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The management of "Service Level Agreements" (SLAs) is an important part of the ITIL® framework. Here, the service promises to the customer are defined. The most common implementation of an SLA is to define a guaranteed response and resolution time for tickets of a certain priority, category or concerning business services. The target processing time until a ticket is resolved must be aligned with these time targets.

 

The administrator can create any number of SLA contracts for individual organizational units and define optional time targets for "response", "on-site encounter" and "recovery" in each case on a process-related basis and depending on the ticket priority. In the context of "service orientation", a link to business services can additionally be made. The time targets are calculated accordingly when a ticket is created and displayed in the ticket header.

 

The times are calculated considering the working time calendars, i.e. the available time is only calculated within the defined working time. In addition, the processing time is suspended if the ticket is set to "Waiting for customer (SLA stop)", e.g. because the user is waiting for a necessary feedback from the customer and thus cannot continue working on the ticket.

 

Each time limit consists of a time target and up to three freely adjustable escalation times preceding it in order to send reminders to defined recipients (via e-mail). This ensures that the target times are met in the best possible way and no ticket is forgotten.

It is also possible to create three different types of SLA contracts according to ITIL®:

•SLA: the "classic" service promise made to the customer

•OLA: "Operational Level Agreement" describes the internal (time) specifications for the delivery of a solution. This means that the defined time requirements also apply if an internal department (not a customer) has to provide assistance in the course of processing a ticket. This is to ensure that the SLA to the customer can be met.

•UC: "Underpinning Contract", similar to the OLA, describes the specification for a service to be provided by an external service provider for the ticket solution.