Use > Service Level Management > Service Level Management overview > Service agreements overview > Defining Service Level Targets

Defining Service Level Targets

You can define two types of Service Level Targets (SLTs) in Service Manager. They are process targets (response) and service targets (availability) .

You can add targets in two ways. You can select an existing SLT Catalog template with a pre-defined target, or you can define a customized target that meets the requirements of the individual Service Level Agreement (SLA).

When you create a new SLA, you can access the SLT catalog and select one or more existing template targets that support the SLA. If the existing SLT templates do not meet your requirements, then you can create a customized SLT.

Service Level Target duration types

The duration of a Service Level Target (SLT) specifies a span of time in which the target must be met. You can assign the following duration types to an SLT:

  • Interval: Directly specifies the span of time in days or hours. The number of days and hours must be specified in this format: ddd hh:mm:ss.

    Note In this duration type, one day is counted as 24 hours.

  • Calculation: Specifies the ways of calculating the duration. Only business hours are counted in these calculations. Service Level Management has the following calculated durations.

    • End of Business Day: Specifies when to start counting the time for an SLT in a business day. You can optionally specify a buffer before the end of a business day, so that records submitted within the buffer time are handled later.

    • End of Business Week: Specifies when to start counting the time for an SLT in a business week. You must specify when the business week ends and optionally specify a buffer before the end of a business day, so that records submitted after a certain day in the week or within the buffer time are handled later.

    • Work Schedule based Expiration: On top of the "End of Business Day" calculation, this option offers an additional period of time for record handling.

    • Service Catalog Item Expiration: Specifies that the duration defined in the Service Catalog item request is used.

      Note This option takes effect only when Delivery Targets are defined for the corresponding Service Catalog item request.

    • Duration in Record: Specifies that the system uses the duration defined in the record as the duration of the SLT. When this option is selected, you need to enter a valid field name for the record in the Field in Record) box.

      Note In addition to fixed intervals, this option supports flexible intervals that are calculated from record fields. For example, calculations can be executed using a rule set from the workflow.

Service Targets

Service Targets monitor the availability of a Business Service or Configuration Item (CI), such as a service, application, hardware, software, or other infrastructure component. SLTs report any change to the availability of the CI in change requests, changes, tasks, and incidents.

Service Targets require the following information. You can use the SLT wizard or type required information directly into the form.

Field Content Comments
Service Level Target ID Numeric value Automatically assigned by Service Level Management.
Agreement ID SLA name Name of an existing SLA. Required.
Name Service Target name Descriptive name for the objective. for example, 95% Availability. Required.
Owner SLT owner Optional.
Affected CI The Configuration Item (CI) related to this objective Required.
Required Uptime (%) 0.0 – 100.0 Express as a decimal value. Do not use the percentage sign (%). Required Uptime(%) or Max Outage Duration is required.
Max Outage Duration Number of days, hours, minutes, and seconds for a deadline (ddd hh:mm:ss) The acceptable amount of time for an outage. Required Uptime(%) or Max Outage Duration is required.
Schedule A pre-defined work schedule Limits availability monitoring to the hours specified by the work schedule. Optional.
Time Zone Time zone name Select the time zone for the work schedule, the CI, or other related component. Optional.
Alerts Alerts related to the remaining time on the Service Target Select the out-of-box alerts for 50%, 75%, and 30 minutes until the SLT expires, or create your own. Optional.

Note  

  • You can define global alerts for all SLAs, instead of individual SLTs, in the SLA Control record.
  • The Description describes additional information about customer expectations or the internal requirements of an Operational Level Agreement.
  • The History tab for an availability SLT record shows the target and actual availability of the CI on a monthly basis.

Process Targets

A Process Target is a rule that describes the maximum amount of time allowable for a response to a business event. For example, if you report a priority 1 incident during business hours, work should be assigned within 15 minutes and a resolution should occur within an hour. A similar rule would be if you make a self-service request, it should be resolved or linked to an incident record within an hour.

Process Target rules contain the following information. You can use the SLT wizard or type required information directly into the form.

Field Content Comments
Service Level Target ID Numeric value Automatically assigned by Service Level Management.
Agreement ID SLA name Name of an existing SLA. Required.
Name Process Target name Descriptive name for the target. For example, One hour response. Required.
Condition A status or condition value

Service Level Management uses the condition to determine if the SLT applies to the application record. If you use the SLT wizard, choosing filter criteria generates the condition in this field. For example, if the only filtering criteria selected is Severity 1, the SLT applies only to Severity 1 incidents. This expression is the value in the condition field:

severity.code in $L.file="1"

This expression must be written by using RAD. The criteria list changes depending on the application for service desk interactions, change requests, change tasks, incidents, problems, problem tasks, requests or request tasks. Optional.
Owner Process Target owner Name of the Process Target owner
Service Level Category Category of the Process Target The category can be Service Level Agreement, Operational Level Agreement, or Underpinning Contract.
Service Area Application related to the SLT For example, if you want to apply the response SLT to Change Management, choose Change Requests or Change Tasks. Required.
Initial State A status or phase value (depending on module configuration) The initial state when Service Level Management begins measuring the response time. The list changes depending on the application and whether phases are used, such as Request for Change phases. Required.
Final State A status or phase value (depending on module configuration) The final state when Service Level Management stops measuring the response time. The list changes depending on the application and whether phases are used, such as Request for Change phases. Required.
Duration Type "Interval" or "Duration in Record" directly specifies the duration for your SLT. The format is ddd hh:mm:ss. The system automatically completes the duration if you do not specify it in the complete form. For example, you can use 3:00 for 3 hours or 3 for 3 days. Required.
"Calculation" calculates the duration for your SLT based on different conditions. For example, choose End of Business Day, End of Business Week, Work Schedule based Expiration, or Service Catalog Item Expiration. Required.
Schedule Shift information Choose a pre-defined work schedule. If you omit a pre-defined shift, Service Level Management defaults to a 24 x 7 schedule. Optional.
Time Zone

Choose:
Server time zone
Technician time zone
Customer time zone
CI time zone
Specific value
Assignment Group

The process metric depends on the time zone selected. Optional.

Note The Assignment Group option is only available for the OLA or UC service level category.
Alerts Alerts related to the remaining time on the SLT Select the out-of-box alerts for 25%, 50%, 75%, BREACH, or 30 minutes until the SLT expires, or create your own. Optional.
Suspend Processing Suspension states Click Fill on a blank row to view a list of states. The list changes depending on the application and whether phases are used, such as Request for Change phases. Optional.
Duration scope Specifies to which assignment group the calculation applies.

The method that is used to calculate the expiration time of an Operational Level Agreement (OLA) or Underpinning Contract (UC) process target.

This calculation is based on assignment groups.

Note  

  • You can define global alerts for all SLAs, instead of individual SLTs, in the SLA Control record.
  • The Description provides additional information about customer expectations or the internal requirements of an Operational Level Agreement.
  • The History tab for a response SLT record shows the percentage of time that the objective was met and number of breaches on a monthly basis.

Define scheduling information for Process Targets

System administrators can customize the values for work schedule, holiday group, and time zone in a Process Target record. By default, the Process Targets record uses the holiday group defined in the work schedule when calculating an interval. An administrator can select a value for the holiday group independently of the work schedule. When the administrator selects a value for the holiday group, it overrides the holiday group value in the work schedule.