resilience

Identity and authentication

Audit information for users

Standards and certifications

Security governance

Operational security

Secure development

Public sector networks

Social Value

Pricing

Service documents