Services without SLAs?

[Tylor Hagerman]

Services without SLAs?

I've been trying to figure out the best way to design some services where there isn't really an easily definable SLA due to the nature of the service.  These are usually something like a project request.  We have many like this, but a concrete example is a service to request new services in RC.  Depending upon what is being asked for, it may take anywhere from a week to several months  to complete the request.  Our latest attempt to configure this in RC was to say that the service was to "schedule" the request, which we could better control a SLA for that.  But users find it confusing that we close out the request without actually completing their request.  The request to schedule seems too subtle for the users.  The other downside is that we then have to track the work in a different place as we've marked all of the requests as completed once scheduled.  Has anyone else found a good solution to this issue?  It doesn't seem right to set an arbitrary 6 month SLA or something like that.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[James Fuller]

Hey Tylor,

This certainly is a struggle.  We're implimenting a service that will have our full cycle of milestones as tasks.  This will allow for the submitter to see where in the cycle their request is at and it will allow for us to better track our work.

From an SLA standpoint, you're right.  The best we've been able to do is put the longest timeframe we would expect on the service and make sure we communicate to the customer the actuals during requirements gathering.  This information will