Standard and Enhanced SLAs in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015: How To Maximize Your Usage

Service level agreements (SLAs) are designed to set clear expectations for a company and its customers when service or support is required. When a customer service team tracks its work in the context of SLAs, there are often a range of complex rules and processes that must be defined and managed to ensure all involved parties are giving and getting what they should.

Starting with CRM 2013, Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been releasing an improved set of SLA tools. While the improvements have been broadly welcomed, they also introduce new challenges related to measuring business performance, monitoring customers, managing processes, and, ultimately, verifying compliance with SLA rules.

An SLA managed in Dynamics CRM 2015 can depend on such factors such as attribute of the customer, e.g., premium or high-value customers get one type of service level, while lower value customers get another type. Or the SLA can be based on an attribute of the case, e.g., a high-priority case gets a certain type of service level that's different from the service level provided to a lower-priority case.

There are two types of service level agreements in Dynamics CRM 2015: standard and enhanced.

Standard SLAs were introduced with the spring release of Dynamics CRM 2013. The standard SLA lets you take actions if "First Response By" and "Case Resolved By" values are not met. You can also set up Dynamics CRM to send warnings if the thresholds for these fields are approaching. In the standard SLA, you have to add a timer on the form manually. But you can't pause the timer functionality when a case is on hold.

The enhanced SLA in Dynamics CRM 2015 lets users take more nuanced actions like pausing an SLA when a case is on hold, add ...