Agreement Selection Priority

The Agreement Selection Priority determines how SLM works on your system. You can use this to determine which SLA agreement should be applied to calls and requests.

Agreement Selection Priority is a crucial feature in Service Level Management, particularly when dealing with Service Level Agreements (SLAs). It enables you to configure the sequence in which SLA agreements are applied to incoming calls and requests based on predefined criteria. This prioritization ensures that the most relevant SLA is always applied, enhancing the delivery of services and ensuring compliance with specific service level targets.

Understanding and effectively setting up the Agreement Selection Priority can dramatically impact the efficiency and quality of service provided. It allows for more granular control over service level management processes, aligning service delivery more closely with business objectives and customer expectations. By determining the order in which SLA agreements are assessed and applied, organizations can ensure that service levels are managed proactively and that SLA breaches are minimized.

Agreement Selection Priority:

1. Ensures the most relevant SLA is applied: This is particularly important in complex service environments where multiple SLAs may exist for different types of calls, requests, or support scenarios.

2. Improves service delivery consistency: By applying SLAs in a prioritized and consistent manner, businesses can offer a more predictable and reliable service.

3. Supports compliance with service targets: Prioritizing SLAs according to business objectives helps ensure that the most critical service levels are met, supporting overall compliance with agreed service targets.

Given its impact on service delivery quality and compliance, Agreement Selection Priority is a fundamental aspect of Service Level Management in ASM Core and other service management platforms.

How ASM Core uses the Selection Priority

As soon as a call or request is saved (such as when it is forwarded or deleted), ASM Core goes through the Agreement Selection Criteria list associated with every agreement in the order you have configured, looking for entity values that match the ones specified in that call or request. If it finds a match, it applies that agreement. If it does not find a match, it applies the default agreement for your system, if there is one. If there is no default agreement, an agreement is not applied.

Example #1:

You create Agreement A that is linked to the User John Smith, and Agreement B that is linked to the config item Printer. A call is logged that has John Smith and the Printer. If you set up Agreement Selection Priority with User as a higher priority than Config Item, then ASM Core will apply Agreement A. If Config Item has a higher priority than User, Agreement B will be applied to the call.

Scenarios

For more information on CMDB Selection Priority, see the next page, CMDB Selection Priority.

Reference Table

Agreement Selection Priority	Agreement Applied - Criteria
Service	Agreement A - HR Services
Configuration Item	Agreement B - Servers
User	Agreement X - User Devices and VIP's

Scenario 1: You log a ticket for John Smith for his laptop. Which agreement would be applied?

Answer: In this scenario, Agreement X- User Devices and VIP's for the User's device is the only agreement with a match. The agreement for the laptop will be applied.

Scenario 2: John Smith Logs a ticket because he is not able to get into Workday. He says Workday looks to be down. The service is listed as HR Services and the CI lists the Software, Workday. What agreement would be applied?

Answer: HR Services is the first Agreement Selection listed in the priority list. ASM starts at the top and works its way down. In this case, HR Services is first and so Agreement A - HR Services will be applied.

Scenario 3: John Smith logs a call for the Mail server because he got an error message that it is unreachable when he tried to check his email. Which agreement would be applied?

Answer: Agreement B - Servers is applied. Since ASM starts at the top and works down, the agreement selection priority for Configuration Item is higher than that of the user, so ASM applied the agreement for Configuration item.

Setting up Agreement Selection Priority

Before you start

You must have SLM Setup enabled within your General Access Security Role in order to configure any SLM administration settings.

Verify that you have already defined options for Workflow Management and the CMDB, especially priorities, types, service levels, service types and CMDB item types.

1. Select the Menu button, then Admin, and then select System Administration. The System Administration window is displayed, with a menu of options available.

2. In the Explorer pane, select Service Level Management.

3. Select Agreement Selection Priority to open the window.

4. To set up the agreement selection priority for calls, select the Calls option. (This is selected by default.)

   • To set up the agreement selection priority for requests, select the Workflow option.

5. In the left-hand browse table, choose the selection priority you wish to make available as agreement selection criteria. The following priorities are available:

   • User

   • Organization

   • Location

   • Type

   • Business Service

   • Config Item

   • Service

   • Priority

   • VIP

   • Rules Builder

   • Service Action

   • Service Bundle

   • Service Level - Service Action

   • Service Level - Service Bundle

   • Config Item Service Level

   • Service Level - Service

   • Person Service Level

   • Org. Service Level

6. Select selection priority item you want made available for consideration and then click "Add".

You do not have to include all of these options in your priority list.

It is possible to remove entity types from the selection priority altogether.

If you set a selection priority with neither config item nor User, in the above example, ASM Core would search across any other fields you had in your priority, and then apply the appropriate agreement or the default agreement if one was specified (even though there are agreements in your system linked to John Smith and printers).

1. To remove an added selection priority, select it in the right-hand browse table. Select Remove or double-click.

You should only remove a field from the list if you are sure you do not want ASM Core to search against that field when looking for an agreement.

8. Use the reorder icons to specify the order in which you want the criteria to be evaluated when ASM Core searches for a matching agreement to apply.

9. Select to save the changes. Provide the Change Reasons if prompted to do so.