Contracts are the agreements signed between the service provider and the contract party specifying the provision of a service to the contract party (a customer, an internal provider or an internal receiver and provider), including the metrics that define the service level objectives. Contract parties can have multiple contracts, one for each service the contract party receives, with each contract containing its own set of metrics. In addition, multiple versions of the same contract can exist, providing that only one version is effective at a given time. Contract versions provide the flexibility required to reflect changes made to the service level logic and targets over time. Changes can be made by changing fields and parameters in the objective statements. A version also indicates the current status of the contract within its life cycle.
CA Business Service Insight provides extensive contract life cycle management for version control of contract where a contract can be modified throughout the life cycle of the contract. contract can be modified and important historical data concerning the contract is saved.
The Audit Trail mechanism tracks all changes made in the life cycle of a contract including specific changes, who the changes were made by, and when they were made. This enables contract managers to tightly monitor and manage the changes in the contract's life cycle.
Templates and service level templates facilitate the process of creating contracts.
Contract approval workflow provides an approval process that enables routing specified contracts to certain personnel for approval prior to the contract being committed and gives service level managers the ability to preview contracts before they are committed to the system as the final version.
Contract sections provide a structure for storing metrics. Permissions can be set for viewing, editing or deleting the content of each section. For example, a customer can be granted permission to see the Contractual section only.
Every new contract has three default sections:
For metrics with contractual aspects (obligations with a customer)
For metrics with financial aspects such as penalties (incentive) and prices of a contract.
For metrics that measure technical and internal aspects of the contract. For example, to perform a measurement about something that the customer is not concerned (there is no obligation for this measurement), such as measuring the availability of a server.
The section names can be customized and sections can be disabled.
Note: To obtain additional sections, contact CA Support.
The metrics of a contract are divided between these sections according to the functionality and purpose of the metric. Each section allows storing of metric types. Metric types represent the types of metrics that can be used per section. When a new metric is created, a metric type must be defined. The metric type must conform to the section being worked in.
Note: To change section to which a metric type is related, contact CA Support.
Metric types define the behavior of the attributes seen in the metric details. A standard report with several metric types in the report can be created. The metric types are:
Calculates consumption. Used mainly for the financial module. By using this metric type, it is possible to see in the reports the consumption and the prices separately. The consumption can be calculated as well in the Price Item metric.
Replaces the penalty of previous versions. Used as penalty (if it is in minus) and as a bonus (if it is in plus). for example, the charge of a client is now price + incentive (where incentive contains bonus and penalties)
Without a target. Can contain Service but it is not mandatory.
This metric type is not reportable (a metric of this type does not appear in the report wizard). Used for intermediate calculations only that are used by other metrics. The use of this metric type is to centralize the logic and for performance purposes.
Can be used as a technical obligation in the IT field or as an SLO in the Telecom field. In the migration process it is possible to define:
The Target field is not mandatory for KPI.
This is actually a score. This is an indicator, which is an aggregation of other metrics. It shows the overall performance of a contract. The main use of this metric type is when using event reusability, since it is usually based on other metric's results. The Service and Target fields are not mandatory.
Note: The main indicator of a contract is usually of this metric type.
Calculates the prices. The prices can be based on the consumption or defined as fixed prices. The consumption can be calculated by the Price Item as well or retrieved as an intermediate event from the consumption metric.
With a target. This Metric type has the Service field and an obligation as mandatory.
Note: To add or disable a metric type, contact CA Support.
When viewing a contract, the default section opens with its metrics. It is possible to navigate between the contract's sections by selecting the section tab. Each tab displays the metrics of the selected section. The last tab (All Metrics) displays all the metrics of the contract.
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