Campus Service Level Agreements

This is a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the Creighton campus community and the Division of Information Technology to document:

• The technology services the Division provides to the campus.
• The general levels of response, availability, and maintenance associated with these services.
• The responsibilities of the Division as a provider of these services and of customers receiving services.
• Procedures for requesting service.

This Agreement is valid from 1/1/2016. Review is every two years, or as otherwise needed.

2.1 Service Scope

Campus SLA:

• Defines a general level of predictability for the Division communication and services.
• Reflects how the Division does business today and the direction it is heading.
• References the Division Service Catalog at doit.creighton.edu for clear service level descriptions.
• Describes how work will be prioritized and predicts response times including a single outage notification process.
• Includes reporting on service levels.
• See service based agreement in Learning Environments for classroom and lab information.

2.2 Assumptions

• Services, access to services and accountability measures provided by the Division are clearly documented in the Service Catalog. The Division Service Catalog is continually updated with additional service information regarding what services are offered, how to get services, how to get help for services and if applicable, how much services cost.
• Planned outages to services are communicated and documented to all stakeholders via the Change Advisory Board (CAB) process.
• Services are provided in adherence to any related policies, processes and procedures. See the Division's Service Catalog for policies related to a service.
• Compliance with university and campus IT policies and guidelines including (but not limited to):
  • Acceptable Use Policy
  • Data Classification Policy
  • Cloud Computing policy
  • Security Incident Reporting
  • University Policies can be found at: https://www.creighton.edu/generalcounsel/cupolicies/

3.1 Parties - The following Principal Officers are parties to the Agreement

 Sr. Vice President of Operations

Russ Pearlman – Information Technology VP and CIO

 

3.2 Division of Information Technology and Library Services' Responsibilities

Responsibilities and/or requirements of myIT in support of this agreement include:

• Meeting service delivery commitments outlined in the Division's Service Catalog.
• Meeting response times associated with the priority assigned to incidents and service requests.
• The Division implements defined processes to meet service level commitments.
• Generating quarterly reports on service level performance.
• Appropriately notifying clients of all scheduled maintenance via the CAB Maintenance Calendar, Division web page and/or a communication to campus via the distribution lists.

3.3 Customer Responsibilities

Customer responsibilities and/or requirements in support of this agreement include:

• Using the defined processes for requesting help and services.
• Monitoring the Maintenance Calendar and notifying the Division of forthcoming local events with IT dependencies. Customers can call x1111 or send email to servicedesk@creighton.edu) with related dependencies for local events.
• Responding to inquiries from Division staff who are resolving incidents and handling service requests.
• Complying with campus and CU security policies, available at http://DoIT.creighton.edu. Security requirements may also be included on individual Service Catalog pages.

A service request means a request is made by a customer to the Division for a service as published in the Service Catalog. There are seven methods of contacting the Division for requests.

4.1 Online IT Request using the myIT portal

By utilizing the web, your request will be automatically associated with your division and visible to technicians. Request made via the web interface will be processed during normal hours of operation. Using the myIT interface is the most efficient method to log and process service requests.

4.2 Phone 402-280-1111 or 1-800-329-1011

Phone service is available during regular hours of operation. Messages left during off hours will be processed the next business day.

4.3 Email (servicedesk@creighton.edu)

Email request will be processed during regular business hours, M-F 8AM to 5PM. These email requests are tracked as incident and request tickets in the myIT Request system.

4.4 In-Person

In-person service is available during regular business hours of operation in the lower level of the Reinert Alumni Library, M-F 8AM to 5PM. Individual service pages may indicate additional in-person locations or hours for that specific service.

4.5 Work orders

Services that utilize work order or web forms on the Division website will be processed from date of receipt of the completed form.  Examples include requests for telecom support or server provisioning.

4.6 Your Divisional Liaison or Technology Coordinator

Contact your Technology Coordinator (TC) for services not listed in the Service Catalog. The contact information for each TC is located at TBD.

4.7 Online CHAT

This is available during normal business hours from the Division home page at doit.creighton.edu.

4.8 Technology Project Requests.

Any request for IT resources that is categorized as a project should be submitted from the following link:

https://doit.creighton.edu/services-provided-doit/project-management-off...

For more information about project requests, and the definition of a project, please go to

https://doit.creighton.edu/project-management-office-pmo

For all requests, the Division's goal is to have a staff member assigned and acknowledge requests within 4 business hours of receipt. Campus priorities may require exceptions to this goal during certain times of the academic year.

5.1 Hours of Coverage

• The Service Center hours of operation are 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday – Friday except federal holidays, university holidays, and announced University closures. Customers may use any of the methods of contact as stated in Section 4.
• Contracts with a third party service provider to receive incidents and requests for critical support for priorities P1 through P4 (see table on page 5).  For valid high urgency calls, the vendor will engage myIT resources as appropriate.
• Tickets via the web interface and email can be sent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and are processed on the next business day. Using myIT portal is the most efficient method to log and process service requests.
• Division staff respond to off-hours unplanned outages of an urgent nature P1 through P3 (see table on page 5) using a service disruption escalation process.
• See the Service Catalog for specific hours of coverage for individual services or your Departmental Service Level Agreement for local hours of coverage for local services.

5.2 Response

For responses to incidents, the Division goal is to assign and acknowledge requests within 4 business hours of receipt. Many services have faster response times; please refer to the service catalog web page for individual response times. An incident means any interruption in the normal functioning of a service or system.

For incidents that generate a large amount of tickets, a mass mailing may be sent out using the “myIT-Alerts” distribution list in lieu of an individual response.

5.3 Prioritization

If you consider your incident request urgent, contact the Service Desk at 402-280-1111 and select option 4. This will ensure your ticket is routed as quickly as possible. Examples of urgent incidents include reporting a service outage or reporting an impact to patient care or instruction.

For reference, the Division has a set of criteria to prioritize a request as urgent based on a global campus view of IT needs. Incoming incident are prioritized as an urgent priority if it meets any one of the following criteria:

• Significant risk to life and safety.
• Significant impact on the delivery of instruction.
• Significant or lasting impact on student academic performance.
• Significant risk to law, rule, or policy compliance.
• Academic and Administrative Calendar deadlines.
• Significant number of people affected.
  
  • Organizational structure is a multiplier for number of people affected.
• Percentage of total tasks that can no longer be performed by individuals.

The following chart is the actual reference used by the Division service professionals to properly categorize service impacting incidents.

 

SLA Priority sorted by priority
IMPACT	URGENCY	Priority	SLA (hours)
Entire University	Work Stopped - No Workaround	P1	4
Entire University	Work Stopped - Workaround Available	P2	9
Multiple Departments	Work Stopped - No Workaround	P2	9
Entire University	Work Impaired	P3	18
Multiple Departments	Work Stopped - Workaround Available	P3	18
Single Department	Work Stopped - No Workaround	P3	18
Entire University	Work Not Impaired	P4	27
Multiple Departments	Work Impaired	P4	27
Single Department	Work Stopped - Workaround Available	P4	27
Individual	Work Stopped - No Workaround	P4	27
Multiple Departments	Work Not Impaired	P5	43
Single Department	Work Impaired	P5	43
Individual	Work Stopped - Workaround Available	P5	43
Single Department	Work Not Impaired	P6	none
Individual	Work Impaired	P6	none
Individual	Work Not Impaired	P7	none

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.4 Escalation

If you are not satisfied with the level of service on a request, contact your Technology Coordinator or the Service Desk Director at 402-280-1111. They will categorize and process your input as appropriate and respond to you with the action taken.

5.5 More Information

If you have a question, contact the Service Desk via phone (402-280-1111), email (servicedesk@creighton.edu), or myit.creighton.edu. The Service Desk will route your ticket to the appropriate area.

The Change Management process within the Division(CAB) minimizes unintended service disruptions or other impacts to the campus as a result of changes in the production environment. The Division does this by monitoring, managing, and evaluating changes to maximize the service benefit to the customer, while minimizing the risks involved in making those changes.

6.1 Maintenance Calendar

All IT-related service outages are published in the Division's Maintenance Calendar located on the  Web site at http://DoIT.creighton.edu. The Division's Maintenance Calendar currently serves as the official outage and maintenance schedule. Scheduled maintenance is not included in the calculation of availability metrics.

Campus departments and schools are responsible for monitoring the Maintenance Calendar and notifying the Division if local events would be impacted. In most cases, the Division's IT Communication Strategist is responsible for communicating service outages and changes to the Division, service groups, and the campus when necessary. Off-hours service failures are communicated the following business day.  Your technology coordinator will also make sure each department is aware of major changes to their technology services.

There are two categories of service outages:

• Planned Outages: A planned service outage is work that is planned and scheduled at least two weeks prior to the scheduled date. The Division's IT Communication Strategist communicates (as needed) to the appropriate audience a minimum of one week prior to the scheduled outage.
• Unplanned Outages: An unplanned service outage is work that is unplanned due to an unforeseen event or urgent repair to prevent failure. Unplanned service outages are given priority (and communicated immediately) on a case-by-case basis depending on the type and urgency of the service failure.

 

6.2 Guidelines for Maintenance Windows

A maintenance window is a defined period of time during which planned outages and changes to production (see definition below) services and systems may occur. The purpose of defining standard maintenance windows is to allow clients of the service to prepare for possible disruption or changes.

The Division encourages all service and system managers to negotiate a maintenance window with their customers via a Service Level Agreement (SLA). If a service does not have a negotiated maintenance window (via an SLA or equivalent) the following guidelines apply:

• Planned outages should be performed each week between 10:00 PM Friday night and 4:00 AM Saturday morning. Work scheduled outside of this window should have explicit sign-off from the system steward or designated client representative.
• Planned outages and changes should not be scheduled during the first day of instruction, the last day of instruction through finals, the day grades are due for the academic quarters, student orientation week, fiscal year end close, during commencements, or other significant campus events.

Production means university staff, faculty and users depend on the service to complete business and academic tasks and objectives.

Major upgrades to a service are treated as projects outside the scope of this service level agreement. Funding for major updates is negotiated on a service-by-service basis.

The Division does not normally charge back for shared technology services to Creighton departments and employees.  However, there may be exceptions within the various service-based agreements for custom services.  As an example, an hourly rate for servicing non-Xerox printers is NOT charged.  See the Desktop Support Service Based Agreement for more information.

8.1 System Performance and Availability Reporting

Quarterly performance and availability reports will be published for review.

• First-contact response to incidents and service request is based on information from myIT (Easy Vista). It will include information by division, service and response time.  Most requests will receive an automated response as soon as it is received.
  Target: 90% response time in less than 4 business hours (averaged).
• Resolution of service tickets is based on information from myIT (Easy Vista). Hours are counted as clock hours, weekends excepted.
  Target: 80% of tickets closed within SLA goal (averaged).
• Outage metrics measures planned vs. unplanned outages and their associated root causes.  The Change Management Metric is the ratio of unplanned outages caused by failed changes compared to total outages.

     Target: Ratio of unplanned to total maintenance events: 20%; Unplanned Outages due to failed changes <9 per quarter.

8.2 SLA Reviews

The Designated Review Owner (Document Owner) is responsible for facilitating regular reviews of this document. Contents of this document may be amended as required, provided mutual agreement is obtained from the primary stakeholders and communicated to all affected parties. The Document Owner will incorporate all subsequent revisions and obtain mutual agreements / approvals as required.

Designated Review Owner: jD Rummel, Director
Previous Review Date:
Next Review Date:

Rev. 12/16/2015