A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a document that identifies the agreed-upon services that will be provided to the organization or department from a service provider. An SLA identifies customer expectations and defines the boundaries of the service, stating agreed-upon service level goals, operating practices, and reporting policies.
The purpose of a Service Level Agreement is to define the following:
the time period that the SLA covers
the services that are being made available to what customers.
the levels of service and the quality of service that the customer should expect. Analysis of the response time and completion of request indicates the quality of service.
the service window and expected time to complete.
the costs to provide the defined levels of service.
the method of delivering the service
the method of monitoring and reporting on performance. (For example, if you are using surveys to gauge performance, the surveys are tied into the elements of the SLA,)
a schedule for reviewing the SLA and making necessary changes.
The commitment is usually focused on the amount of time allowed to respond to or to complete a standard service request. For example, the time to respond to a broken toilet is one hour, whereas the time to respond to broken light bulb may be eight hours.
The SLA also helps to automate and define the workflow, such as how to assign a vendor or employee to complete the task. The SLA determines the flow of handling of a service desk or maintenance request.
In the ARCHIBUS Service Desk, Preventive Maintenance, and On Demand applications, Service Level Agreement documents are translated into rule sets that define all SLA parameters. The system is then able to route and direct service requests according to the rule mechanisms of the corresponding SLA.
This involves two levels of definition:
Note: A service contract with a service provider (internal or third-party) can consist of several SLAs.