Service Level Management

vFire Core's SLM functionality allows you to create and monitor Service Level Agreements, Operational Level Agreements and Underpinning Contracts.

Service Level Agreements (SLAs)	These are agreements between a service provider and its Users who use those services. SLAs are applicable to both calls and requests but not to component workflow. For example, you might have an agreement with your Users to respond to and fix PC service calls within a set timeframe. SLAs can be linked to Service Levels, or configured to be applied based on individual Users, config items, organizations, locations, or types.
Operational Level Agreements (OLAs)	These 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)	These 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.

Escalations

Part of SLM is the definition of escalation and breach types, and creation of matrices to define when calls are escalated.

Escalation causes alarms to be activated when a call or request has not been actioned or closed within the required period of time. The call or request escalates to one or more analysts and is displayed on their Calls or Requests Outstanding window (providing the relevant escalation options have been selected).

After a certain amount of time (longer than the escalation time), the service agreement is said to be “breached”. In this case, financial penalties may apply, depending on the particular agreements and relationships you have set up. Escalations are designed to prevent these agreement breaches by warning analysts that the maximum time permitted by the agreement is approaching.

The periods of time in which you require calls to escalate are based upon matrices that you set up.

To consider

Do you want vFire Core to escalate calls, requests and tasks if they are not actioned or resolved within a certain period of time?

Would you like calls and requests involving different configuration items, Users or organizations to escalate at different times?

Do you want to be able to escalate different types of CMDB items at different times?

Calls can be escalated either to particular analysts or groups (nominated as the escalation recipients), on the basis of the issue type, or on the basis of the particular agreement applied to the call or request.

If escalation is based on the call type, calls are escalated to an analyst who has been linked to the type selected on the Call Details window.

Escalation recipients can also be defined for specific agreements. This is done on the Agreement Details window.

These rules apply to requests and tasks as well.

Setting Up Escalation

• Choose the type(s) of escalation you want to set up on the Service Level Management Settings window.
• To enable email, pager or internal messages to be sent when calls or requests escalate, select messaging options on the Messaging window.
• Set up your escalation types by selecting the fields on which call and workflow escalations are based. You can define escalations to be based on fields such as service, type, configuration item, organization, location, or workflow template.
• Create matrices for the calculation of escalation and breach times.
• If you are using service levels, assign them to Users, organizations and CMDB items.
• Nominate escalation recipients for individual analysts or link recipients to the current analyst, the analyst a call or request is assigned to, the call or request type and/or the agreement itself.

Service Level Management Administration

The Service Level Management (SLM) tab in the Administration module enables you to configure settings for agreements that are applicable to calls, requests, tasks, and approvals. The following options are available for configuring your system:

SLM Settings	Provides global settings for Service Level Management.
Agreement Attributes	Enables you to create attribute categories for agreements, to which values can then be set when you create agreements.
Agreement Selection Priority	Enables you to select IPK and workflow fields that can be used to apply agreements to calls, requests or tasks
CMDB Selection Priority	Enables you to select CMDB fields that can be used to apply agreements to calls, requests or tasks
Agreement Stakeholder Roles	Enables you to create stakeholder roles for SLM.
Agreement Statuses	Enables you to define status levels for agreements.
Exclusion Reasons	Enables you to define exclusion reasons for agreements.
Agreement Types	Enables you to define multiple agreement types and associate them with one of the three core types: SLA, OLA or UC.
Event Activity Types	Enables you to rename SLM event types.
Matrix Definition	Enables you to create agreement matrices that are used to calculate escalation and breach times.
Measurement Types	Enables you to define measurement types for agreements.
Payment Types	Enables you to define payment modes for agreements.