An indicator is a rule of a time counter activation specified by proper conditions for starting, pausing, resetting, and stopping this counter. It also determines the time limit for declaring SLA as breached and contains time conditions of a commitment type implementation.
For example, based on your SLA agreement, you can create separate SLA indicators for incidents that are having an impact from Low to Very High and set a separate Breach Time value for them.
When an indicator starts, the system automatically generates an indication, a time counter that tracks current timings and time points of the target service level commitment.
Depending on your business needs, you may need different types of indicators:
- standard – indicator creates indications that start or complete when specified conditions are met, or the duration ends.
For example, the start time is when the task state changes to Assigned. - retrospective – indicator creates indications that count time based on the Date/Time column defined manually. Indications are created for records meeting specified conditions. To use this type of indicator, select the Defined by field option in the Indication start time and specify the field you need.
For example, the start time is the value of the Opened at field, and the indication is created when the task state changes to Assigned.
Role required: service_level_manager.
Creating Indicator
To add a new indicator, please complete the following steps:
- Navigate to Service Level Management → Indicator.
- Click New and fill in the form.
- Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes.
Indicator form fields
Field | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Y | Specify the indicator name. Do not give the same name to indicators when creating them for the same table; otherwise, they will not work correctly if edited or deleted later. |
| Agreement | N | Specify an agreement related to this indicator containing tracking metrics. |
| Commitment type | N | Specify the commitment type for this indicator. Available options:
|
| Table | Y | In this field, select a table to apply the Indicator conditions. After saving the form, the Table field becomes read-only. This is done:
|
| Inheritance | N | Select this checkbox if you are creating an indicator for a parent table, and it is necessary to use it for all child tables. Example The Service Requests table can be thought of as a parent table, and each extended table is a single service request. By enabling this attribute, you can create one indicator for a parent table which will affect every child table created. |
| Active | N | Select this checkbox to make the indicator active or inactive. |
Indication start time | N | Select one of two options:
|
| Start time field | Y | Define the column of the Date/Time type from which indications will be calculated, i.e., an indication retrieves the value for the start time from this column. The field appears if the Defined by field option is selected in the Indication start time field. Note that a retrospective indication counts the value relevant at the time of indicator creation. If the value changes, indications will not be recalculated. |
| Indication breach time | N | Select one of two options:
After saving the form, the Indication breach time field becomes read-only. |
| Breach time field | Y | Define the column of the Date/Time type from which indications will be calculated, i.e., an indication that retrieves the value for the breach time from this column. After saving the form, the Breach time field field becomes read-only. The field appears if the Defined by field option is selected in the Indication breach time field.
|
| Business duration | Y | Set up a business time measure for the SLA to run before it is marked as Breached. The field changes to Minimum duration if the Defined by field option is selected in the Indication breach time field. Note that all day duration (not just business hours) according to the chosen schedule is taken into account. See the calculation samples below this table. |
| Minimum duration | Y | Set a minimum duration that restricts the creation of an indication and its existence. After saving the form, the Minimum duration field becomes read-only. The Minimum duration field appears if the Defined by field option is selected in the Indication breach time field. Please note that all day duration (not just business hours) according to the chosen schedule is taken into account. See the calculation samples below this table. |
| Schedule | Y | Select a working schedule from the list. It determines the working hours that the system uses when calculating the actual duration of the Commitment implementation under certain conditions. To configure this timeline, use the Schedules feature. |
| Timezone | Y | Determine an indicator Timezone. Only active timezones are available to choose from. |
| Timezone source | Y | Select one of the available records from the drop-down list if you need to specify a special timezone bond. The default value is the Indicator timezone. Available options:
|
Indicator inheritance
Please keep in mind that if you create an inherited indicator for a parent table, and a usual indicator for a child table, indications will be created only for a child table.
Also, when creating an inherited indicator for a parent table, please remember that the extended attributes from child tables will not be available there. See the brief illustration below:
On this picture, the table set is displayed:
- The parent table, attribute set is XX
- The child table 1, attribute set is XXYYY
- The child table 2, attribute set is XXYYYZZ
Because attribute inheritance is going top-down, table attributes (such as fields) that extend parent tables will be inaccessible on the lower level. Please note that when configuring conditions of your indicator, make all critical attributes accessible on the top level.
Duration calculations
Example 1
Company A uses schedule "24x7", which means 24 working hours, 7 days a week, and around-the-clock shift-work. If you enter "2" into the days field, this value is converted to 48 working hours or 2 working days. Nothing extraordinary.
Example 2
Company B uses "8x5" schedule , which means 8 working hours, 5 days a week, one of the most common working schedules. If you enter "2" into the days field, this value is converted to 48 hours (because there are 24 hours in a day), which gives 6 working days.
Specifying indicator conditions
To specify the conditions you need to fill in the following tabs:
Field | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Start Conditions | Y | Establish conditions with the Condition Builder to get the Indicator started. The system uses the Table fields as transactional data to verify the conditions. When the transactional data changes, the system checks these conditions. E.g. for incidents, it is appropriate to use Impact as a condition field with one of the possible values – Low, Medium, High, Very High. The When to cancel setting allows to establish a condition to start cancellation by one of the options below:
|
| Cancel Conditions | Y | This option appears when the Cancel conditions are met option is selected in the When to cancel field. Define additional conditions to meet before the indicator cancels. If the system meets these cancel conditions, it ignores the start conditions. |
| Pause Conditions | N | Establish conditions with the Condition Builder to make the indicator pause. The system uses the Table fields as transactional data to verify the conditions. When the transactional data changes, the system checks these conditions. E.g., for incidents, it is appropriate to use Impact as a condition field with one of the possible values – Low, Medium, High, Very High. The When to resume setting allows to set a condition for pause resumption using one of the options below:
|
| Resume Conditions | Y | The field allows defining additional conditions to be met before the indicator has previously paused resumes. In other words, if the system meets these resume conditions, it ignores the pause conditions. This option appears when the Resume conditions are met option is selected in the When to resume field. |
| Complete Conditions | Y | Establish conditions with the Condition Builder to make the Indicator stop. The system uses the Table fields as transactional data to verify the conditions. When the transactional data changes, the system checks these conditions. |
| Reset Conditions | N | Establish conditions with the Condition Builder to make the Indicator reset. The system uses the Table fields as transactional data to verify the conditions. When the transactional data changes, the system checks these conditions. This field is unavailable for retrospective indications (the Defined by field option selected in the Indication start time field). |
If an indication is not on pause when the reset conditions have been met:
- Pause time and its duration are reset.
- Start time is set to the time reset conditions are triggered.
- The breach time and original breach time are recalculated.
- All specifications are recalculated according to the values defined.
If an indication is on pause when the reset conditions have been met:
- Pause time are reset.
- Start time and pause time are set to the time the reset conditions are triggered.
- The breach time and original breach time are recalculated.
- All specifications are recalculated according to the values defined.
