To create a new SLA record, follow the instructions given here:
1. From the Administration menu, select Manage Service Level Agreements to view the Manage Service Level Agreements dialogue box.
2. Click the New button to view the Create New Service Level Agreement dialogue box. The Details tab is displayed initially.
3. Decide on a name for the SLA record you wish to create and enter it in the SLA Name field.
4. If necessary, adjust the time-zone setting to reflect your own location. 5. In the Response and Fix Time Periods area, enter the response and fix time-
periods that are to apply to this SLA. You can enter these directly in the respective fields in terms of hours and minutes, or you can enter them in
appropriate prompt. A “day” here would mean a working day consisting of a specific number of support hours, as defined in the Support Hours tab (see below). Thus, if you enter a time in days, this would be converted to support hours and displayed in the relevant “hours” field (the days being shown in parentheses). If necessary, you can then edit the “hours” and “minutes” fields to fine-tune the time. Note that you can specify times in days only if all working days are of equal length.
The response and fix time periods will run concurrently, both of them starting at the time when a call is logged. This is shown graphically on the Relative Response/Fix Time Indicator.
6. Click Apply, and then click the Support Hours tab.
7. Look at the calendar grid in the upper half of the dialogue box, showing the default weekly support hours (as preset in the server configuration),
highlighted in blue. As you move your mouse pointer over the grid, you can see that the relevant day, and the range of support hours for that day, are
accordance with the requirements of this SLA, you should skip the following four steps.
8. To set the support hours (to the nearest half-hour) for any given day of the week, first clear the existing range (if any) by clicking any cell within that day, and then move the mouse pointer to the desired support-start time for that day. Alternatively, if you just want to adjust the start or end time of a support day, move the mouse pointer over to the start or end cell for that day. 9. Click the left mouse button and hold it down while dragging the mouse
pointer to the desired end (or start) time of the support day. As you drag the pointer, a tooltip appears, showing you the time range you are setting. 10. Release the mouse button. The new duration of the relevant day will now be
highlighted in blue.
11. Repeat step 8 to step 10 for each day you wish to set. To remove the time range for a day that is not to be a support day, just single-click any cell for that day.
12. Look at the Holiday Exclusions area in the lower half of the dialogue box, showing the holiday dates (if any) that are currently excluded from the default calendar. If you see that these exclusions are in accordance with the requirements of this SLA, you should skip the following five steps.
13. To add a new exclusion, click the Add button in the Holiday Exclusions area to display the Exclude Date dialogue box.
14. Select one of the following two options:
Exclude this date every year This option, when enabled, specifies that the
exclusion will be valid every year. It would be appropriate for a public holiday that always occurs on the same date.
Exclude this date this year only This option, when enabled, specifies that the
exclusion will be unique to a particular year. It would be appropriate for a day on which the company relocates to another site, for example. If you enable this option, you must also enter the relevant year (in full four-digit format) in the adjacent field.
15. Enter the day of the month in the Exclusion Date field, and select the month from the drop-down list.
16. Click OK. You will see that the exclusion has been added to the list in the Support Hours tab.
17. Repeat step 13 to step 16 for each additional exclusion you wish to register. 18. Click Apply, and then click the Escalation Triggers tab.
19. To create an escalation trigger for responses, first click Add in the upper half of the dialogue box. Alternatively, to create an escalation trigger for fixes, first click Add in the lower half of the dialogue box. In either case, the Add New Escalation Trigger dialogue box is displayed.
20. Specify either how long (in hours and minutes) before the expiry of the agreed response or fix time you want an escalation event to trigger, or how frequently (in minutes) after the expiry of the response or fix time you want such an event to trigger.
21. Click OK. The trigger is displayed as an entry in the Response Triggers or Fix Triggers list, as appropriate.
22. To specify escalation events for the trigger you have just created, ensure that it is selected in the Response Triggers or Fix Triggers list, and click the Properties button. The Escalation Trigger Event dialogue box is displayed.
24. If you want the escalation to include the transmission of a notification message to, say, the helpdesk manager, the transmission of a standard e-mail to, say, someone not in the helpdesk team, and/or a selective transfer of call ownership, you should click the appropriate checkbox(es) and specify the required individual(s) or group(s).
25. If you want the escalation to invoke a user-defined VPME process, first click the Invoke VPME Script checkbox. Then, in the Script field, enter the name of the relevant process. In the Verb field, enter a brief description that will uniquely identify this escalation trigger event. This text will be presented to the process at run-time as the contents of an input parameter named “verb”. Also passed (implicitly), as the contents of the input parameter “callRef”, would be the current call reference. It follows that these two input
parameters must be defined in the VPME process itself. For “callRef”, the data type should be “xs:unsignedInt”, and for “verb”, the data type should be “xs:string”. Please refer to the Visual Process Management chapter of the System Customisation Guide for basic guidance on building VPME processes.
26. If you want arrow-style escalation-level indicators to be used for visually tracking escalation changes, first select, in the Level Indicator field, a suitable escalation level corresponding to a specific length of arrow that calls associated with this SLA are to display (in the Escalation column of a call list) when this escalation trigger is activated. Then select, in the Colour field, the colour that the arrow should have for representing the desired escalation level. There is no need to select a specific level or colour if you are happy with the order in which the different-sized arrows and/or their array of colours will appear. Instead, you could just select [Next Level] and/or [Next Colour], respectively, which would automatically pick the next indication item in the relevant list.
For either field, if you were to keep the default setting of [No Change], activation of this escalation trigger would have no effect on the relevant aspect of the displayed indicator, allowing the previously set arrow length or colour to persist.
a call list) when this escalation trigger is activated. Any specific condition setting you may select here will, on activation of this escalation trigger, set the condition indicator for the call to the corresponding urgency level. Visually, a condition indicator would consist of a geometrical icon (circle, triangle, square or clock) in the chosen colour, followed by a textual label. If you were to keep the default setting of [No Change], activation of this escalation trigger would have no effect on the condition displayed, allowing the previously set condition for the call concerned to persist.
Note that, if you were to leave the call-condition setting for all escalation triggers at [No Change], you would make call conditions completely independent of escalation levels. This is what you would have to do if call conditions are to be interpreted as priorities that you expect analysts to set manually.
28. If you are configuring a fix trigger, you may want the escalation-level or call- condition indicator to change only if the response timer has stopped. In that case, check the relevant option in the appropriate area.
29. Click Update or OK, depending on whether or not you made any changes. 30. Repeat step 19 to step 29 for each additional response or fix trigger you wish
to create and configure.
31. Click Apply, and then click OK. Notice that the new SLA is displayed in the list, which means that a new SLA record has been created.
32. Click Close.