Web application support standards

This page is intended for internal and external (vendor) quality assurance and technical professionals working with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (Blue Cross NC) interfacing web applications.

All vendors and internal development teams are required to comply with these standards.

To maintain our core sales and customer service capabilities, Blue Cross NC must keep all external-facing applications compatible with the current browser versions and devices used by our customers and business partners.

Blue Cross NC uses state-of-the art web-analytics tools to monitor the browsers, devices and operating systems used by site visitors to our website and web-based applications. All Blue Cross NC applications are required to operate in a materially comparable way on both personal computers and mobile devices via internet software browsers used by more than 5 percent of the Blue Cross NC customer base, or shipped natively with current operating systems.

Please see below for technical support requirements, including: 

• Supported browsers
• Supported mobile devices
• Performance standards

We support the following browsers (complete list):

Personal computers:

• Microsoft Edge (all versions updated in the past 6 months)
• Apple Safari 9
• Mozilla Firefox (all versions updated in the past 6 months)
• Google Chrome (all versions updated in the past 6 months)

Mobile devices:

• Google Chrome on Android
• Apple Safari on iOS

Important notes for browser support compliance:

• Quality assurance testing should be performed across all supported browsers, with the majority of testing focused on the most highly used browser for the application's target audience.
• Development teams and vendors must be prepared to support new browser versions within 90 days of public release.

We support all mobile devices released since 2015 for the following device types:

• Apple iPhone
• Apple iPad
• Galaxy S Series
• Galaxy Note series
• Galaxy Tab series
• Amazon Fire series

All Blue Cross NC web applications should go through Performance, Volume and Stress (PVS) testing to ensure they are meeting our performance requirements.

Peak Hourly Volume Support Requirements:

Peak Hourly Volume (as of Q1 2016) = 5,580 visits per hour1

PVS Test Volume (as of Q1 2016) = 11,160 visits per hour1

Page Load Time Requirements:

Time to interact (Authentication complete, navigation has loaded): 4 seconds

Complete page load (All service calls complete, all data presented on page): 10 seconds