SLA vs OLA

[lucij716]

I am in the process of creating a SLA or an OLA. Our company is just starting to incorporate ITIL. Can someone explain to me which one I should do. And what would be the best wayto do it?

This is what I am trying to accomplish.

I am trying to create something that will establish a timeline on submission of New Hire paperwork, which comes from the business, to the completion time of new employee set up in the systems.

Is there a template that I can use?

Thanks

[itilimp]

Hi there,

First of all there is a difference between the two things, so quick explanation of where each fits in. If I've made a mistake someone please jump in as I'm still relatively new to ITIL myself!

SLA (Service Level Agreement)
These are between IT and your customers (internal or external) and worded in business terms for them to understand.

OLA (Operational Level Agreement)
These are with the internal teams that support the services that are detailed in the SLA above, wording is of a more technical nature and considers what actually needs to be in place technically for the service to be delivered, e.g. server x running at 90% capacity between the hours of 9am and 5pm.

In my limited experience internal staff who have been doing their job for years do not like the idea of OLAs. The question you will need to ask yourself if can you meet any obligations laid out in a SLA without an OLA?

Contracts
These are effectively external OLAs that you have with third parties outside the organisation who support the services that are detailed in the SLA.

Normally you'd start with the identifying the services being provided, the level of support required by the user/customer and negotiating a level that can actually be achieved by a combination of internal support and/or external support.

Now moving onto your specific example...
In our organisation we have a workflow setup whereby the business has to complete an electronic form with the relevant information which is automatically distributed to the relevant people for further information etc. before reaching IT. It is supposed to reach us a minimum of 3 working days before the new user starts. There is nothing in our SLA regarding this however. You may well want to make it a customer responsibility.

There are number of SLA templates out there. Here are some links for you. If you google 'SLA template' you'll see a lot more, some good and some not so!

Internal SLA template from NextSLM
Naomi Karten's tips on SLAs
SLA zone

Hope that helps a little.