DEC'24 UPDATE: Now on VIDEO
Recently helped a customer begin an SLA & Catalog Overhaul. The main need was to start setting real expectations with customers. The teams were very used to negotiating due dates, but not yet ready to commit to known timelines for a given service. So for certain Catalog Items we started driving SLA performance with Due Dates. This solution will work for any task type that operates more on Due Dates than Priority durations (or any other fixed duration framework).
SLA DEFINITION
The important details here ..
- Duration Type: MUST be "Breach on Due Date". This will force your SLA record to adopt the Due Date as its planned end point.
- You would pick whatever's most appropriate for the source of the schedule and the source of timezone.
START CONDITIONS
- Start Conditions when the due_date is not empty and active is true. "But Uncle Rob, what if the Due Date changes!?" Don't worry! We'll get to that.
- Set Start should be your Created Date (unless you have another easily accessible date field that stands in for "official beginning")
- Cancel Conditions when the State is Closed Incomplete or Closed Skipped. That doesn't happen often for RITMs, but it will save you for the rare workflow that compensates for that. Don't want those SLAs counting if the work isn't worth completing.
PAUSE CONDITIONS
Oops! No such thing as Pause Conditions if your Duration Type is Due Date.
STOP CONDITION
Stop Condition defines your "graceful closure", so this will be when the RITM is Closed Complete.
RESET CONDITION
So unlike incidents (who cancel when the start conditions stop being true) we need a different way to identify when to create a DIFFERENT SLA. This is due to start conditions not having "Changes" as an operator (le sigh). Reset Condition to the rescue.
If you've never used these (and not many have), a Reset Condition will stop the existing Task SLA and start a new one if the conditions are still true.
- Reset Condition: when Due Date changes and is not empty. Since changing the due date still makes the Start Condition true, a new SLA will be created for the new due date. But what to do with the current Task SLA?
- Reset Action: Cancel Existing Task SLA. Don't want our old promises ticking away on new ones!
BOOM
No more tracking resolution performance multiple different ways depending on the task type.
Now you can drive all resolution performance on SLAs.
