Indication

An Indication is a time counter automatically generated when the Indicator start conditions are met. It shows all primary timings, time points, and the current state of the SLA for a particular record (an incident, a request, etc.), which allows for 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 pauses, cancels or stops.

Indication form fields

Field	Mandatory	Description
Indicator	N	An indicator that initiated the start of the indication and started the counter.
Timezone	N	The indication timezone.
Record	N	An original task that induces the SLA counting.
Breached	N	A marker that shows whether SLA has been breached or not.
Astronomical time elapsed	N	Actual time elapsed since the moment of an indication start displayed in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. It is calculated on a regular 24/7 basis. The field itself stores duration in milliseconds.
Astronomical time elapsed in %	N	A ratio calculated by the formula below.
Astronomical left time	N	Actual 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.
Start time	N	Date and time when an indication has started.
Complete time	N	Date and time when a time counter (an indication) stopped.
State	N	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). It works only for the indication whose indicator Breach time value is defined by duration. When the Breach time value is defined by the field, pauses are not taken into account. 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 on	N	The last date and time when the Indication paused.
Pause time	N	The duration of the Indication paused displayed in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. The field itself stores duration in milliseconds.
Business time elapsed	N	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 was started.
Business time elapsed in %	N	A ratio calculated by the formula below.
Business time left	N	Business time left until the SLA breaches displayed in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. The calculations counts the working calendar specified in the Schedule field of the original Indicator. The field itself stores duration in milliseconds.
Breach time	N	A date and time of the SLA breach that the system calculates, taking into the pause duration, or that is taken from the field defined in the Breach time field.
Original breach time	N	Original date and time of the SLA breach, calculated at the moment when the system creates an indication or taken from the field defined in the Breach time field.

Timings and percentages

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

Astronomical time elapsed
Astronomical time elapsed in %
Astronomical time left

and

Business time elapsed
Business time elapsed in %
Business time left

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 consider an example for more clarity.

Create an indicator with the conditions like shown below:

Field	Value
Name	Specify a preferable name here
Commitment type	Resolution Time
Table	Task
Active	Enabled
Indication start time	Defined by condition
Indication breach time	Defined by duration
Business duration	10 minutes
Schedule	24x7
Timezone	Europe/Moscow
Timezone source	Indicator timezone
Start conditions
Condition	State IS In Progress
When to cancel	Do not cancel
Pause conditions
Condition	State IS Ready for deploy
Complete conditions
Condition	State IS Closed Complete

Create a Task record. For this, complete the steps below:
1. Navigate to https://{your_instance_url}/record/task
2. Fill in the mandatory fields. Move it in to the In Progress state.
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 the indication actually started. The Original breach time field is populated with the time when indication 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 1 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 2 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, complete the steps below:

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

Calculation nuances

As mentioned above, the "actual" timing values (that is, the values of the Astronomical time elapsed, Astronomical time elapsed in %, and the Astronomical time left fields) are always calculated on the 24x7 basis, unlike the "business" values (the values of the Business time elapsed, Business time elapsed in %, and the Business time left fields). These fields consider the schedule specified in the parent indicator.

If the specified schedule is invalid or deleted, 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 Astonomical time elapsed (ATE) value is calculated as the difference between the current date and time and the Start time (ST) value.

ATE = NOW - ST

The Astronomical time left (ATL) value is calculated as the difference between the Breach time (BT) value and the current date and time.

ATL = BrT - NOW

After the indication is breached, the Astronomical time left stops calculating (that is, no more time left). Also, the Astronomical time elapsed and Astronomical time left values stored in the Duration format.

The Astronomical time elapsed in % (ATE%) value is calculated by the formula below:

ATE% = ATE/AD* 100 (%).

Business timings and percentages are calculated as given below.

Used values

Value	Formula	Description
Start time (ST)	Absent	Indication start date and time.
Breach time (BrT)	Absent	SLA breach date and time. If the breach time is defined by duration, in pause it is counted every time when the indication is recalculated. It means that mPT is always taken into account in BrT. If the breach time is defined by the field, it does not take mPT into account in calculations.
Pause time (PT)	Absent	Total duration of pauses.
Astronomical duration (AD)	BrT - ST	An actual duration. It is used to calculate the actual time according to the 24x7 schedule.
Indicator duration (D)	Absent	An indicator duration. It is used in business time calculations according to the specified schedule.
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 time elapsed and Business time left values are calculated based on the schedule specified and stored in the Duration format.

The Business time elapsed (BTE) value can be calculated using the formula below:

BTE = (NOW - ST)^SCH - ( PT + mPT) ; The ^SCH means that the formula uses specified schedule when calculating.

The Business time left (BTL) value can be calculated using the formula below:

BTL = (BrT - NOW)^SCH ; The ^SCH means that the formula uses specified schedule when calculating.

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

The Business time elapsed in % (BTE%) can be calculated using the formula below:

BTE% = BTE/D * 100 (%)

The maximum value for BTE% is 999% by default.

Configuring indications

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

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

Property Name	Description
slm.calculation.period.after_breach	Specify the recalculation period for breached indications. The default value is 7200 seconds (2 hours).
slm.calculation.period.before_breach_greater_than_1_day	Specify the indication recalculation period when there is more than one day left before breach.
slm.calculation.period.before_breach_1_day	Specify the indication recalculation period when there are from 6 hours to 1 day left before breach.
slm.calculation.period.before_breach_6_hour	Specify the indication recalculation period when there are from 2 to 6 hours left before breach.
slm.calculation.period.before_breach_2_hour	Specify the indication recalculation period when there are from 30 minutes to 2 hours left before breach.
slm.calculation.period.before_breach_30_minutes	Specify the indication recalculation period when there are less than 30 minutes left before breach.
slm.calculation.max.actual_elapsed_percentage	Specify the percentage value for the Astronomical time elapsed in % field after which the indication stops recalculation. This value should be greater or equal to 100%. The default value is 1100%.

Page tree

Indication

Timings and percentages

Calculation nuances

Configuring indications

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