How to create a Service Level Agreement record

A Service Level Agreement is a contract between the service provider and the customer to supply services. The service targets are usually measurable goals for service hours and service availability.

The Service Level Agreement that applies to an incident depends on the organization of the affected customer and the affected service. For example, a network outage that affects internal personnel who connect through a VPN is a critical incident during normal business hours. Similarly, a Service Level Agreement can apply to a support request, such as a user who is unable to connect to his email. The Service Level Agreement for such scenarios could require that services are to be restored within a very small amount of time.

The Service Level Agreement for a service request can describe the fulfillment requirements and acceptable delivery time. For example, a manager requests a laptop for a new employee with the expectation that the laptop will arrive on time. There is a known lead time to obtain the laptop. An emergency service request to repair a laptop assigned to an employee has a critical priority. The impact of lost productivity escalates the resolution urgency.

The Service Level Agreement for an HR request can also describe fulfillment requirements and acceptable delivery time. For example, an employee makes a request for confirmation of remaining vacation days, with the expectation that the request is processed in a reasonable time.

A single Service Level Agreement can support more than one organization and more than one service. For example, a network outage can affect the internal VPN used by employees and portals used by customers. There is more than one affected organization and more than one service. Although you can specify more than one service in an Service Level Agreement, do not identify any service in more than one Service Level Agreement.

An Operational Level Agreement (OLA) defines the interdependent relationships in support of a Service Level Agreement. The OLA describes the responsibilities of each internal support group, including the process and timing of the delivery of their services.

To create a Service Level Agreement or Operational Level Agreement record

Search for	Example	Results
A single word	`cat`	Topics that contain the word "cat". You will also find its grammatical variations, such as "cats".
A phrase. You can specify that the search results contain a specific phrase.	`"cat food"` (quotation marks)	Topics that contain the literal phrase "cat food" and all its grammatical variations. Without the quotation marks, the query is equivalent to specifying an OR operator, which finds topics with one of the individual words instead of the phrase.

Search for	Operator	Example
Two or more words in the same topic	`AND` `and` `+` (plus symbol) `&` (ampersand)	`cat AND dog` `"cat food"+milk` `"cat food"&"dog food"`
Either word in a topic	`OR` `or` `\|` (pipe)	`cat OR dog` `cat \| dog`
Topics that do not contain a specific word or phrase	`NOT` `not` `!` (exclamation point)	`NOT cat` `! dog`
Topics that contain one string and do not contain another	`^` (caret)	`cat ^ mouse`
A combination of search types	`( )` parentheses	`cat + (dog \| mouse)` `cat \| dog + (! mouse)`

From the main menu, select Plan > Service Level.

Select the type of agreement record you want to create:

Service Agreements
Support Agreements
Human Resources Agreements

Click New. Service Management displays the appropriate form for completion. Service Management does not assign an ID until you save the record.

Add the required information.

Service Agreements

Field	Description
Title	Type a word or phrase that is a unique identifier for this Service Level Agreement. It should be a value that makes it easy for the end user to understand the purpose of the Service Level Agreement. Example: SLA for IT equipment orders.
Type	Select SLA to define a Service Level Agreement. Select OLA to define an Operational Level Agreement. This field is read-only for existing agreements.
Owner	Choose the Service Level Agreement owner. Example: the owner might be the Service Level Manager. If no value is selected, the owner is set to the current user by default.
Description	Enter a description for the Service Level Agreement. It is helpful for other users to understand the purpose and objectives of this Service Level Agreement.
Default target sets	In the Default target sets section, choose the Service Level Target sets to be linked to this Service Level Agreement. For Service agreements, you can link target sets for Requests only. The drop-down list of available target sets includes only target sets with a matching module: For Service SLAs, the Request drop-down includes only target sets with a Service request module. For Service OLAs, the Request drop-down includes only target sets with a Service request OLA module.

Support Agreements

Field	Description
Title	Type a word or phrase that is a unique identifier for this Service Level Agreement. It should be a value that makes it easy for the end user to understand the purpose of the Service Level Agreement. Example: Initial review for priority 1 incidents.
Type	Select SLA to define a Service Level Agreement record. Select OLA to define an Operational Level Agreement record. This field is read-only for existing agreements.
Default agreement	Select this check box to make this Service Level Agreement record the default. The default Service Level Agreement (for incidents or support requests, as appropriate) is automatically applied to all incidents and support requests which do not have a matching Service Level target Definition.
Owner	Choose the Service Level Agreement owner. Example: the owner might be the Service Level Manager. If no value is selected, the owner is set to the current user by default.
Description	Enter a description for the Service Level Agreement. It is helpful for other users to understand the purpose and objectives of this Service Level Agreement.
Default target sets	In the Default target sets section, choose the Service Level Target sets to be linked to this Service Level Agreement. For Support agreements, you can link target sets for both Requests and Incidents. For Service agreements, you can link target sets for Requests only. The drop-down list of available target sets includes only target sets with a matching module: For Support SLAs, the Request drop-down includes only target sets with a Support request module. The Incident drop-down includes only target sets with an Incident module. For Support OLAs, the Request and Incident drop-downs include only target sets with an Incident/Support request OLA module.
Services	For Support requests, in the Services section, do one of the following: Click Add, then select an actual service to link the service to the Service Level Agreement. Click the list icon ( ) to display available services. Select the check box for each one that you want to link to the Service Level Agreement. Click OK to select the linked services. The selected services appear in yellow. When you save the agreement, the linked services are saved. To remove a linked service, select the service and click Remove. The selected services appear in strikethrough text. When you save the agreement, the linked services are removed.

Note For Support agreements, you can define a Service Level Agreement that does not identify a service. This type of Service Level Agreement can be useful as a default when you have similar services that do not require individual Service Level Agreements. To set it as a default, select the Default agreement check box.

Human Resources Agreements

Field	Description
Title	Type a word or phrase that is a unique identifier for this Service Level Agreement. It should be a value that makes it easy for the end user to understand the purpose of the Service Level Agreement. Example: Initial review for priority 1 incidents.
Type	Select SLA to define a Service Level Agreement. Select OLA to define an Operational Level Agreement. This field is read-only for existing agreements.
Default agreement	Select this check box to make this Service Level Agreement the default. The default Service Level Agreement for HR Support Requests is automatically applied to all such requests which do not have a matching Service Level target Definition.
Owner	Choose the Service Level Agreement owner. Example: the owner might be the Service Level Manager. If no value is selected, the owner is set to the current user by default.
Description	Enter a description for the Service Level Agreement. It is helpful for other users to understand the purpose and objectives of this Service Level Agreement.
Default target sets	In the Default target sets section, choose the Service Level Target sets to be linked to this Service Level Agreement. For Human Resources agreements, you can link target sets for Requests only. The drop-down list of available target sets includes only target sets with a matching module: For Human Resources SLAs, the Request drop-down includes only target sets with a Service request module. For Human Resources OLAs, the Request drop-down includes only target sets with a Service request OLA module.
Services	Do one of the following: Click Add, then select an actual service to link the service to the Service Level Agreement. Click the list icon ( ) to display available services. Select the check box for each one that you want to link to the Service Level Agreement. Click OK to select the linked services. The selected services appear in yellow. When you save the agreement, the linked services are saved. To remove a linked service, select the service and click Remove. The selected services appear in strikethrough text. When you save the agreement, the linked services are removed.