Terms of Service

1. Introduction

Welcome to AllocBoard. These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of the AllocBoard platform and services ("Service") operated by AllocBoard ("we", "our", or "us"), a UK-based company.

By accessing or using our Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you disagree with any part of these Terms, you may not access the Service.

2. Description of Service

AllocBoard is a staff allocation and person-month (PM) tracking platform designed for research groups at universities and research institutions, and for the principal investigators, project managers and research administrators who run them, working on long-term funded projects such as EU, EPSRC and UKRI grants. It works at the level of the research group and is not an institution-wide research administration system. Key features include but are not limited to:

• Timeline visualisation of staff allocations
• Person-month tracking and management
• Allocation Optimizer suggestions
• Multi-project staff management
• Export capabilities for audits (CSV)

3. Account Registration

To use our Service, you must create an account. If you are registering on behalf of an organisation, you represent that you have the authority to bind that organisation to these Terms. You agree to:

• Provide accurate and complete information
• Maintain the security of your account credentials
• Notify us immediately of any unauthorised access
• Accept responsibility for all activities under your account

4. User Roles and Responsibilities

Our platform supports the following user roles:

• Admin: Creates and manages staff records and allocations on the projects they are assigned to
• Manager: Has access to view and manage all projects within the organisation, and is the only role that can change or cancel the subscription

Administrators are responsible for the accuracy of staff data they enter into the system. Research staff recorded in the system are managed by administrators and do not have accounts on the platform, although they may be emailed a personal link to submit expense estimates.

5. Pricing and Payment

Some features of our Service require a paid plan. By purchasing a plan, you agree to:

• Pay all fees associated with your chosen plan
• Provide valid payment information
• Plans are billed monthly or yearly in advance, as you choose, with no minimum term
• Plans are priced in pounds sterling, or in euros for organisations in Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands
• A yearly plan may be paid by invoice instead of by card, and each invoice is due within 30 days
• Staff, manager and facility seats beyond your plan's limits are billed alongside the plan, on the same interval

Payments are processed securely through Stripe. You may cancel at any time, but your access continues until the end of the period you have paid for. Refunds are not provided for partial periods. Where you move to a lower plan or remove seats during a period, the unused portion is credited against your future invoices rather than refunded.

6. Free Trial

We offer a 30-day free trial with the features and limits of our Group plan, and a smaller monthly allowance of Alloc Intelligence messages. No credit card is required to start a trial. We may extend the trial on request, at our discretion and for a limited period. At the end of the trial period, you may choose to subscribe to a paid plan to continue using the Service. If you do not, the workspace becomes read-only for 90 days and is then closed, as described in section 14.

7. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Use the Service for any unlawful purpose
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of the Service
• Interfere with or disrupt the Service or servers
• Upload malicious code or content
• Resell or redistribute the Service without permission
• Use the Service to store personal data unrelated to staff allocation management (e.g. medical records, national insurance numbers)

8. Data Ownership

You retain ownership of all data you input into the Service, including project information, staff records, and allocation data. We do not claim any ownership rights over your content.

You grant us a limited licence to use your data solely for the purpose of providing and improving the Service.

9. Data Protection

We process personal data in accordance with our Privacy Policy and applicable data protection laws, including UK GDPR and EU GDPR. Each organisation's data is isolated in our multi-tenant architecture.

10. Service Availability

We strive to maintain high availability of the Service but do not guarantee uninterrupted access. We may perform scheduled maintenance with advance notice where possible. We are not liable for any downtime or service interruptions.

We are not liable for failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including but not limited to internet outages, third-party service failures, natural disasters, or government actions.

11. Intellectual Property

The Service, including its design, features, and content (excluding your data), is owned by AllocBoard and protected by intellectual property laws. You may not copy, modify, or create derivative works without our written permission.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, AllocBoard shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including loss of profits, data, or business opportunities, arising from your use of the Service.

Our total liability for any claims arising from the Service shall not exceed the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim.

13. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied. We do not warrant that the Service will meet your specific requirements or be error-free.

14. Termination

A workspace Manager may cancel your subscription at any time from the billing settings in the application, or by contacting us. If you cancel during a paid period, your access continues until the end of that period. Your workspace then becomes read-only for 12 months: everyone can still sign in, view all of its data and download reports, but nobody can make changes. At the end of the 12 months the workspace is closed, and all of its data is permanently deleted 30 days later. After a free trial ends without a paid subscription, the same applies with a read-only period of 90 days. Every Manager is emailed about 30 days and again about 7 days before the closing date, and subscribing again before that date restores editing with nothing lost. We may terminate or suspend your account immediately, without prior notice, if you breach these Terms.

If the workspace's only Manager deletes their own account, the workspace is closed. This cancels the subscription immediately, without a refund for the remainder of the period, and all of the workspace's data is permanently deleted 30 days later, including its audit logs. Full details are described in our Privacy Policy.

15. Changes to Terms

We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time. We will notify you of significant changes by posting the updated Terms on our website and updating the "Last updated" date. Your continued use of the Service after changes constitutes acceptance of the new Terms.

16. Governing Law

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. Both parties agree to attempt to resolve any dispute informally before initiating legal proceedings. Any disputes that cannot be resolved informally shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

17. Contact Us

If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us:

Email: hello@allocboard.com