7.3 Service Level Agreements

Question 1

What is an SLA?

Answer 1

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) typically is a written agreement that outlines the commitment between a service provider and its customers.

Question 2

What is a commitment?

Answer 2

A commitment is a service level that all parties have agreed to, such as:
- asset reliability
- availability

Question 3

What does the SLA describe?

Answer 3

• one or more commitments
• the escalation actions or notifications associated with each commitment

Question 4

Why might escalation actions or notifications be associated with an SLA?

Answer 4

to ensure that commitments are met

Question 5

How does the escalation process within SLA serve its purpose?

Answer 5

To ensure that commitments are met, can do the following:
- can monitor all activities
- send notifications or perform other activities

Question 6

What level do SLAs exist at?

Answer 6

SLAs exist at the system level.

However, the organization or site can be specified to restrict the SLA to that organization or site.

Question 7

What can SLAs be applied to?

Answer 7

Any main object

Question 8

What can an SLA be associated to?

Answer 8

• Contracts
• Related SLAs
• Assets
• Locations

Question 9

List the 3 SLA types

Answer 9

• Customer
• Internal
• Vendor

Question 10

SLA Types

Customer SLA

Describe this

Answer 10

Agreement between user & external customer

Question 11

SLA Types

Internal SLA

Describe

Answer 11

Agreement between user & internal customer

Question 12

SLA Types

Vendor SLA

Describe

Answer 12

Agreement between user & vendor

Question 13

What are commitments and how can they be measured?

Answer 13

Commitments are a level of service that is agreed upon by the service provider and the customer

They can be measured in a qualitative or quantitative way

Question 14

List predefined commitment types

Answer 14

• Contract
• Response
• Resolution
• Other

Question 15

Commitment Types

Contract

What does this apply to?

Answer 15

Ticket applications

Question 16

Commitment Types

Response

What does this apply to?

Answer 16

Ticket and Work Order applications

Question 17

Commitment Types

Resolution

What does this apply to?

Answer 17

Ticket and Work Orders

Question 18

Commitment Types

Other

What does this apply to?

Answer 18

All objects

Question 19

Commitment Types

Contact

Describe

Answer 19

• Set the target contact date for a ticket when a service desk agent applies a service level agreement
• A measure of time

Question 20

Commitment Types

Response

Describe

Answer 20

• Set the target start date for a ticket or work order when a service desk agent applies a service level agreement
• A measure of time

Question 21

Commitment Types

Resolution

Describe

Answer 21

• Set the target finish date for a ticket or work order when a service desk agent applies a service level agreement
• A measure of time

Question 22

Commitment Types

Other

Describe

Answer 22

• Apply to any business object
• Possible synonyms for other include: availability, reliability, and downtime
• No business rules are associated with this type
• A value + a unit of measure + a time period

Question 23

List commitment types that are classified with an internal value of OTHER

Answer 23

• AVAILABILITY
• CAPACITY
• DELIVERY
• DOWNTIME
• RELIABILITY
• OTHER

Question 24

Rules pertaining to adding commitment types to an SLA

Answer 24

Except for the commitment type OTHER, only one of each commitment type can be added to an SLA

Question 25

List the attributes used to define the commitment types

Answer 25

- value - unit of measure - time period (in days)

Question 26

Editability of attributes upon choosing commitment type

Answer 26

editable or read-only as needed

Question 27

How can an SLA be associated with a record?

Answer 27

* An SLA might *automatically* be applied to a record from within a **workflow** or **escalation** process, or from **another SLA** * The action to _apply an SLA_ can be selected, which applies the *best match* automatically * SLAs can be **viewed** and use an action to **select** or **clear** the SLAs to **manually** apply to the **record**

Question 28

List events that occur when an SLA is applied to a record

Answer 28

* The **SLA Applied** check box is checked off to document the action * Any **escalations** associated with the SLA are activated * The **Target Start**, **Target Finish**, and **Contact** values might be calculated *automatically* as follows: * If SLA includes a **response** commitment, the response commitment **date** populates the **Target Start** date field of the record * If SLA includes a **resolution** commitment, the resolution commitment **date** populates the **Target Finish** date field of the record * If SLA includes a **contact** commitment, the contact commitment **date** populates the **Target Contact** date field of the record

Question 29

List organizational settings that can be set in the Organizations application, pertaining to SLAs

Answer 29

* Allow application of one or multiple SLAs? * Apply multiple SLAs based on ranking or commitment stringency? * Use or disable calendar for calculating escalation point condition?

Question 30

How can an escalation be set pertaining to an SLA? Why would this be done?

Answer 30

From the Service Level Agreements application, an escalation can be created to ensure that SLAs are compliant.

Question 31

Rules on creating escalations for SLAs

Answer 31

One escalation can be created per SLA

Question 32

How does escalation setup relate to commitments within an SLA?

Answer 32

individual escalation points can be added for each commitment within an SLA

Question 33

Escalations for SLAs What do values for escalation points default to?

Answer 33

values specified in the associated commitment

Question 34

Escalations associated to SLAs Where can the escalation then be viewed/modified?

Answer 34

Escalations tab

Question 35

What can SLAs be ranked by, and why?

Answer 35

According to precedence, which determines which SLAs to apply

Question 36

How can an SLA be used to drive a workflow process?

Answer 36

Can set: - effective **start date** - **end** date - **review** date for an SLA

Question 37

What can be created to support commitments in an SLA?

Answer 37

Escalations

Question 38

How can SLA performance be tracked?

Answer 38

Can create key performance indicators or metrics for an SLA