The Role of OLAs in IT Service Management: Everything You Need to Know

The competitive market that we work in demands the deliveries to be of superior quality. Not only this, but things should also get completed on time, and the final product should meet all the requirements listed. For all this to happen, every member of each team associated with the project has to work efficiently. They must work in collaboration with each other and rely on the documentation that helps them stay connected with each other.

The organizations must monitor the performance indicators and key business services. It will help make the teams quite efficient, working smoothly to yield the best results. The three key components significant here are:

• SLA (Service Level Agreement)
• OLA (Organizational Level Agreement)
• UCs (Underpinning Contracts)

We will discuss the Operational level agreement ITIL in detail to understand what it is and how it can help companies with efficient IT service management.

What is an operational-level agreement?

OLA, or operational level agreement, is a formal contract between the internal support groups working within an organization and the IT service provider. This document outlines all the responsibilities that each party holds and the services they are supposed to provide each other. It has detailed tasks mentioned, so there is no confusion about who is responsible for what. It is pretty clear from the OLA ITIL definition that it is an agreement. But what exactly is the purpose of this agreement?

One purpose of OLA in ITIL is to keep the operations smooth by elaborating the responsibilities clearly. Other than that, its purpose is to:

• Address and resolve all the IT issues any team might face during the project. It sets up defined criteria that every team member would follow and mentions the specific services every member is accountable for.
• Show the internal teams how the organization cares about them. Yes, every company wants to stand tall on the SLA they make with the client but through OLA, they actually give their internal team a pathway to achieve that target.

Companies often prefer hiring experts with thorough agreement understanding so they can follow them efficiently. In the IT Service Management Training Courses, candidates are taught to understand and refer to this document well to yield expected results. It is important to note that you might find the term SLA (service level agreement) in many organizations. That is an agreement between the vendor and its client. However, according to the Information technology infrastructure Library (ITIL), the contract that is a best practice for efficient working should be referred to as an operational-level agreement. o

Components of an OLA

At the fundamental level, OLA is a documentation of the terms and conditions everyone working on the project must follow. Let us discuss the components of OLA ITSM for better understanding.

Overview

There are three crucial tasks that get accomplished in the general overview. What it does is:

• Confirms the purpose of the agreement being made between the two parties.
• Gives a clear outline of the agreed goal.
• The third task is to highlight the document objective.

Other than this, it also contains the start and end date of the OLA in ITSM.

Parties Responsible

The second component of OLA is the list of parties or people involved in the project. It typically includes the stakeholder's names, their titles, and responsibilities in the project.

Services & Charge

This section under OLA in ITSM contains the general service terms and the customer requirements in detail. All this information helps every team member understand the specific tasks they must perform. Additionally, it contains the pricing details to help us understand the budget required for the project completion. It is significant to note here that as pricing gets mentioned in OLA, it gets curated after the initial negotiations are complete.

Roles & Responsibilities of the Team

As the title explains, this section of the OLA template in ITIL contains elaborate roles and responsibilities of the team. It covers the roles and responsibilities of the internal and external parties. For example, if a third party provides the systems the team uses, even their role will get mentioned in the OLA document. 

Hours of Coverage, Response Time & Problems to Address

Operational level agreement template in ITIL also includes details about the operating hours. It specifies the response times of each activity and the steps for escalation. The highlight of the aspects covered under the ITSM OLA are:

• Work Requests
• Service Requests
• Incident Management
• Problem Management
• Service Maintenance
• Service Exceptions

Reporting & Auditing

Under this section, OLA includes the timetable for reviewing and auditing.

These are the detailed components of the operational level agreement ITIL. For everyone working in IT service management, it is essential to follow the OLA document. They can ensure successful project delivery only when they can refer to and follow the document thoroughly. Hence, consider doing a renowned ITIL Foundation Certification Course, which thoroughly trains professionals in all these aspects. It will not only increase your efficiency at work but will help in grabbing the best market opportunities. 

Types of Operational-Level Agreements 

The operational level agreement best practices are an apt combination of other contracts. The idea is to reassure each party involved in the project that their rights will get protected throughout the process. Three types of agreements that get included with the operational level agreement in ITIL are:

1. Service Level Agreement

It is a contract between the service provider and the customer. This agreement specifies the quality of the product to be delivered and the scope of work. Furthermore, ITIL SLA OLA also includes the timeline by which the issues will get accepted and resolved.

2. Operation Level Agreements

It is an internal agreement between the teams and an internal client. It specified the roles of the team members and the details of the stakeholders involved in the project.

3. Underpinning Contracts

The UCs track the performance just like the OLAs. It also defines the scope of work and the detailed services to be covered.

You may need a combination of the two agreements while working on a project. Moreover, some companies may need to create more contracts to ensure the delivery of quality end products.

Examples of Operational Level Agreements

By now, you know every detail about operational level agreements in ITIL. Let us share some OLA ITIL examples for better understanding.

Example 1

Let us take an example of an IT vendor. The ability of a team to perform well depends on the efficiency of the hardware components you provide. Thus, you will sign an operational level agreement for service management between you and the internal client that will specify the work scope in detail. Your agreement will typically include:

• Company X provides the internet SLAs to the external client
• The Company signs an operational level agreement with the database vendor
• The IT vendor must provide a daily uptime of 23 hours (or whatever is the limit for the company).
• Company X can claim any financial damage done due to excessive downtime.

So, as is clear from the hypothetical situation, this agreement is basically a list of promised services.

Example 2

Another example can be an Internet service provider. In any IT project, the use of web services is crucial. Hence, the internet service provider ensures that the team members stay online and get optimum speed to run the processes smoothly. Thus, there will be an agreement between the company and the service provider that states:

• The Vendor will provide internet services to Company X. All the information about the speed and other aspects will be mentioned in detail here.
• The company will sign a contract with the vendor mentioning the remuneration and services they agreed on with each other.
• The company can even claim the financial loss that might happen due to the downtime more than the stipulated value. All these, and many other things are mentioned under the operation level agreement ITIL. It is just an outline of what is included in the agreement. It is a long document. Sometimes, it might even have multiple contracts or agreements between two parties.

Important Tips for Preparing OLAs

By the OLA definition in ITIL and after reading the example, you probably know how it gets curated. To help you gain further efficiency, here are some of the expert tips you can use.

• Always provide a general overview that explains the purpose of the agreement.
• Clearly define the issues that the team has to address.
• Mention the stakeholder details along with their contact information.
• Include the relevant content through visual elements, like diagrams, lists and attachments.
• If there are specific terms of service or conditions, mention all of them boldly.

These are the things you should keep in mind while framing the OLAs. Moreover, you can enroll in TOGAF certification online to learn how to make efficient OLAs.

Relationship between OLAs and SLAs

The two most popular agreements you will learn about are OLAs and SLAs. While SLA explains the promises made to the customers, OLA is a little more practical approach. It helps identify the budget constraints, work scope and other detailed dynamics. The image below gives an idea of how OLAs and SLAs are related.

Typically, an operational level agreement in ITIL specifies the activities to perform in order to meet the UCs, which are a part of SLA. All the promises the vendor makes with the client under the SLA get fulfilled by referring to the OLA.

The review process for the OLA  

Once you have gone through all the negotiations and your OLA is ready, the next step is to check its efficiency. For this, you can run a number of checklists on the templates you have curated. It will help you reduce the issues with your operational level agreement and enable you to deliver superior quality end products. All these activities happen in the review stage, where you check that all the underpinning OLAs meet the targets. You can do so by simply looking at the UC tab in your service level manager.

Conclusion 

In the end, it is fair to say that referring to the OLAs to ensure successful project deliveries is crucial. These agreements are the key factors that help check the performance level of the teams and ensure that the promised services get delivered. Thus, it is fruitful for every company to work on curating the agreements or contracts that the entire team working on the project can refer to to get the best results. So, if you are in a position were working with the agreements or curating them is involved, it is better to join a formal training course where you can learn the skill. It will help you professionally as your career will see exponential growth. Moreover, it will help your organization grow, making you an asset.