Service Level Commitment

Incident Submittal, Service Request, and Response

Overview

This document sets forth ASCO’s commitments and expectations for the provision of services to ASCO staff. The Service Departments (IT Department and Office Services) will provide support for ASCO’s Enterprise Systems, websites, staff supporting resources, and resolution of Service Desk requests.

The Service Desk represents the commitment to communication, transparency, and partnership to all ASCO staff. This document will also provide guidance for ways in which ASCO staff can interact with the Services Departments to ensure their needs are efficiently and effectively met.

Terminology

Term

Definition

ASCO Staff

Includes ASCO, CLQ, CCF staff, as well as Vendors and Contractors who perform services for ASCO. In addition to 3^rd party approved requesters.

Service Departments

IT Department and Office Services

Business Hours

The hours designated as normal business in ASCO (8:30 AM – 5:00 PM), Monday through Friday, excluding holidays.

Extended Hours

A half-hour before and an hour after the normal business hours of ASCO. (8:00 AM – 6:00 PM), Monday through Friday, excluding holidays.

Off-Hours

Hours outside of normal and extended business hours. (6:00 PM – 8:00 AM).

Impact

The effect the incident has on the service.

Urgency

The criticality of timing in fixing this issue.

Priority

The precedence of a request in the queue.

Requirements Specific tasks that must be completed by the agent (person or team performing the work) in order for the ticket to be deemed complete.

Service Desk

The application used to manage the service incidents and requests for ASCO Staff.

Service Level Agreement

A shared agreement between two work groups that detail the scope of support, service level scope and agreements.

Requests

A request for services or incidents.

Work Methodology

The approach the Service Department will take to fixing the incident.

Table 1: Terminology used throughout this document.

Goals & Objectives

This commitment will ensure proper elements and commitments are in place to provide consistent day-to-day maintenance, service support, and delivery to ASCO staff by the Service Departments. Specifically, the goals are to provide:

Consistent support for all incidents and requests.
Clear and concise communication for all incidents and requests.
An understanding that support and implementation of applications will be handled by the Service Department Team Lead on a case-by-case basis. These requests will require support of ASCO IT Software Development Teams and will not be included in the commitment.

The goal of this commitment is to obtain mutual agreement for the provision of services between the Service Departments and ASCO staff, with particular emphasis on the following objectives:

Provide clear reference to service ownership, accountability, roles, and/or responsibilities.
Present a clear, concise, and measurable description of service provision to ASCO staff.
Match perceptions of expected service provision with actual service support and delivery.

Periodic Review

This commitment should be reviewed at a minimum once per fiscal year; however, in lieu of a review during any period specified, or in the event no changes are required, the then-current commitment will remain in effect until modified.

The IT Department serves as the document owner of this commitment and is responsible for facilitating regular reviews. Contents may be amended as required, provided mutual agreement is obtained from the primary stakeholders and changes are communicated appropriately. The IT Department will incorporate all subsequent revisions and obtain stakeholder support and approvals as required.

Owner: IT Department

Review Period: Annually

Previous Review Date: 1/31/2024

Next Review Date: 08/10/2024

SERVICE LEVEL COMMITTMENT

The following detailed service parameters are the responsibility of the Service Departments.

Service Scope

Service Requests. The Service Desk is used to make requests for needed resources required to complete work-related activities and access to production systems. The service requests are for ASCO issued software, hardware, access to member-supporting and member-facing systems and applications.

Incident Reporting. The Service Desk is used to report ASCO Staff application, system, and network incidents. An incident is an unplanned interruption to the services provided to ASCO Staff. The incidents are captured and worked on based on the priority of the incident. Incident priority is driven by the incident impact to staff and the urgency of the request. Based on these two items a priority will be assigned.

Delivery in Scope/”Scope Creep”. Requests made and detailed in the ticket will be fulfilled so long as it is feasible and within the scope of the ticket. Requesters should ensure that all requirements are included and that their request is complete in the initial ticket request.

This means that staff should not respond to resolved or closed tickets with additional requirements and should instead open a new ticket for their request. Additional requirements not related to the ticket should also be addressed in a separate ticket.

Examples of Projects where this instance applies:

Project

Hour Cap Applies

Restructure the section of the website with new pages, content, and photos.

Yes

Removing a paragraph from a webpage and updating a pdf.

Creating a new section of the website.

Yes

Updating several webpages with new content.

ASCO has a new program to promote, and the request is part of a large campaign. ASCO has never done this type of work before.

Yes

Request to mockup a webpage to see what functionality exists.

Yes

Examples of Service Requests and Incidents

Service Request

Incident Reporting

I need a new mouse.

My mouse isn’t working any more.

I need a new laptop.

The links on ASCO.org disappeared and they were there this morning.

Sally needs access to MS CRM.

I see an error when I login to MS CRM.

John needs the Adobe installed.

I can’t work in the COI system, but it was working this morning.

Table 2: Examples of reported incidents and service requests.

Service Level Priority Definitions

Priorities help align expectations as to how work will be scheduled. The table below describes the various priorities within the Service Department, and how requests will be classified.

Priorities are a combination of an incident’s impact and urgency. Each incident created will give the staff member an opportunity to select the impact and urgency of the request. Based on the selections made, a priority will be assigned. Priorities will be reviewed and adjusted after the Service Department reviews the request. If a request priority is adjusted, the ASCO staff member will be notified of the change. Priorities shift from time to time based on the organizations’ needs and strategic direction, as well as the severity of other requests received from time to time. In all cases, the Service Department will provide regular updates on the status of open requests.

Urgency

Priority Legend

High

Medium

Low

Urgent

Impact

High

Medium

Low

Table 3: Priority Matrix used to set the priority for Incident Reporting.

Urgency determines how soon the incident should be resolved. Impact determines the impact the incident has on the service in question. Urgency and Impact result in Priority. It is assumed to be Low unless the urgency and impact are updated during the time the incident is created. After the incident is received, the Service Desk reserves the right to adjust the impact and urgency of the incident. The table below gives a few examples of setting urgency and impact.

NOTE: After the incident ticket is received, the Service Desk reserves the right to adjust the impact and urgency of the incident-based chart below.

Impact

Low

The office printer isn’t working.
I can’t get the battery out of my mouse.
MS Teams is slow to open documents.

Medium

Internet in the office is slow and it’s affecting my work.
The Finance System isn’t printing any invoices.
My department can’t access Adobe.

High

The internet in the office isn’t working.
My laptop won’t turn on.
VDI isn’t available. This causes the Finance system to not be available for the Finance Department.
MS CRM is not available.

Urgency

Low

This change will affect me and the business sometime next December.

Medium

This incident will affect the business later today or tomorrow.

High

This incident has already affected the business and we are now doing damage control to staff and members.

Table 4: Incident Impact and Urgency examples to assist in selecting the correct impact and urgency.

Priority

Work Methodology

Urgent

Work to begin immediately to resolve the issue.
Work will continue until the system, site or application is available.
Work will be done during normal, extended and off-hours.

High

Work will continue until the issue is resolved.
A workaround will be established as soon as possible.
Work will be conducted during normal business hours.

Medium

Work will be conducted during normal business hours.

Low

Work will be conducted during normal business hours.

Table 5: Priority definitions for each urgency and impact combination.

Incident & Service Request Timing

Understanding the priority of the incidents is helpful for staff to know when their incident will be worked on by the Service Desk agent. Each incident will be worked on based on the priority of the incident relative to the other incidents in the service desk queue.

The Service Department will adhere to the service response times listed in Table 6.

NOTE: Initial Response does not equal resolution.

Priority

Request Acknowledgement

Initial Response

Urgent

0 - 1 Hour

0 - 2 Hours maximum

High

1 Hour - 4 Hours

2 - 4 Hours maximum

Medium

4 Hours - 1 Day

4 Hours - 2 Days maximum

Low

4 Hours - 1 Day

2 Days - 3 Days maximum

Table 6: Service Request Timing table for responses from Service Desk agents.

Ticket Escalation

Tickets that require further investigation or need to be escalated to tier 2/3, may require additional information and time spent on the ticket.

For tickets that require input from a vendor, the agent on the ticket shall shepherd the work and is responsible for updating the ticket.

Tickets that need to be escalated to the ASCO development team (JIRA), the ticket will be escalated and evaluated on a different timeline and delivery schedule than what is outlined in this document. The delivery times of the ASCO development team are determined on a different scale. Tickets need to be groomed and assigned to a sprint before they can be worked on. Tickets are subject to the development team's schedule, resource availability, and organizational priorities.

The expectation will be that escalated service desk tickets will be closed as duplicates and the requestor will be given the JIRA ticket number to follow up on the work. Due dates are considered, but the requestor should not expect the same turnaround times in the service desk.

Service Desk Communications

The Service Departments will communicate with ASCO Staff promptly as shown in the table. Sometimes, the Service Department may contact ASCO Staff via email, chat, or phone for clarification. This is in addition to the communications listed below:

Submission of requests or incidents.
Request status is changed.
Request is resolved.
Request is closed.
Request is to be escalated to JIRA or to another team.

**Note: Requests that are resolved but not closed will be automatically closed after 72 hours.

Service Department Responsibilities

The Service Department’s responsibilities under this commitment include:

Achieving response times associated with service-related incidents or requests.
Appropriate notification to the ASCO staff member for all scheduled maintenance. The Service Department will notify ASCO staff with at least 2 weeks’ advanced notice of scheduled maintenance that might affect relevant systems.
Appropriate communication to requestor of any delay or scope breach in the request.
Appropriate communication to requestor of the ticket being escalated or sent to another team and a description of the impact it may have on the timeline for delivery.
Proper classification and distribution of all reported incidents.
Tracking ticket aging for all reported incidents and service requests.
Verifying the system is operational in production.
Closing the request after confirmation of resolution by ASCO staff.

ASCO Staff Responsibilities

ASCO staff’s responsibilities under this commitment include:

Submitting any Incidents to the Service Desk as a ticket in Fresh Service.
Submitting any Service Requests to the Service Desk as a ticket in Fresh Service.
Ensuring that incident(s) and/or service request(s) are complete with requirements and acceptance criteria to the best of their knowledge.
Web Operations service requests should be confirmed if the requested work has been resolved by using the system or viewing the website.
Responding to clarification requests from the Service Department promptly, as described below.

**Note: Service Requests and Incidents may be delayed for the following reasons:

Request Prioritization: If an emergency or higher priority request is submitted, a request will be resolved after the emergency or higher priority request is resolved.
Incomplete Information: If a service request doesn’t have all required information, the ticket may not be able to be delivered in a timely manner. Staff should ensure they have all information reviewed and approved (if necessary) prior to submitting a service request.
Change in Requirements: If an ASCO Staff member requires additional work to be completed for the request due to a requirement change, the request will take longer due to the updated requirement.
Failure to Respond in a Timely Manner: ASCO Staff should respond within a day to any requests or correspondence to the Service Desk. A delay in response may cause the request to be closed after 3 days. Once the request or incident is closed, a new request or incident will need to be created for service.
Request conflicts with an ASCO Meeting: If a ticket has a due date during crucial ASCO meeting support, the Service Desk team has the authority to change the due date on the ticket if the work is unrelated to ASCO revenue or reputation. Agents should communicate with the requestor and work with them to select an appropriate due date.

ASCO staff should be responsive to Service Department clarification requests to keep the incident working to resolution in a timely manner. Anticipated ASCO staff response times upon request:

0 – 1 hour for issues classified as Urgent priority.
Within 4 hours (during business hours) for issues classified as High priority.
Within 1 week for issues classified as Medium priority.
Within 2 weeks for issues classified as Low priority.

Service Desk Hours

The Service Desk is comprised of several teams. Each team has hours they work to support ASCO. The table below shows the hours for each team supporting the Service Desk. ASCO staff are welcomed to open tickets 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, however, working hours are detailed below to ensure that Service Desk staff are available.

Work Requested leading up to and immediately after ASCO meetings may be delayed if the agent or team is actively supporting an ASCO meeting.* This also applies to days leading up to the meeting and days post meeting. Agents will work with requestors to communicate availability.

Service Department

Hours

Helpdesk Team

Extended Hours

8:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Office Services Team

Business Hours

8:30 AM – 5:00 PM

Website Operations Team

Business Hours

8:30 AM – 5:00 PM

WorkDay Team

Business Hours

8:30 AM – 5:00 PM

Table 7: Service Department Hours for each Department.

Vendor Access Requests

Vendor access requests serve a critical purpose in overseeing and managing the release of ASCO applications and resources to systematically track and monitor the provisioning of access privileges to external parties. This process ensures a structured and controlled release of applications and resources specific to ASCO, enabling careful oversight and management of third-party interactions with sensitive systems or data.

There is a 5-business day review and approval process, during which several Service Desk team members will assist in account creation and provisioning. The process is as follows:

A ticket is formally submitted to the Service Desk for processing.
The ticket undergoes assignment to the Security Team, initiating the contract review and subsequent approval process.
Upon successful approval, the ticket is delegated to the Service Desk Team, responsible for account creation and allocation of pertinent group memberships.
Account provisioning involves transmission to Okta, where the Network Team oversees activation.
After account activation, the Service Desk Team securely communicates login credentials to the designated vendor and Point of Contact (POC), culminating in the ticket's closure.

The following information should be included in the formal ticket request: contract number, vendor name and contact information, vendor company name, vendor location, business justification, access start and end dates, and type of access. Failure to include any of these requirements can result in delayed resolution times.

Vendor Access Form: Vendor Access | American Society of Clinical Oncology (asco.org)

*ASCO Meetings are defined as ASCO Annual Meeting and Thematic meetings.

Application:

Applies to ASCO and affiliates

History:

Adopted by the Vice President, Information Technology on February 5, 2024