Defining business schedules for calculating service targets

Business time segments specify the hours or days to be included when calculating business schedules or availability. If the time segment is unavailable, the time period is not considered when calculating the status of a service target. You can create a one-time segment or a recurring time segment. The following are examples of time segments:

  • Support normal business hours (recurring time segment)—available 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday to Friday
  • Declared holidays (one-time segment)—unavailable on the 4th July 2007

As a case business analyst, you can also define multiple time segments and associate them to a single shared business entity that you associated with a service target. The service target calculates the due date or time by including or excluding the time segments defined in the business entity. This ensures that the date and time of the service target is calculated based on actual work hours and days. For example, to calculate the service target based on normal business hours, excluding region-specific holidays, and a company event, create a recurring time segment for business hours, a recurring time segment for region-specific holidays, and a one-time segment for the company event. Create a shared business entity and associate all three time segments to it. Finally, add the business entity to the goal of a service target.

To create a business time segment

  1. Log in to BMC Helix Business Workflows and click Gear icon.PNG.
  2. Click Service Level Management > Business Time Segment.
  3. To create a new business time segment, click iconBusinessTimeSegment.PNG.
  4. On the Add Business Time Segment page, enter a Description for the time segment, such as Zone A working hours.

  5. Complete additional fields for the time segment as explained in the following table: 

    Field

    Description

    Enable

    By default, Yes is selected. You cannot modify this value.

    Availability

    Select the time segment type:

    • Availability—Include the time period when calculating the service target.
    • Unavailability—Exclude the time period when calculating the service target.

    Status

    Select one of the following options:

    • Draft—The time segment is work in progress, and not available for use.
    • Published—The time segment is available for use.
    • Remove—The time segment is marked for deletion and will be removed by the system nightly escalation.

    Notes:

    • To associate a time segment with a service target, it must be in Published status. 
    • If you change the status of a time segment to the Draft status, exiting cases continue to use the time segment for service target calculation.

    Duration Type

    Select one of the following options:

    • One-Time — A one time activity that can span multiple days, such as Business unavailability from 25th Dec to 1st Jan every year.
    • Recurring — A recurring activity that must be scheduled within a 24-hour period and cannot span multiple days, such as a time segment for normal working hours between 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.

    Timezone

    Select a timezone for your time segment.

    When a business time segment is applied, the application adjusts the time to match the specified time zone before calculating the service target.

  6. Click Next. 
  7. Enter the required details based on the duration type.
    • If you selected One Time, enter the start and end dates and enter the times for your segment. For your end date, to set the end time for End of Day, select Yes.

    • If you selected Recurring, enter the following details: 

      Field

      Description

      Start Date/End Date

      Select a date range to include or exclude the defined recurrence.

      Recurrence Type

      Select a recurrence type for calculating the time:

      • Dates—Calculate the time for the selected dates. Enter one or more dates separated by a semicolon, such as 01/24/09;01/25/09.
      • Daily — Calculate the time every specified number of days, such as every 4 days.
      • Weekly — Calculate the time every specified number of weeks on the specified days, such as every 3 weeks on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
      • Monthly — Calculate the time for the:
        • Specified day of every specified month, such as the 24th day every 3 months
        • Specified week day of a specified number of months, such as the second Tuesday every 3 months.
          This could also be used to define quarterly activities.
      • Yearly — Calculate the time for
        • The specified day of the month, such as every 5th of April.
        • Every specified week day of a month, such as every 2nd Tuesday of April.

      End of Day

      Select Yes to set the end time to 11:59 P.M.

      Criteria

      Recurrence Type: Dates

      • Select Date(s)—Select a date and click Add. You can add multiple dates.
      • Start Time/End Time—Select the start time and end time to calculate the hours for the selected dates. The SLA calculation considers the time between the start time and end time for the selected dates.


      Recurrence Type: Daily

      • Repeats every n day(s)— Enter the number of days.
      • Start Time/End Time—Select the start and end time to calculate the hours for the selected days.


      Recurrence type: Weekly

      • Repeats every n week(s)—Enter the number of weeks.
      • On these days—Select the days of the week.
      • Start Time/End Time—Select the start and end time to calculate the hours for the selected days.

      For example, to calculate the time for every 2nd and 4th Saturday of a month, select the following values:

      • Repeats every n week(s)—2
      • On these days—Saturday
      • Start Time/End Time—9:00 AM - 5 PM


      Recurrence type: Monthly

      • Repeats every n Month(s) - Enter a monthly recurrence number criteria.
      • Specific Day—Select the days of the week, and the weeks of the month to include in the calculation.

        • On this Day—Select the days of the week to include in the calculation. 
        • Week—Select the weeks of the month the selected days should be included in the calculation. 
      • Specific Date—Select a date which should be on which the time should be included in the calculation.


      Recurrence type: Yearly

      • Specific Day—Select a combination of the months of the year, the week in a month, and the days of the week to include in the calculation.
        • On this Day—Select the days of the week to include in the calculation.
        • Month—Select the months of the year the selected days should be included in the calculation.
        • Week—Select the weeks of the month the selected days should be included in the calculation.
      • Specific Date — Select the month and date for which the time should be included in the calculation.
  8. Click Finish.

To define a shared business entity for combining multiple business schedules

You can define multiple time segments. After you create your time segments, you must associate them to a shared business entity.

  1. Log in as a case business analyst and click Gear icon.PNG.
  2. Select Service Level Management>Business Time Shared Entity.
  3. Enter a title and select a status.
  4. Click Save.
  5. Double-click the business time shared entity to open the record.
  6. In the Edit Business Time Entity pane, click iconBusinessTimeSegment.PNG.
  7. In the Relate Business Time Segment pane, select the time segments you want to relate to the service target.

To use the time segments to calculate a service target, associate the business time shared entity to a service target.

Where to go from here

Configuring-service-targets

 

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