Service Level Agreements
Ensuring that customers have a clear understanding of services when they choose them helps set expectations and ensures that users have a good experience of the service. Information Technology Services spells out in "Service Level Agreements" the service delivery expectations for services as they are being rolled out. Service level agreements define the service, its availability, any maintenance times, and what customers and support staff are responsible for.
Beginning July, 2008, service level agreements are being completed for existing services. These documents are published as they become available for each service. Agreements for each service are listed below and can also be found on the service subsite.
Critical Services Assessment Criteria
Each service is assigned a degree of criticality: Critical, very important, or important. This allows ITS to prioritize resources and restore the most critical services first, should downtime ever occur.
Criteria for determining a service's criticality are as follows:
- Connection to mission
- Number of users
- Volume of activity
- Interoperability
- Compliance
- Downtime impact
Some services may not be deemed as critical today, but they may be deemed “strategic services.” A strategic service is one in which we must invest in today because we expect it to become very important or critical in the next 2-3 years.
Grades
To provide greater accountability and measure performance, services that have SLAs are graded periodically by customers and service managers against their measures. The results are summarized and also available in a detail view. All services are asked these questions. In addition, service managers have the option of providing additional information specific to their service in the Comments field.
Weighting of customer questions
| This service meets my needs | 15% |
| The availability of this service met my expectations | 22.5% |
| The communication about this service met my expectations | 15% |
| The resolution of problems on this service met my expectations | 15% |
| I understand the roadmap for this service | 10% |
| I am satisfied with this service | 22.5% |
Weighting of service manager questions
| The service met SLA requirements | 15% |
| The availability of this service met SLA expectations | 22.5% |
| The communication about this service met SLA expectations | 15% |
| The resolution of problems on this service met SLA expectations | 15% |
| The roadmap for this service is up-to-date and reflects the future path | 10% |
| As the manager of this service, I am very satisfied | 22.5% |
