SLM - Managing Agreements
Service Level Management (SLM) covers advanced management of various agreements or service commitments between businesses and their clients.
Last updated
Service Level Management (SLM) covers advanced management of various agreements or service commitments between businesses and their clients.
Last updated
A service commitment refers to the speed and quality of service the user expects and the provider is able to provide. Failure to meet an agreed service commitment is called a breach. The expectations of all stakeholders can be formalized and documented in the form of an agreement.
SLM in ASM Core covers three different types of agreements:
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are agreements between a service provider and its Users. SLAs are applicable to both calls and requests. For example, you might have an agreement with your Users to respond to and fix PC service calls within a set timeframe. They can be driven off Service Levels, or configured to be applied based on individual Users, config items, organizations, locations, or types.
Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) are agreements between internal departments of a service provider. OLAs are applicable to calls, tasks, and approvals. For example, you might have an agreement that states that Third Level Support will resolve technical issues sent to them from the service desk within a certain amount of time.
Underpinning Contracts (UCs) are agreements between a service provider and the external suppliers who provide additional services or support to the service provider. UCs are applicable to calls, tasks, and approvals. For example, you might have an agreement with a hardware supplier that they will deliver computers or parts within a certain number of days from when they are ordered.
You can create and update agreements in ASM Core, and add:
You can also:
Define selection criteria for the agreement (that is, the rules that define in what situations the agreement is used)
Define thresholds for the agreement (that is, the times at which escalation and agreement breaches occur)
Define measurements and penalties for the agreement
Upload or download an attachment
Specify Agreement Stakeholders
View the audit trail for the agreement
ASM automatically applies agreements to calls based on a combination of information (the call details, IPK selection criteria, agreement selection priority, and the action performed by the analyst).
Only SLAs (Service Level Agreements) can be linked to requests.
The appropriate SLA is identified in the following way:
The system looks for an SLA assigned to the workflow template on which a request is based. If one is found, it is applied.
If no SLA has been defined in the workflow template, the first time a request is authorized ASM tries to find an SLA to apply. It checks the fields defined for the request, in a specific order defined for each field, to see if the particular entity defined is matched to an SLA as a Workflow Selection Criterion. If so, the agreement is applied.
If no matches are found for any of the fields, ASM checks for a default agreement; if one is found, it is applied.
Otherwise, no SLA is applied to the request.
You can create three types of agreements in ASM Core: SLA, OLAs, and UCs.
Select New. In the submenu, scroll down and select Agreement.
You can also create an agreement from the Search window by selecting the Add New button in the left pane, or clone it from an existing agreement.
From the Select Agreement Type list, select the type of agreement you want to create. The available types are:
OLA
to create an Operational Level Agreement
UC
to create an underpinning contract
4. The Agreement Details window appears. The upper part of the window contains some basic information about the agreement. The lower part contains a number of tabs, which can be selected by clicking on them. Depending on the type of agreement you are creating, some fields and explorer options are enabled or disabled.
5. Complete the agreement details.
Title - Type a name for the agreement. Choose an appropriate name, such as Laptop Service Agreement Reference
Type - a reference code for the agreement. It can be any number of letters or numbers, up to 50 characters long.
Status - Select the current status of the agreement, using the drop-down list. The default value is Active. You can change it to inactive if appropriate. While there can be more types of status set up, each must be considered to be active or inactive, which is shown in this field. The actual status for the agreement is selected on the Profile Info tab from the Status list.
Default - This option is only used for SLAs and is therefore disabled for OLAs and UCs. Select the checkbox to specify that this agreement is to be considered the default Service Level Agreement by ASM Core.
The system will apply the default SLA if no match is found based on the IPK or Workflow Selection Criteria for the agreement. Default SLAs can be defined when your system requirements are quite simple. These agreements are system wide agreements.
Default SLAs can be used in two ways:
To set up a simple escalation strategy
For calls not specifically measured by an agreement.
Multiple default SLA agreements can exist.
The default agreement with the latest End Date will be applied if no other agreement settings affect the selection, such ask IPK Status, for example.
Do not select the Default option for SLAs unless you are sure that this agreement is set up correctly as the default agreement.
6. Having completed the details, use the tabs at the bottom of the window to provide profile info, significant dates, working hours, support hours and financial information for the agreement.
7. You can also use the options in the explorer pane to:
Define selection criteria for the agreement (that is, the rules that define in what situations the agreement is used)
Define thresholds for the agreement (that is, the times at which escalation and agreement breaches occur)
Define measurements and penalties for the agreement
Upload or download an object from the agreement
Specify Agreement Stakeholders
View the audit trail for the agreement
8. When you have finished, select Ok to save the details, or Save New to save the details and display the Agreement Details window with blank fields, for creation of another agreement of the same type.
The Agreement Details explorer pane consists of the following options:
IPK and Workflow Selection Criteria
Agreements have selection criteria attached to them. These are rules which tell ASM Core when to apply the agreement. Agreements are selected and applied to calls, requests, and tasks based on the IPK and Workflow selection criteria, respectively. Updates to call or request details may trigger a new agreement to be applied to the call/request, if these details affect the selection criteria.
IPK and Workflow Thresholds
Thresholds define the points at which an agreement should start escalation events, and the point at which an agreement is breached. You can define IPK and Workflow Thresholds for SLAs, OLAs, and UCs.
Service Items
You can link and remove service items (that is, services, service actions, and service bundles) to and from the current agreement.
Audit
All changes to an item in the CMDB (such as config item, agreement, or User) can be seen at a glance on the Audit Trail window. Changes may range from a rename of a config item, upload of an object or deletion of an object.
To enable auditing, the system administrator must select the option in the Audit Trail section on the CMDB Settings window.
An entry is made in the audit trail table for the creation of a CMDB item.
Measurements
You can record measurements against an agreement.
Stakeholders
Stakeholders are Users, organizations, other support analysts or groups who have an interest in the agreement. They may be related to it or a call or request to which the current agreement is applied, and need to be kept informed of developments. Use the Stakeholder explorer option to link stakeholders to the current agreement.
Select Search from the main menu. From the submenu, select Agreements.
The Agreement Search window is divided into two panes. You can select the criteria for the search in the left frame. The results are displayed in the right pane. You can apply as many filters as you wish (some of the fields require you to select a check box for that criteria to apply).
OLA
Select to filter your search by OLA
UC
Select to filter your search by UC
Active
Select to search for active agreements, that is agreements with an end date later than today
Deleted
Select to search for agreements that have been created, and subsequently deleted
Include Deleted Field Values
Select to include deleted values in the other search criteria lists so that these values can be included in your search
Partition
This is only visible if your system is partitioned and you have access to more than one partition.
Select the partition to search for agreements created in the partitions to which you have access.
Agreement Ref
This is the reference number assigned to the agreement. Select the checkbox and then type the agreement ref. If you do not know the reference number, you can use the wildcard symbol % to retrieve all the agreements defined on your system.
Title
This is the name of the agreement. Select the checkbox and then type the title. If you do not know the title, you can use the wildcard symbol % to retrieve all the agreements defined on your system.
Select Search. The results are displayed in a browse table located in the right hand pane.
When the browse table appears, the following buttons are available in addition to the standard ones.
to clone the selected agreement and create a new one.
If your system is configured so that double-clicking an entity in the search results will open it in action mode, rather than review mode, select the entity and then this button on the toolbar to open the item details in review mode.
By configuring your search criteria, you can add more fields to your search criteria panel, including:
Agreement Status
The current status of the agreement
External Supplier
If you want to locate a UC, you can search by the external supplier you have specified in the UC selection criteria.
Contract
If you want to locate a UC, you can search by the contract you have specified in the UC selection criteria.
IPK Group, Workflow Group
Use these fields to locate OLAs that have the select group identified as the agreement group in the OLA selection criteria.
Date From and Date To
You can use various date fields to search for agreements, such as Start Date, Review Date, Created Date, or Updated Date.
Created By
Select the name of the analyst who created the agreement(s) you want to locate.
Updated By
Select the name of the analyst who last edited the agreement(s) you want to locate.
Call Type Selection Criteria
Select a value for the issue Type, if it has been set as an IPK selection criterion on the agreement(s) you want to locate.
Request Type Selection Criteria
Select the request type value, if it has been set as a selection criterion on the agreement(s) you want to locate.
Source
Select the source from which the agreement was created, such as ASM Core, or API.
[CMDB Item] Selection Criteria
Specify CMDB items linked to the agreement you want to locate.
User/Organization/Location Selection Criteria
Select the name of the User, organization, or location if it has been set up as a selection criterion on the agreement(s) you want to locate.
Select the agreement you want to clone from the browse table, and select the Clone icon.
When the new agreement's details are displayed on the screen, select the Edit icon if necessary to activate the fields.
Update the details as necessary.
You can also use the options in the explorer pane to:
Define selection criteria for the agreement (that is, the rules that define in what situations the agreement is used)
Define thresholds for the agreement (that is, the times at which escalation and agreement breaches occur)
Define measurements and penalties for the agreement
Upload or download an object from the agreement
Specify Agreement Stakeholders
View the audit trail for the agreement
5. When you have finished, select Ok to save the details, or Save New to save the details and display the Agreement Details window with blank fields, for creation of another agreement of the same type.
Select the agreement you want to update from the browse table, and select the Action icon or double-click the agreement title.
When the details are displayed on the screen, select the Edit icon if necessary to activate the fields.
Update the details as necessary.
When you have finished, select Ok to save the details, or Save New to save the details and display the Agreement Details window with blank fields, for creation of another agreement of the same type.
Select the agreement you want to delete from the browse table, and select the Delete icon.
Confirm the deletion.
Deleted agreements are not removed from calls, requests, or tasks they were assigned to before the agreement was deleted.
If there are active events at the time of deletion, they will continue to count down until the agreement events are completed.
To add more fields to your search criteria, select at the top of the pane and configure your search criteria.
