Creating agreements

An Agreement is a written agreement between a customer and the service desk that defines the levels of service that are delivered to the customer by the service provider and the actions to be taken in specific circumstances. The service desk and the customer define, negotiate, agree, and monitor levels of service. Agreements allow you to track performance and progress against your commitments so that you can react quickly to ensure that the goals defined in the agreements are met.

You can create the following types of agreements:

• SLAs – These agreements are made with internal or external customers. Internal customers include the vice president of a company or the line of business manager. External customers are those customers external to the IT service providers. Both internal and external customers want information about whether the agreements are being met. They also need to know whether the service has changed over a period of time and whether any penalties are owed for poor performance.
• OLAs – These agreements are used to measure data to track internal processes.
• UCs – These agreements are used to track performance against a pre-arranged agreement that your service team has with an external service provider, usually a third-party vendor.

The following video (2:41) provides an overview of Service Level Management which enables you to track Service Targets and Service Target Notifications.

https://youtu.be/DROd9iAa16o

To create an agreement

1. Click the Remedyforce Administration tab.
2. On the Home page, click the Manage Workflows and Other Processes tile, and from the menu select Agreements.
   Alternatively, you can also navigate to Remedyforce Workspaces > Service Level Management > Agreements.
3. In the agreements list view, click New to open a new Agreement form.
4. In the Agreement Title field, type the title of the agreement.
5. In the Description field, type a description of the agreement that you want to create.
   After saving the record, use the Documentation tab in the Supporting Information section to attach a file or document that provides detailed information about the agreement that you want to create.
6. In the Agreement Type list of the General Information tab, select the type of agreement.
7. To select the service that is delivered to the customer in this agreement, click Service.

8. In the Select from Business Services window, click the required service.

   Note

   If you have created the agreement without selecting a service and account or you have not selected a service, but selected all accounts (by selecting the Agreement applies to all accounts option), ensure that you set up at least one condition for the service target in the Qualification tab. Agreements without service are applied to the records meeting service target criteria and those records might contain a service. If a service is selected for the record, the service must not be used in other agreements.

9. To select accounts that are the customers of this agreement, perform the following actions:

   1. Click Account.
      If the current agreement is applicable to multiple accounts or to all accounts, you can select the appropriate option in the Select Accounts for the Agreement window that opens. This field helps you to avoid creating separate agreements for each account.

      Note

      To create an agreement that is applied to all problems, leave the Account field blank.

   2. To create an agreement for all accounts, select Agreement applies to all accounts.
   3. To create an agreement for selected accounts, select Agreement applies to selected accounts.
   4. In the Available Accounts list, select the required accounts.
      You can make the agreement available to a large number of accounts at one time. You can also search for a particular account by entering the search criteria in the Search field and clicking Search. You can use the * wildcard character to match one or more characters at the end of your search criteria, but not the beginning or the middle of your search criteria.

   5. To move the selected accounts from the Available Accounts list to the Selected Accountslist, click the right arrow.

      Note

      You can add or remove a maximum of 5000 accounts.

   6. (Optional) To remove the accounts that are no longer part of the agreement, select the accounts in the Selected Accounts list and click the left arrow to move the selected accounts from the Selected Accounts list to the Available Accounts list.
   7. Click OK.
      The Accounts column in the agreements list view displays the following depending on the option you select:
      • Multiple -- If you select the Agreement applies to selected accounts option and select multiple accounts
      • All – If you select the Agreement applies to all accounts option
      • <Account name> – If you select the Agreement applies to selected accounts option and select a single account
      • Dash (-) – If you do not select an account, the agreement is applied to all incidents, service requests, tasks, problems, and change requests.
        If you select the Agreement applies to all accounts option, the All Accounts text, is populated in the Accounts field to indicate that the agreement applies to all accounts. If you select the Agreement applies to selected accounts option, the applicable accounts are populated in the Accounts field. You can clear the values in the Account field by clicking Undo next to the Account field.
10. In the Effective From field, select the date when the agreement is effective.
11. In the Effective Until field, select the date when the agreement ends.
12. In the Scheduled Review field, select the date when the agreement is scheduled for review.

13. To select the support hours when the agreement is effective, click Support Hours.

    Note

    If you configure support hours for a service target, the service target's support hours override the support hours of the agreement.

14. In the Select from Business Hours window, click the business hours that represent the support hours of the agreement.
    The system administrator configures the business hours for your organization. Navigate to Setup > Company Profile > Business Hours to configure the business hours of your organization. For more information about configuring the default business hours for your organization, see Salesforce Help.
15. To select the staff member who is the owner of this agreement, click Agreement Owner.
16. In the Select from Staff window, click the required staff member.
17. In the Service Targets tab, create the service targets of the agreement.
    For more information, see Creating service targets, milestones, and email templates.

18. Click Save.

    Note

    You must save the agreement before you can add related SLAs, OLAs, and UCs. For more information, see Linking related agreements to an agreement.

19. After you have created the agreement, you can add supporting information for the agreement.
    For more information, see Managing supporting information for agreements.

(Optional) To designate the current record as inactive, select the Inactive check box.
You might need to make a record inactive because the record is no longer valid, but the record must be retained for compliance with the records retention policy. For example, if the agreement has been reviewed and is no longer applicable because the account of the agreement is not an existing customer of the service desk.

The following video (4:40) shows how to troubleshoot an issue with SLA.

https://youtu.be/sThrL7f3e9U