SLA Percentage Timer action

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  • Updated February 1, 2024
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    Summary of SLA Percentage Timer action

    The SLA Percentage Timer action within Flow Designer allows users to monitor when a task's Service Level Agreement (SLA) reaches a specific percentage and execute additional actions based on that status. This can be beneficial for automating notifications or other responses as SLAs progress towards completion.

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    Key Features

    • Percentage Calculation: Set a positive integer to define when the SLA timer should trigger. For example, 50% of a 24-hour SLA would trigger at 12 hours.
    • Scheduled End Date/Time: This indicates when the SLA timer is expected to end based on the defined percentage.
    • Status Updates: The SLA Percentage Timer provides various statuses including Completed, Paused, Repair, Skipped, and Waiting, enabling flow designers to create tailored logic for each state.
    • Total Duration: This tracks the total running time of the action until it reaches the Completed status.

    Key Outcomes

    By effectively utilizing the SLA Percentage Timer action, ServiceNow customers can enhance their workflow automation. This feature allows for precise tracking of SLA progress, timely notifications, and improved incident management, ensuring that service levels are met efficiently.

    General Guidelines

    • Only add the SLA Percentage Timer to flows triggered by SLA tasks.
    • Create conditional logic based on the expected Status values to manage flow behavior appropriately.
    • Assign unique Wait for percentage values to each SLA Percentage Timer action to avoid simultaneous completions.
    • Utilize existing flows as templates to streamline customization efforts.

    Identify when a task SLA record reaches a specific percentage value and perform other actions or flow logic that is based on the SLA percentage. For example, send a notification when an SLA percentage timer completes.

    Roles and availability

    Available as a Flow Designer ServiceNow core action. Users with the flow_designer or admin role can add an action to a flow and define configuration details.

    Fields

    Field Description
    Percentage The positive integer percentage of the total SLA duration used to compute an end time. For example, a 50% percentage results in the system computing an end date-time value that is 50% of the total SLA duration. If an SLA requires tasks to be completed within 24-hours, then 50% of that SLA would be 12 hours.

    Scheduled End Date/Time

    The Scheduled End Date/Time output data pill lists the computed time that the SLA percentage timer action is expected to end. The computed end date is determined by the input Task SLA record and the input Percentage. This date/time value is independent of any elapsed time field values in the Task SLA record.
    • If the end date is in the future, the system creates a system event to continue running the action at that future date. While the system waits for the scheduled end date, it pauses the flow and action.
    • If the end date is in the past, the system immediately sets the Status of the SLA Percentage Timer action.

    Status

    The Status data pill contains the result of the SLA percentage timer.

    Table 1. SLA Percentage Timer status descriptions
    Status Description
    Completed The timer action reached its scheduled end date/time. Flow designers can build specific flow logic for this action status.
    Paused The timer was paused before its scheduled end date/time. If the timer resumes running, Flow Designer generates a new scheduled end date/time value. Flow designers can build specific flow logic for this action status.
    Repair The flow is running in repair mode, and the scheduled end date/time is in the past. Flow designers can build specific flow logic for this action status.
    Skipped The timer did not run because the scheduled end date/time is in the past. Flow designers can build specific flow logic for this action status.
    Waiting The timer is running and has yet to reach the scheduled end date/time.

    Flow Designer sets the action status when the SLA state matches an SLA condition or when certain UI actions are selected.

    Table 2. Action status set for SLA state
    SLA state Action status set Flow run state
    SLA attaches and the scheduled end date/time is in the future. Set action status to Waiting. The flow waits until the SLA timer completes, is cancelled, or is paused.
    SLA attaches and the scheduled end date/time is in the past.
    • If the flow was started in Repair mode, set action status to Repair.
    • Otherwise, set action status to Skipped.
    		 The flow runs the next action or flow logic in the flow sequence.
    SLA Cancels. Set action status to a null value. The flow stops with a state of Cancelled.
    SLA Pauses. Set action status to Paused. The flow waits until the SLA Task flow is cancelled or is resumed.
    SLA reaches Scheduled End Date/Time. Set action status to Completed. The flow runs the next action or flow logic in the flow sequence.
    SLA Resumes. Set action status to Waiting. The flow waits until the SLA timer completes, is cancelled, or is paused.
    SLA Stops. Set action status to a null value. The flow stops with a state of Cancelled.

    Total Duration

    The Total Duration data pill lists the total number of seconds that the action ran. The total duration is computed from the action start time and the time when the action reached the Completed status. Status values other than Completed produce a null value Total Duration.

    General guidelines

    Follow these general guidelines when creating flows that contain Service Level Agreement (SLA) Percentage Timer actions.

    Add SLA Percentage Timer actions only to flows with an SLA Task trigger
    An SLA Percentage Timer action can only run when the flow starts from an SLA Task trigger. You cannot activate a subflow containing an SLA Percentage Timer action.
    Create conditional flow logic for expected Status values
    Use the value of the Status field as a condition for flow logic. Build flow logic for expected Status values such as Completed, Repair, and Skipped. For example, add an If flow logic block to send a notification when the SLA Percentage Timer has a status of Completed.
    Assign each SLA Percentage Timer action a unique cumulative Wait for percentage value
    Each SLA Percentage Timer action computes its own Scheduled End Date/Time using its Wait for percentage value. If you create multiple SLA Percentage Timer actions, give each action its own unique cumulative Wait for percentage value. For example, create three separate actions with different percentage complete values such as 25%, 50%, and 75% complete. Setting all three actions to the same percentage complete value such as 25% causes the timers to complete at the same time.
    Copy existing flows to make customizations
    Reduce development time by copying the default SLA flows and customizing the copies with your own logic. Select a customized flow to run from the SLA definition. See Create an SLA definition .