Service Level Agreements

Who, what, when, where and why.

On the who, list the responsibilities of both the service provider, and the customer.

What - what will you support, what will you not support? What are the service levels, and what are the time expectations for resolution of each?

When - what are your hours of service? Can the customer contract for extra service outside of the timeframe? How long does the agreement last?

Where - Does the agreement cover specific geographic locations?

For Why, I would substitute how. How does the customer contact your organization? How does the service provider contact the customer? How do disputes get resolved?

I dont have any samples I can give you but I have written several. I would suggest that you have to not try and fit one mold - one SLA doesn't fit all situations. I've seen some that were one page tables, and others that were hundreds of pages.

Hope that helps.

James

Hi,

One good place to start is to read up on the ITIL best practices standards for IT service delivery. They have industry guidelines on establishing SLA's. From experience, you could begin to look at levels of priority based on the need ranging from immediate response to a regular standard response.

Hope this helps.