Defining milestones and actions for availability service targets


Step 4 of 4 of the service target wizard is optional step in which, if you are not using a template, you can define milestones for your service target.

Milestones are notification mechanisms to make sure that service target commitments are being met. You can define a set of milestones to trigger at certain points as you progress towards the service target goal. For example, you can create a milestone to notify your manager if the service has not been restored before 50 percent of the service target goal has elapsed.

Warning

If you try to update more than one milestone action and save the service target without a build action, you will receive a unique index violation error message explaining the current state of the data. For example: "Unique index violation on schema: SLM:Milestone, entry: 000000000000495, 1 unique index(es), field(s): 179." After you build the service target, those duplicate milestone actions are deleted and you no longer receive the index violation error.

Before you begin

See the following topics before you begin this step:

Defining-service-targets

Defining-measurement-criteria-for-availability-service-targets

To create milestones

  1. In the Milestones area, click Add.
  2. From the Select drop-down menu, select Custom > New Milestone.
  3. Click OK.
  4. In the Title field, enter a brief title of the milestone or select from an existing template.
    Do not include any parentheses in the milestone title.
  5. In the Description field, enter a description for the milestone.
  6. From the Execute If list, select from the following criteria:
    • Availability %—Keeps an asset or service available during a certain percentage of time. For example, IT commits that a group of servers are up and running 90 percent of the time for a period of six months. Specify the operator and the percentage time.
    • Down Time—Tracks the duration that an asset or service was unavailable. The service target can track the number of hours that an asset has been up and running or down and nonfunctional. The goal of the service target is not to exceed the committed amount of down time. Specify the operator and the time in hours and minutes.
    • Down Count—Tracks the number of times that an asset or service was unavailable. The goal of the service target is not to exceed a certain number of down occurrences. For example, an asset cannot be down for more than five times in a period of six months. Specify the operator and a number for the down count.
  7. Create more equations to form a more complex qualification.
  8. Click OK.

To specify actions for milestones

You must specify at least one action to trigger when the milestone is reached. Add as many actions as you want. To change the order in which the actions need to trigger, highlight the action and click Up or Down.

Before you begin

Create a milestone to associate an action.

  1. In the Actions section, click Add.
  2. In the Select field, from the drop-down menu select to define a custom action or select from the available action templates.

    Custom action

    Description

    New Alert or Email

    This action allows you to send an email or alert notification to prompt for some action if the service target or the agreement is at risk.

    New Pager or Run Process

    This action allows you to page or run processes by entering a command line statement.

    New Push Fields

    This advanced action allows you to push information from the Applies To form for which you are creating the agreement to another form on the same server.

    New Set Fields

    This advanced action allows you to pull information from other forms to be set in the form for which you are creating the agreement.

    New Set Value

    This advanced action allows you to specify what value to place in a certain field on the compliance form.

  3. Click OK and begin defining your actions accordingly.

Where to go from here

Configuring-service-targets

 

Tip: For faster searching, add an asterisk to the end of your partial query. Example: cert*