Operational Level Agreements

An operational level agreement (OLA) defines the interdependent relationships among the internal support groups of an organization working to support a service level agreement (SLA). The agreement describes the responsibilities of each internal support group toward other support groups, including the process and time-frame for delivery of their services. The objective of the operational level agreement is to present a clear, concise and measurable description of the service provider's internal support relationships. An operational level agreement helps ensure that activities performed by a number of support team components are clearly aligned to provide the intended service level agreement.

If the underpinning operational level agreements are not in place, it is difficult for organizations to go back and engineer agreements between the support teams to deliver the service level agreement. Operational level agreements must be seen as the foundation of good practice and common agreement, the sum of which may contribute to a service level agreement.

For example, your organization might have a team that provides email services to clients and a team responsible for providing web hosting. In this case, you would have an operational level agreement between the Web Hosting team and the Email Service team.

View Operational Level Agreements

1.

Log into the Service Desk Console as the service owner and open the Operational Level Agreement workspace. A list of agreements appears.

2.

Double-click an item from the list to view details.

Create Operational Level Agreements (OLAs)

Create an operational level agreement after creating a team. See Creating a Team.

1.

Log into the Service Desk Console as the service owner and open the Services workspace. A list of services appears.

2.

Double-click the service to which you want to associate the operational level agreement to view the service details.

3.

Choose the Team tab. A list of linked teams appear.

4.

Click Link. The team list window appears.

5.

Choose the team you want (such as QA or Sales), then click Select. The team appears on the list.

6.

Click Save from the toolbar.

7.

Choose the Service Agreements tab. A list of agreements appears.

8.

Choose New Record Menu > New Operational Level Agreement. The New Operational Level Agreement window appears.

New Operational Level Agreement

9.

Enter information into the fields.

--fields--

Field	Description
Title	This field is automatically populated by the system after you select a team.
Description	A brief description of the agreement.
Team	The provider team. Select from the drop-down list.
Owner	The provider owner. Select from the drop-down list. These values are derived from the selected team.
Status	The initial status setting from the drop-down list. The default value is Draft.
Service	This field is automatically populated based on the selected service.
Hours of Operation	This field is automatically populated based on the selected service. Or select an option from the drop-down list.
Compliance Target (%)	The percentage of completion that is required to fulfill the target.
Start Date End Date	The start and end dates of when the agreement is in effect.
Review Date	The date in which the agreement is to be reviewed.

10.

Under Attachments, click Add to attach an external file, or click Paste from Clipboard to attach an item you have copied into the clipboard.

11.

Click Save.

The agreement now appears under the Service Agreements tab and in the Operational Level Agreements workspace.

Publish Operational Level Agreements (OLAs)

After an operational level agreement has been created, it must be published to be put into effect.

1.

Log into the Service Desk Console as the service owner and open the Operational Level Agreement workspace. A list of agreements appears.

2.

Select the agreement you want to publish, then from the Action Menu, select Publish Agreement.

Select an Operational Agreement

The agreement appears on the list with the status of Published.

Make an Operational Level Agreement (OLA) Obsolete

Operational level agreements are automatically set to a status of obsolete when the end date occurs. However, you can prematurely set an operational level agreement to obsolete as needed. Obsolete operational level agreements are no longer considered in the service package business rules.

1.

Log into the Service Desk Console as the service owner and open the Operational Level Agreement workspace. A list of agreements appears.

2.

Select the agreement you want to publish, then from the action menu, select Obsolete Agreement.

The agreement appears on the list with the status of obsolete.