Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is an agreement between an entity (Customer, Service, or Configuration Item) and a service provider that defines Response and Resolve target times for a Service. SLAs can be a formal agreement between an organization and its customers, or a guide for technicians.

The SLA is the technician's guarantee to the customer saying, "I will respond to you within [a specified period of time]," and "I will provide a solution for your issue within [a specified period of time]." SLA is one of the most important metrics for ITSM, in addition to being one of the benchmarks for success.

In CSM, an SLA is a Major Business Object. The SLA form defines and manages the SLA.

Good to Know

• As configured OOTB, SLA selection is Time-Based. Tickets automatically select the shortest SLA time to apply.

• SLA uses technician working hours as its reference point, unless it is configured to use 24/7. At the time a customer submits a ticket, the SLA checks to see if technician working hours are currently active. If they are not, the deadline calculation will not start until the technician working hours are in effect again.

• Organizations that span many time zones, or where customer working hours differ significantly from technician working hours, should set SLAs in hours (example: 24 hours) rather than days (example: 1 day) to account for different day start and stop times.

• The Preview link under the Actions list on the SLA form allows you to propose hypothetical ticket situations to see what SLA deadlines look like with the current SLA is applied. Keep in mind that this tool does not account for differences in working hours, so it reflects situations where the customer and the technician share the same working hours.