What’s the key to providing reliable IT services?

Documenting and meeting expectations is key to providing reliable services to the community. Through a Service Level Agreement (SLA), a user can view what to expect when using a service.  An SLAs also defines the responsibilities of the user of the service. This year, a balanced scorecard initiative is to define and establish an IT service ownership model that drives commitment and accountability through documented Service Level agreements (SLAs) and service ownership training. The documentation of SLAs will proceed in two phases. 

SLAs are crucial to managing the expectations of services. They document ITS’s responsibilities as the service provider and expectations for the customers’ receiving the service. These include service capabilities, response levels, availability, capacity, maintenance, customer experience, and more. Data from SLAs help ITS prioritize resources and financial spend for continual improvement and further investment. They also foster good relationships between ITS and our university IT partners by providing a consistent framework for meaningful dialogues regarding service needs.

Once we collect the SLA data, the intent is to have it be accessible in the service catalog found on the IT Service Portal webpage.

Service owners will begin reviewing and updating SLAs for their services this month. ITS expects to complete the first phase, covering 26 services, by the start of FY22 and will continue in Phase 2 for the remaining 33 services beginning in the new fiscal year.