Merlin Guides
Merlin Guides helps government organisations rollout Salesforce (and any other Web Based software) to their staff. It provides completely custom step by step tutorials inside of the UI, ensuring that everyone knows how to use the tool and what data to input inside of it.
Features
- Step by Step tutorials inside of any web based software
- Push new information & get signoff in minutes
- Simple & easy to use Help Center for content
- Creation of Training Material for Governments if required
Benefits
- Decrease mistakes made by employees in systems
- Improved data quality and consistency
- Not needing to escalate to management (Self Service)
- More autonomy for employees leading to higher retention
- Faster reply rates from Support roles
Pricing
£10 a person a month
- Education pricing available
Service documents
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 <removed>@ac059bdd-e5a9-4ef5-806a-eeb1ea2c073d.com.
Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.
Framework
G-Cloud 10
Service ID
1 9 5 9 8 7 0 1 3 4 9 6 5 3 4
Contact
Merlin Guides
<removed>
Telephone: <removed>
Email: <removed>@ac059bdd-e5a9-4ef5-806a-eeb1ea2c073d.com
Service scope
- Software add-on or extension
- Yes, but can also be used as a standalone service
- What software services is the service an extension to
-
Salesforce in general
But can be used for any Web Based software (Including Internal software) - Cloud deployment model
- Hybrid cloud
- Service constraints
- Right now our offering only supports Web Based Software (but any browser)
- System requirements
- Web Browser (IE 8+, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari)
User support
- Email or online ticketing support
- Email or online ticketing
- Support response times
-
Weekdays: 5 minutes
Weekends: Several Hours - User can manage status and priority of support tickets
- No
- Phone support
- Yes
- Phone support availability
- 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
- Web chat support
- Web chat
- Web chat support availability
- 24 hours, 7 days a week
- Web chat support accessibility standard
- WCAG 2.0 AAA
- Web chat accessibility testing
- None, we use Intercom as our provider who has assured us that they do support Web Accessibility standards.
- Onsite support
- Yes, at extra cost
- Support levels
-
Email, Phone, Web Chat provided for free in a pooled support model by default
Prioritised support for extra fee
Onsite requires extra fee - Support available to third parties
- Yes
Onboarding and offboarding
- Getting started
- We normally build out the first 20+ guides for customers, converting over their existing process documentation over to our system for them. After that we run training sessions direct with them to get them started, provide an easy to access help center and also have guided training inside of Merlin itself.
- Service documentation
- Yes
- Documentation formats
- HTML
- End-of-contract data extraction
-
Users have 2 options:
- They can download each guide as a HTML file
- Users submit a request to us and we can download the content and send it over in a secure CDN system. - End-of-contract process
-
At the end of the contract:
- If they are using our Public Cloud version then we will make their account view only until they state they want the data deleted.
- If they are using our Hybrid Cloud version (hosted by Salesforce) then Salesforce will stop access to pushing data to the App, but they can still view all data inside of Salesforce.
Using the service
- Web browser interface
- Yes
- Supported browsers
-
- Internet Explorer 8
- Internet Explorer 9
- Internet Explorer 10
- Internet Explorer 11
- Microsoft Edge
- Firefox
- Chrome
- Safari 9+
- Opera
- Application to install
- Yes
- Compatible operating systems
-
- Linux or Unix
- MacOS
- Windows
- Designed for use on mobile devices
- No
- Accessibility standards
- WCAG 2.0 A
- Accessibility testing
- We have brought in people using JAWS and other software to test Merlin out.
- API
- No
- Customisation available
- Yes
- Description of customisation
- The guides & content inside of Merlin are completely custom to the customer. It is similar to an LMS (Help Center) in that regard.
Scaling
- Independence of resources
-
Public Cloud: Hosted on Google Cloud Platform (App Engine) which autoscales and is also monitored by Dev Ops team.
Hybrid Cloud: Hosted by Salesforce who handles the load for your instance.
Analytics
- Service usage metrics
- Yes
- Metrics types
- - When a user uses a guide we record when they did it, how long they took, whether the guide was finished (and if not where it was that they stopped).
- Reporting types
-
- Real-time dashboards
- Reports on request
Resellers
- Supplier type
- Not a reseller
Staff security
- Staff security clearance
- Conforms to BS7858:2012
- Government security clearance
- Up to Security Clearance (SC)
Asset protection
- Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
- Yes
- Data storage and processing locations
-
- United Kingdom
- European Economic Area (EEA)
- EU-US Privacy Shield agreement locations
- Other locations
- User control over data storage and processing locations
- Yes
- Datacentre security standards
- Managed by a third party
- Penetration testing frequency
- At least once a year
- Penetration testing approach
- ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CHECK service provider
- Protecting data at rest
-
- Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0
- 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
- A third-party destruction service
Data importing and exporting
- Data export approach
-
They can download guides by using our Admin console and downloading the content.
User usage data has to be downloaded via a request ticket and is provided in CSV format (provided in a ZIP). - Data export formats
-
- CSV
- Other
- Other data export formats
- HTML
- Data import formats
- CSV
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
- 99.9% SLA, with refunds up to 50% of contract cost
- Approach to resilience
-
Hosted on Google Cloud Platform (App Engine) or Salesforce.
We also run tests ourselves and pay 3rd parties to test them. - Outage reporting
- - Email Alerts within 5 minutes of our detection or user reporting.
Identity and authentication
- User authentication needed
- Yes
- User authentication
-
- 2-factor authentication
- Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
- Username or password
- Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
-
Managed Interfaces have ACL that is set up to support the level of access people want (Creating content, guides, users, group...etc)
Support channels are available to all users. - Access restriction testing frequency
- At least every 6 months
- Management access authentication
-
- 2-factor authentication
- Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
- Username or password
Audit information for users
- Access to user activity audit information
- Users have access to real-time audit information
- How long user audit data is stored for
- User-defined
- Access to supplier activity audit information
- Users contact the support team to get 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
- No
- ISO 28000:2007 certification
- No
- CSA STAR certification
- No
- PCI certification
- No
- Other security certifications
- No
Security governance
- Named board-level person responsible for service security
- Yes
- Security governance certified
- No
- Security governance approach
-
Limited access to only engineers that need access to our Cloud & Salesforce versions, using their OAuth systems in place.
Regular testing against our systems. - Information security policies and processes
- Limiting access to information in our systems (Software Engineers do not have access to user data on our GCP, only Dev Ops). In GCP we use their ACL system, in Salesforce the data is hosted in their instance and we can not access it.
Operational security
- Configuration and change management standard
- Supplier-defined controls
- Configuration and change management approach
-
We have 2 aspects:
WebServer: Pushes are done weekly on Mondays, and go through rigorous testing over the weekend before going live (Google Cloud)
Extension: Pushes are also done on Mondays and area also tested automatically and with UAT.
Any changes for users are sent in advance of the go live date for those on a set newsletter (Admins) - Vulnerability management type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Vulnerability management approach
-
We have third parties assess the system periodically
Patches are deployed weekly normally but highly urgent vunerabilities can be done within 24 hours
Most vulnerabilities are found internally otherwise paid third parties - Protective monitoring type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Protective monitoring approach
-
We use Google Clouds Security Scans on our system
If they were found (non have ever been found) then we would ensure the team fully understood the issue, updated all affected accounts, then prioritised a fix, giving ETA to all clients as we got through the process. Followed by a post mortem afterwards to reduce chances of it happening again. - Incident management type
- Supplier-defined controls
- Incident management approach
-
Users report incidents through our Chat / Email system
We give them an immediate response (sub 2 minutes), then look into the problem, followed by updating customers.
We use email to update customers.
Secure development
- Approach to secure software development best practice
- Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed
Public sector networks
- Connection to public sector networks
- No
Pricing
- Price
- £10 a person a month
- Discount for educational organisations
- Yes
- Free trial available
- No
Service documents
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 <removed>@ac059bdd-e5a9-4ef5-806a-eeb1ea2c073d.com.
Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.