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Indication


An Indication is a time counter automatically generated when the Indicator start condition is met. It shows all primary timings, time points, and current state of the SLA for a particular record (an incident, a request, etc.), which allows tracking the level of the service quality target indicators.

To check the active service level indications, navigate to Service Level Management → Indication.

When creating an Indication record, the system also fills in the fields of this record. Time points and timings are also automatically recalculated when the indicator counting pausescancels or stops.

The Indication form

FieldMandatoryDescription
IndicatorNAn indicator that triggered the indication creation and started the counter.
TimezoneNThe indication timezone.
RecordNAn original task that induces the SLA counting.
BreachedNA marker that shows whether SLA has been breached or not.
Actual Elapsed TimeNActual time elapsed since the moment of an indication creation displayed in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. It is calculated on a regular 24/7 basis. The field itself stores duration in milliseconds

Actual Elapsed Percentage 

N

A ratio calculated by the formula below.

Actual Left TimeNActual time left until the SLA breaches displayed in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. It is calculated on a regular 24/7 basis. The field itself stores duration in milliseconds.
StageN

The current state of an indication specified with one of the values below:

  • In progress – an indication is active and the counter is on.
  • Paused – an indication pauses when the system meets an indicator pause condition. In this case, the Breach time value increases by the pause time duration (or the total pause duration in case if the indicator has been paused more than once).
  • Canceled – an indication cancels counting when the system meets an indicator cancel condition.
  • Completed – an indication counter stops when the system meets stop condition, the SLA is not breached.
Pause onNThe last date and time when the Indication paused.
Pause TimeNThe duration of the Indication paused displayed in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. The field itself stores duration in milliseconds.
Business Elapsed TimeN

Business time elapsed since the indication creation moment in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. It counts the working calendar specified in the Schedule field of the original Indicator. The field itself stores duration in milliseconds.

This field displays how much business time has passed since the task creation.

Business Elapsed PercentageN

A ratio calculated by the formula below.

Business Left TimeN

Business time left until the SLA breaches displayed in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. The field itself stores duration in milliseconds.

Timings
Start TimeN

A date and time when the system has created an indication.

Complete TimeN

A date and time when a time counter (an indication) stopped.

Breach Time

NA date and time of the SLA breach, which the system calculates, taking into the pause duration.
Original Breach TimeNOriginal date and time of the SLA breach, calculated at the moment when the system creates an indication.


Timings and percentages


The indication record contains two field sets containing timing information related to the task. These are:

  • Actual Elapsed Time
  • Actual Elapsed Percentage
  • Actual Left Time

and

  • Business Elapsed Time
  • Business Elapsed Percentage
  • Business Left Time

The difference between these values is that the "actual" values are always calculated on the 24x7 basis and the "business" values take the schedule specified for the related indicator into account.

Let us consider an example for more clarity.

  1. Create an indicator with the conditions like shown below:

    FieldValue
    NameSpecify a preferable name here
    TableTask
    ActiveEnabled
    Duration10 minutes
    Schedule24x7
    TimezoneEurope/Moscow
    TimezoneIndicator timezone
    Start conditions
    ConditionState IS Registered
    When to CancelNever
    Pause conditions
    ConditionState IS Postponed
    Complete conditions
    ConditionState IS Closed complete
  2. Create a Task record and move it to the Registered state. For this, please complete the steps below:

    1. Navigate to https://{your_instance_url}/record/task
    2. Fill in the mandatory fields.
    3. Click Save or Save and Exit to apply changes. An indication started.

The Start Time field of the indication is populated with the time when it actually started. The Original Breach Time field is populated with the time when it is to breach. This value is calculated by summarizing the indication start time and the related indicator duration.

Consider a case that an indicator uses a popular schedule "8x5" (5 working days for 8 hours). Using this schedule, the difference between actual and business timings can be considerable.

For example:

An incident raised at 2 pm on a working day. The indication start condition is defined as "State IS In Progress", and indication complete condition is defined as "State IS Completed". So the incident was taken to work on 3 pm (the indication started), and it was completed on 11 am on the next day (the indication completed). So, its business elapsed time was 5 hours, while the actual elapsed time was 21 hours.


To check the incident indication, please complete the steps below:

  1. Open the incident form.
  2. Scroll down to the Related Lists area and open the Timepoints Indication tab.
  3. Open the indication record you need to check.

Calculation nuances


As mentioned above, the "actual" timing values (that is, the values of the Actual Elapsed Time, Actual Elapsed Percentage, and the Actual Left Time fields) are always calculated on the 24x7 basis, unlike the "business" values (the values of the Business Elapsed TimeBusiness Elapsed Percentage, and the Business Left Time fields). These fields consider the schedule specified in the parent indicator.

  • If schedule is not specified, then the 24x7 schedule is used for calculations.
  • A schedule is applied based on the timezone specified in the parent indicator.

In formulas below, NOW stands for the current date and time.


The Actual Elapsed Time value is calculated as the difference between the current date and time and the Start Time value.

AET = NOW - ST

The Actual Left Time value is calculated as the difference between the Breach Time value and Indicator Duration value.

ALT = BrT - NOW

After the indication is breached, the Actual Left Time stops calculating (that is, no more time left). Also, the Actual Elapsed Time and Actual Left Time values stored in the Duration format.

The Actual Elapsed Percentage value is calculated by the formula below:

AE% = AET/D*100%, where D is for Indicator duration.


Business timings and percentages are calculated as given below.

ValueFormulaDescription
Start time (ST)AbsentIndication start date and time.
Breach time (BT)AbsentSLA breach date and time.
Pause time (PT)AbsentPauses total duration.
Indication.Duration (D)AbsentAn indication duration.
mPT(NOW - Paused On)^SCH

Pause duration for now (if an indication is paused).

The ^SCH means that the formula uses specified schedule when calculating.

The Business Elapsed Time and Business Left Time values are calculated based on the schedule specified and stored in the Duration format.

The Business Elapsed Time value can be calculated using the formula below:

BET = (NOW - ST) - ( PT + mPT)

The Business Left Time value can be calculated using the formula below:

BLT = ((BrT + mPT) - NOW)

After the indication is breached, the Business Left Time stops calculating (that is, no more time left).

The Business Elapsed Percentage can be calculated using the formula below:

BE% = BET/D * 100 (%)

The working time consumption rate is calculated to 999% by default.

Indications recalculation


Sometimes indicators may no longer be valid (for example, after the cancel conditions were met). This happens because the indicator (and the indication as well) originally started with other conditions, and after that, a new indication is to be started with the same Commitment.

To simplify this process, indication recalculation was implemented.

How it works (example)

  1. An indication started, equal to four hours according to the relevant indicator.  
  2. Three hours later, due to meeting the cancel conditions, the indication has been canceled.
  3. A new indication is started.
    1. The business_elapsed_percentage parameter from the canceled indication is used to make an equation like 0%<business_elapsed_percentage <100%.

    2. If the value of this parameter meets the condition, then the new indicator duration equates to (indicator.duration*(business_elapsed_percentage/100)).

An indication is recalculated only when two conditions are met:

  1. new_indication.duration < old_indication.duration
  2. The old indication was not breached.

If any of these conditions were not met, then indication recalculation is not used, and the new indication start time is the same as that of the canceled one (new_indication.started_at = old_indication.started_at)

All these activities are logged in the History (sys_history) table. To acquaint with them, please navigate to System Logs → History and open the record that is the entry of interest.

Configuring indications


There are system properties that allow setting indication records such as breach time and recalculation period. To set them, please do the following steps:

  1. Navigate to System Properties → All Properties.
  2. Find the property you need to edit using the list search boxes or the Condition Builder and open it.
  3. Edit the Value field.
  4. Click Save or Save and Exit.
Property NameDescription

slm.calculation.period.after_breach

Specifies the recalculation period for breached indications.

slm.calculation.period.before_breach_greater_than_1_day

Specifies the indication recalculation period when there is more than one day left before breach.

slm.calculation.period.before_breach_1_day

Specifies the indication recalculation period when there are from 6 hours to 1 day left before breach.

slm.calculation.period.before_breach_6_hour

Specifies the indication recalculation period when there are from 2 to 6 hours left before breach.

slm.calculation.period.before_breach_2_hour

Specifies the indication recalculation period when there are from 30 minutes to 2 hours left before breach.

slm.calculation.period.before_breach_30_minutes

Specifies the indication recalculation period when there are less than 30 minutes left before breach.

slm.calculation.max.actual_elapsed_percentage

Specifies the percentage value for the Actual Elapsed Percentage field after which the indication stops recalculation. This value should be greater or equal to 100%.


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