SPM/SLM Settings

The 'Service Portfolio / Level Management Settings' page provides the possibility to influence some aspects of the service template and service instantiation functionality.

To open the page, call action 'SPM / SLM Setting' from the 'Administration' section of the 'Service Level Manager' or 'Service Portfolio Manager' sidebar.

The settings are divided into two sections:

Service Portfolio Manager

Settings in this section influence the process of service template creation.

• Force unique Template name

  If set to 'True', each copy of a service template must differ in the 'Service Name' attribute. This is checked during the save process. If the same 'Service Name' is identified, the copy receives a unique identifier (hidden attribute GUID) and the version is increased by 1.

• Check Service hierarchy

  If service types are created in a hierarchical structure, this hierarchy can also be forced upon service templates of corresponding service types.

  If the 'Check Service hierarchy' check box is set to True, then service types hierarchy is forced upon service templates. It means the following:

  • When action 'Link existing service template' is used for linking of subordinated/superior service templates, only service templates of service types corresponding to the hierarchy are offered in the respective editor tabs.
  • When action 'Create' is used for linking of subordinated/superior service templates, the service type of the newly created service template is checked for compatibility with the hierarchy before the new service template is saved.

  If the 'Check Service hierarchy' check box is set to False, then service types hierarchy is not forced upon service types. Service templates of all service types are offered for subordinated/superior service template linking and service template of any service type can be created during this linking.

  Note that regardless of the 'Check Service hierarchy' setting, compatibility with the hierarchy can be manually check using action 'Check hierarchy' in the service templates catalog.

• Base Name Attribute

  The setting determines the textual part of service template name created using the 'Generate Name' button in the 'New:Service Template' editor.

  • If left empty, name generation uses translated object type name, in this case 'Service'.
  • If 'serviceType' is selected in the 'Base Name Attribute' setting, the service type of the created service template is used as the textual part of the generated service template name.
  • If 'serviceClass' is selected, the service class of the created service template is used.
• Counter Fixed Length

  Length of the numerical part of the generated service template name.

• Counter Separator

  The character used as a separator between the textual and numerical part of the generated service template name.

  Example: settings combination 'serviceType' / '8' / '-' when the 'Service Type' attribute is 'Database' will generate e.g. the following service template name: 'Database - 00000001'

• Service Method

  A field for global Service Method assignment.

Service Level Manager

Settings in this section influence the process of service instantiation.

• User can instantiate for

  The setting applies to the currently logged in user and shop-like service instantiation. It determines who the current user can instantiate services for.

  • Any Business Partner

    The currently logged in user will be able to instantiate services for anybody.

  • The Business Partner(s) to which the user belongs in a specific role: ('Process Role')

    The currently logged in user will be able to initiate services only for business partners to which the user belongs and is assigned in the selected 'Process Role'.

    For example, if the currently logged in user is assigned to business partner 'A' under process role 'a' and to business partner 'B' under process role 'b', and if the 'For Business Partner(s) option is used with process role 'b' selected, than the user will be able to instantiate only for business partner 'B'.

• Set Business Partner identification

  If it is desirable for each instantiated service to contain information about its provider (represented by a 'Business Partner' object), set the 'Set Business Partner identification' check box to True. In this case the following settings get displayed and can be used to set up the identification:

  • Business Partner identification

    Attribute 'Customer ident.' of the The 'Service Instance' object type (found on the 'Details' editor tab) is reserved for storing the provider Business Partner information. The 'Business Partner identification' field determines which attribute of the 'Business Partner' object is used as data source for this information.

  • Append identificator to Service name

    In addition to being stored in the 'Customer ident.', business partner identification can also be appended to the name of the instantiated service. To enable this behaviour, set the 'Append identificator to Service name' check box to True.

  • Separator from identificator

    Use this settings field to specify one or more characters to be used as a separator between the actual service name and business partner identification.

• Service name example

  This field displays the resulting service instance name as it will be created and stored in the database.

• Create Separate Instance for Each Business Partner

  Set this check box to True for the following behaviour: If multiple business partners are selected during instantiation, a separate service instance is created for each of the business partners.

  If set to False, only one service instance is created and assigned to all the selected business partners.

• Assign Business Partner to Whole Hierarchy

  Set this check box to True for the following behaviour: If there is a hierarchy of services, then the business partner selected during instantiation is assigned to each service in the hierarchy.

  If set to False, then the business partner gets assigned only to the top level service in the hierarchy.

• Strict delete Instance

  If 'Strict delete Instance' is set to True, then a service instance can be deleted only if it is not linked to any other object (such as a service agreement). This is the recommended setting in most production environments while setting 'Strict delete Instance' to False may be useful for testing or development purposes.