Andar Software Hosting FAQ

During any calendar month, ANDAR will respond to Customer's requests for support during standard business hours (9am-5pm ET) according to the following severity levels:
  1. EMERGENCY SUPPORT - Emergency Support refers to situations when ANDAR's services are completely offline. ANDAR will respond to all requests for Emergency Support within 15 minutes.
  2. URGENT SUPPORT - Urgent support refers to situations when one Customer is completely offline. ANDAR will respond to all requests for Urgent Support within 1 hour.
  3. CRITICAL SUPPORT - Critical support refers to situations where only one Customer system is offline. ANDAR will respond to all requests for Critical Support within 4 hours.
  4. STANDARD SUPPORT - Standard support refers to situations where only one employee is having an issue. ANDAR will respond to all requests for Standard Support within 8 hours.
  5. GENERAL REQUESTS - General request are when ANDAR systems are acting normally and as expected but you request ANDAR to perform a task. For example, you would like ANDAR to create a new user. ANDAR will respond to all General Requests within 48 hours.
ANDAR will use commercially reasonable efforts to provide 24/7/365 support for Urgent or Emergency support request.

Yes, you can use any Thin Client that has embedded windows like these from Dell https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/wyse-endpoints-and-software/sf/thin-clients

You will need to set them up just like a regular windows PC including installing Screwdrivers on them.

There is one address that you should whitelist:
  • 76.12.237.68

We classify your users in one of two buckets:
  1. Full Time - Work 20 hours or more per week
  2. Exchange - Email addresses not people. These accounts can not log in.

Pricing can vary based on each individual contract. Please refer to your individual contract for more information.

ACCOUNTS IN THE TEMP BUCKET WILL EXPIRE 3 MONTHS AFTER YOU ASK US TO SET THEM UP. IF THE PERSON NEEDS AN ACCOUNT AFTER THAT THEY WILL BE MOVED TO EITHER THE FT OR PT BUCKET AND YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THE FULL EMPLOYMENT OF THE EMPLOYEE IF YOU DO NOT PAY FOR TEMP USERS.

Note: Invoices will be generated at the end of the month and can not be changed unless we made an error since we pay for your licenses in advance. It is your responsibility to make sure that your user counts are accurate and match what we have in our system. Feel free to send me an updated list of which bucket your users should be in.

If you have any questions please send an email to cathy.cottrell@andarsoftware.com

We are unable to host video and graphic editing applications like Photoshop in our citrix environment. In those rare occasions where we cannot host the application, you will continue to access those applications locally.

The security of your data is our top priority. We employ 3rd party security monitoring services such as Alert Logic to monitor our network security 24/7/365. In addition, we have weekly security scans of our equipment to ensure we are as protected as possible.

When you log into your Citrix session, Citrix will attempt to map your local printers to your Citrix session. Although the vast majority of printers are able to work with citrix, not all functions of all printers will work properly.

We support everything about your citrix session - meaning from the time you log into our portal until you log out. This does not include application support - for instance, if you want to know how to run a payout in Andar you would still contact Andar Software. We can provide remote desktop support for your local workstations - including patch management and web filtering - for an additional charge.

In general, Andar Software will provide server licenses (for instance Windows Server, Exchange Server, SQL Server, Citrix, etc) and members provide application and CAL (client access) licensing. Each organization will retain ownership of their respective licenses. For instance, if your United Way uses Andar, you will be responsible for buying the Andar licenses and paying the yearly maintenance costs to Andar Software and Andar Software will provide the Windows Server and SQL server licenses.

Members who use Quickbooks are required to use Andar Software Quickbooks Enterprise licensing. You will be billed yearly for the Intuit Maintenance and Support agreement which covers Quickbooks support and upgrades.

Most members need Microsoft Licensing for four products. Luckily, you should already own these licenses on your own network so when you convert to our system you will use those same licenses. We will do an audit of your licenses every July to ensure you own the proper licenses. Unfortunatly, access to our systems will be suspended until you can provide documentation to support you own the proper licenses.

If you don't already own the proper licenses, the most cost effective way to obtain them is to request a donation from techsoup.org. You can get more information on techsoup.org here.

For information on Microsoft's specific donation policy, visit the Microsoft donation page here.

Once you purchase these licenses, they are current for two years after which you will need to pay a small yearly maintenance fee. If you do not continue to pay the maintenance fee you will have to repurchase the licenses every time we upgrade the system.

Below are the links to the licenses you will need on Techsoup's website.

We will automatically deduct your monthly fee from your bank account at the start of every month.

We use the Barracuda backup system and all data is backed up every night and we store a backed up copy onsite and a copy offiste at a secure, remote location for disaster recovery. Nightly backups are done by Andar Software so in the case of a full system loss, Andar Software can restore the server's data. A happy byproduct of those nightly backups is that Andar Software may be able to recover individual files, email messages, transactions, etc in the case of their accidental deletion; however, that is not the purpose of the backups and cannot be guaranteed. If a member needs files restored they must open a ticket with Andar Software who will do its best to recover the data within 48 hours. PLEASE NOTE: Individual Contacts and calendar items are not backed up nightly. They will only be restored in case of a system failure.

All data in our Delaware Data Center is backed up to our Colorado data centers nightly.

You can access and run any of your applications from any device that has a Citrix client. This includes Windows, Macintosh, Linux, iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, and iPod), and Android PDAs and tablets. You can access your email, calendar, and contact items from any device that supports activesync such as Windows Moble, iOS, and Android devices. PLEASE NOTE: Blackberry devices do not fully implement the activesync standard; therefore, only email (not calendar or contacts) are accessable from a blackberry. To fully synchronize your blackberry you can download AstraSync (www.astrasync.com) which will manage the synchronization process.

Not only do you NOT need to buy new server hardware or software, but also your workstations will not need to be refreshed for twice as long as before because they will, in essence, be acting like dumb terminals. This means you don't need to worry about server security, backups of your data, disaster recovery, etc. because your information will be housed in our state of the art facility and monitored 24/7 for problems.

Our philosophy is that the United Way’s data and applications belong to the member. Therefore, it is our member’s responsibility to decide when / if they would like service packs for their applications installed.

Andar Service Packs

In general, to avoid problems during the campaign season, Andar Software does not install application service packs between August and December without a specific request from a member United Way. Between January and July, Andar Software will notify United Ways and install Andar service packs automatically unless the United Way notifies Andar Software that they do not wish the service packs installed.

Because the Andar application is so complex and each United Way uses it in a unique way, Andar Software DOES NOT DO ANY FUNCTIONALITY TESTING OF THE APPLICATION. Each United Way is entitled to a test database from Andar Software to do any functionality testing they desire.

Other Service Packs (MIP, Quickbooks, etc)

It is the member’s responsibility to request service packs for all miscellaneous applications

You access your data and applications over the internet by logging into our Citrix portal. Once you are logged in, you will access your applications just like you did before you became a member. The best part, your applications and data are available to you whether you are at the office, at home, or at a hotel attending a conference. As long as you have a computer (or other device) with internet access, you can get to your data.

Any device that has a Citrix client and internet access can access our system. This means you are able to run Andar (and your other applications) from a Windows computer, a Macintosh computer, a tablet, or any other compatible device.

If your firewall is capable, you should give top priority / preference to traffic to
  • 76.12.237.153
  • 76.12.237.154

Any device that has a Citrix client should be able to run on Andar Software platform and present your applications and data. Keep in mind, because every environment is different, Andar Software is not staffed and we do not want the liability (nor do we charge your United Way) of supporting employee's home devices such as iPads, iPhones, home computers, etc. We provide standard documentation on our website to configure these devices to connect to our environment but we cannot provide troubleshooting assistance to get those devices working. You should work through your local United Way technology representative for assistance if they provide it.

Andar Software will allow you to use our web certificate for your e-Pledge site if you wish to use our domain name - unitedwayepledge.org. If you wish to use your own domain name then you would be responsible for providing the SSL certificate.

The requirements for your Citrix password are as follows: Passwords must:
  • Not contain the user's account name or parts of the user's full name that exceed two consecutive characters
  • Be at least seven characters in length
  • Contain characters from three of the following four categories:
  • Upper case A through Z
  • Lower case a through z
  • Numbers 0 through 9
  • Special characters, for example !,$,#,%

Passwords expire after 90 days and you can't use any of the previous 5 when you change it.

To change the Primary or Notice Correspondent contact your Microsoft Reseller who will process the change of contact request on your behalf. To change all other users:

  1. Click Administration and then click Manage Users to access the Manage Users page.
  2. Click the Email Address hyperlink of the user whose permissions you need to edit to access the Edit User page.
  3. In the Permissions table, do one of the following:
    • To remove Licensing IDs: Locate the Licensing IDs you want to remove and click the Remove icon associated with it (the red X located in the left column of the row)
  4. Click Add to save the updates.
  5. Click Administration and then click Add New User.
  6. Under New User Information, type a valid business email address and name combination in the Email, First Name, and Last Name boxes.
  7. Under Permissions Assigned, select the check boxes associated with the roles you are assigning to the requestor per Licensing ID.
  8. Click Add to save the updates.
  9. After 2-4 hours a welcome email message is sent to the new user, inviting them to complete VLSC Registration. Once registration is complete, the new user can immediately access and manage the Licensing ID based upon the roles you assigned.