Service level management and response levels

Service desks are often obliged to provide support at certain times of the day and to provide a response to issues within a certain turnaround time. These arrangements might be formally agreed with your customers and specified in your business procedures, or they might be informal targets that you are required to meet.

For detailed information about agreements and Service Level Management, see Service Level Management.

The basic components of service level management are Response Levels and Escalations.

Response levels

A response level defines the number of business hours allowed between two points in a process. Typically, response levels are used to define the turnaround time for a process – how long the process can remain open after being logged before it must be resolved.

Escalations

To prevent a breach of a response level, you can set up escalations that are active throughout the life of a process. These specify actions to be taken as the process progresses towards the limit of its turnaround time.

When an escalation activates, the colour of the process on a Workload List changes.