[Eg-oversight-board] EG vendor FAQ (draft 1)

[Yamil Suarez]

Hello,

Here is my first draft of possible questions and answers to include in the
vendor FAQ. BTW, I left a placeholder for the part where I talk about the
requirements that the vendors had to meet to be listed on our list, since
there is still some discussion on that. We should probably add text
concerning how a vendor can be removed, and of course how to submit
complaints, etc.

Feel free to suggest major changes to my questions or answers, or suggest a
particular order to the questions.

Thanks in advance,
Yamil

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1) Why do I need to use a vendor with Eevergreen?

There is no requirement to use a vendor when using Evergreen, the code is
freely available to be downloaded and installed by anyone. A library could
choose to run Evergreen without the need of a vendor. The three most common
situations where a library may choose to hire a vendor are for migration,
support, and/or development. A library could choose to only use a vendor
for the migration, and handle support and development on their own. Other
libraries may choose to hire a vendor or vendors to handle all three. The
more inexperienced a library is with Evergreen's features, proper
configuration, and/or code; the more it is recommended that a vendor is
hired at some point in the migration or for temporary tech support.


2) What questions should I ask the vendor(s)?

The questions you may want to ask a vendor will vary by the type of work
that you may want to use the vendor for. When hiring a vendor for migrating
to Evergreen, one key first question to ask is if the vendor has ever
migrated another customer from your current ILS to Evergreen. You may also
want to ask for a reference of one of their customers who was migrated from
that same ILS brand and/or version.

When hiring a vendor for support, make sure to ask how many library
employees are allowed to submit support requests. Also, ask for expected
response times to emergency help requests, and what hours of the days will
they be available to respond to help requests.

When hiring a vendor for development, ask how long do you have to find bugs
or issues in their development without inquiring extra costs.


3) What information should I have available for the vendor(s)?

Vendors typically would like to know upfront if you require the use of an
RFP. Also, vendors would like to know if there is a need to wait until an
upcoming fiscal year start date to be able to pay them for their services.
Additionally, be ready to provide basic facts about your library. For
example, be ready to answer how many bib records does your library have,
yearly circulations, number of patrons, and number of libraries. Also, what
features will be required to be supported by Evergreen. For example, will
you want to use serials, acquisitions, or self-check.


4) How do I use this vendor list?

This vendor list is provided as summary of vendors that have
self-identified as companies or consultants that work with Evergreen. This
list is intended to help save research time for existing or potential new
members of the Evergreen community. The Evergreen community has required
vendors to pass a limited set of requirements to be listed on this page,
for example [[insert here one of the requirements]]. We strongly recommend
that you always ask the vendors for references in the Evergreen community,
or try to gather them yourself by asking around in the EG community.
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