How do I create standard coverages?

The standard coverage acts as a template that contains entitlement rules, which specify when milestones are due and for what conditions.

For example, high severity help desk requests may have earlier milestone times, and use a schedule with longer work hours and fewer holidays, than lower severity help desk requests.

1. On the Subscription Configuration page, click Entitlements Management > Standard Coverage.

   The Manage Standard Coverage page is displayed.

2. Create a new coverage and select HR Service Request Subscription Entitlements or Internal Service Request Subscription Entitlementsas the Entitlement Type.

   The Edit Standard Coverage page is displayed.

   Note:

   If you're using Service Contracts, then you navigate to this page by clicking Navigator > Contract Management > Contracts > Tasks > Standard Coverage. Then select Contracts Service Entitlements as the Entitlement Type.

3. Select Actions > Add Entitlements to configure the entitlement rules structure. The Entitlement Rules dialog box is displayed.

   Help desk request severity is automatically included as a condition column. If you want to vary milestones based on the help desk request channel, optionally, select Channel Type as an optional condition column.

   1. Click Next, and select all optional results columns to display all available metrics and thresholds.

      You can optionally select only one of the milestones and its threshold if applicable. For example, if help desk requests that apply to this coverage shouldn't have a first response milestone tracked, you can deselect First Response Metric and First Response Warning Threshold from Optional Results Columns.

   2. Click Finish to apply the entitlement options and complete the configuration of the entitlement rules. The Edit Standard Coverage page is displayed.

4. Add entitlement rules for this coverage.

   1. In the Entitlement Rules section, click the Add Row icon.

   2. Specify the Condition Columns (Severity, and if selected, Channel Type).

      This row is applied when the help desk request values match the condition column values specified here.

      The algorithm applying milestones to help desk requests requires that coverages never have more than one row with condition columns that match the help desk request. If you leave a condition column value blank, the null value acts as a wildcard, and then is matched against any help desk request value. While there are valid scenarios where this can be used, it's important to avoid having two lines that could match the same help desk request.

      The following table shows an example of a valid use of a null value in standard coverage condition columns:

      • In this valid example, a help desk request with high severity will only match line 1, regardless of the channel.

      • A help desk request with low severity will only match line 5, regardless of the channel.

      • The medium severity help desk request can only match one of lines 2 through 4, depending on the channel type.

      Line Number	Severity	Channel Type
      1	High	Blank
      2	Medium	Phone
      3	Medium	Email
      4	Medium	Chat
      5	Low	Blank

      The following table that shows an example of an invalid use of a null value in standard coverage condition columns:

      • This invalid example shows a situation where the medium severity help desk request with a phone channel matches lines 2 and 4.

      • Similarly, a medium severity help desk request with the email channel matches lines 3 and 4.

      • In both cases, the help desk request won't have any milestones applied because more than one line from a single coverage matches the help desk request.

      Line Number	Severity	Channel Type	Comments
      1	High	Blank
      2	Medium	Phone	Medium, Phone would match this line
      3	Medium	Email	Medium, Email would match this line
      4	Medium	Blank	Medium, Phone would also match this line Medium, Email would also match this line
      5	Low	Blank

      To configure the behavior of null values in a coverage, select the Allow Null and Null is Wildcard check boxes for the selected matrix class. You will find these check boxes on the Edit Matrix Class: Subscription Entitlements page, Condition Columns section. For more information about using these properties on condition columns, see the section "Set Up Additional Condition Columns for Standard Coverage Entitlement Rules".

   3. Specify the Result Columns (Calendar, along with the metric and threshold values for each milestone).

      1. From the Calendar drop-down list, select the coverage schedule to use for calculating the milestones' due date.

      2. For each milestone, enter the metric in minutes, which is used with the schedule to identify when the milestone is due.

      3. Enter the corresponding threshold value in minutes. This threshold specifies the number of minutes before expiration that the milestone's WarnedFlag is set to Y.

   4. Click Save.

   5. Optionally, you can add multiple entitlement rules to a standard coverage.

      Each entitlement rule row is checked against the help desk request values, and if a help desk request matches all condition column values, that rule's milestone results (values and schedule) are used to calculate the milestone due date.