What constitutes the SSS being considered unavailable under the General Availability Warranty for a Dq Treat location?
Dq_Treat Franchise · 2025 FDDAnswer from 2025 FDD Document
rketing emails, libelous, or otherwise unlawful or tortious material, or to store or transmit material in violation of third-party rights, (iv) interfere with or disrupt the integrity or performance of the SSS, or (iv) attempt to gain unauthorized access to the SSS or their related systems or networks.
3. SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT, DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY.
a. SSS Availability Warranty. PAR warrants to Participating Location, (i) PAR will maintain the online availability of the SSS for a minimum of availability in any given month as provided in the Transaction Availability Warranty and the General Availability Warranty charts below
("Availability Warranties"), and (ii) that the functionality or features of the SSS may change but will not materially decrease during the Term.
For purposes of Section 3 a. (i) above, the SSS shall be considered unavailable and covered by the Availability Warranty set forth in the charts below when Participating Location is unable to:
- (iii) process a point of sale transaction (e.g. open and close an order in-store), excluding any outages and downtime set forth in Section 4) b) below ("Transaction Availability Warranty"); or
- (v) use the administrative portal to make and publish menu changes; or (iv) communicate with the Service through an application programming interface ("API"), excluding any outages and downtime set forth in Section b) below ("General Availability Warranty").
- b. Outages and Downtime. The following outages and downtime shall be excluded from the Availability Warranty: (i) requested by Participating Location; (ii) caused by Participating Location or Participating Location's contractors and agents; (iii) scheduled maintenance and upgrade purposes; (iv) caused by Participating Location's computer system, web browser, hardware or software applications, including third party integrations, not provided by PAR; (v) power failures; (vi) service failures caused by a service provider other than PAR or PAR's agents; (vii) damage to telecommunication facilities outside of PAR's control, other than acts taken by or caused by PAR personnel; (viii) outages and downtime that arises as a result of Participating Location's failure to upgrade or refresh required hardware and Equipment where such noncompliance was communicated by PAR to Participating Location with adequate advance notice and where compliance is consistent with good business practices; and (ix) outages and downtime that arise from excessive load (more than 20 requests per second on the API) by Participating Location or agents acting on Participating Location's behalf or at Participating Location's direction.
Source: Item 17 — The following paragraph is added to the end of Item 17 of the Disclosure Document: (FDD pages 70–378)
What This Means (2025 FDD)
According to Dq Treat's 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document, the SSS (presumably a software or system) is considered unavailable under the General Availability Warranty when a participating location is unable to communicate with the service through an application programming interface (API). However, this excludes any outages and downtime.
Several factors are specifically excluded from the Availability Warranty. These include outages requested or caused by the franchisee or their contractors, scheduled maintenance, issues caused by the franchisee's own computer systems or software, power failures, failures caused by other service providers, damage to telecommunication facilities outside of PAR's control, failure to upgrade hardware or software after notice, and excessive API load. PAR, the provider, will give one week's notice for scheduled maintenance, which will occur after business hours. Downtime is calculated using occurrences exceeding 60 seconds.
If the General Availability falls below certain thresholds, Dq Treat franchisees may be eligible for service level credits. For example, if availability is above 98% to 99.5%, the credit is 10% of the monthly SSS service fee. If it's above 95% to 98%, the credit increases to 25%, and if it's above 90% to 94.99%, the credit is 50% of the monthly fee. To claim these credits, franchisees must notify PAR of the outage through the PAR help desk within 60 days of the month the outage occurred, unless it's a system-wide outage that PAR or Dairy Queen has already identified. These credits are then applied to the following month's SSS service fees.