Modern businesses often rely on a complex web of services to function. These services can include everything from third-party applications to employee and customer agreements. The more service-level agreements (SLA) you need to juggle, the more necessary it becomes to find a software solution to help keep everything straight.
This is why SLA monitoring software provides you with the tools you need to ensure you’re meeting your commitments. By using an SLA reporting solution, you can get real-time alerts and data insights. All you need to do is choose the right option for your needs.
In this article, we’ll talk about how SLA monitoring software works and the benefits it can bring to your business. Then, we’ll introduce you to four top solutions.
What Is SLA Reporting Software (And What Are Its Benefits)?
Most companies juggle several service management processes, agreements, contracts, and operational targets. The goal of SLA reporting software is to provide you with the metrics you need to monitor everything and ensure you’re meeting your obligations.
This information is critical because failing to meet SLAs can cost you existing contracts with providers or cause you to go over budget on internal projects. In a nutshell, SLA monitoring not only helps keep you accountable but helps ensure your business is operating efficiently.
To achieve this, different types of SLA reporting tools monitor various key metrics. Some examples of what they might track include the following:
- Total downtime and availability
- Target productivity levels
- Overall errors and warnings
- Response times
For instance, your business might offer an SLA requiring you to respond to service downtimes within a specific time frame. In this scenario, your SLA monitoring software should prioritize keeping track of response times to ensure you’re meeting your obligations.
4 Top SLA Monitoring Software Options
In this section, we’re going to introduce you to some of the best SLA reporting tools in the field. We’ll talk about their unique features and pricing to help you determine which option is ideal for your business.
1. ManageEngine
ManageEngine offers multiple types of solutions for IT businesses. Among these is an application management solution, which includes an SLA reporting tool. This solution enables you to monitor the uptime and performance of the applications and services underpinning your business.
With ManageEngine Applications Manager, you can monitor apps, databases, sites, mail servers, and several other types of IT services. To help you keep tabs on everything, the software provides in-depth performance reports designed to enable you to meet industry standards and adhere to important best practices. Applications Manager also lets you know if you’re in breach of SLA agreements, which can help lower downtime and costs.
Price: ManageEngine offers custom plans depending on your business’s needs, and you can request a quote through their website.
2. Datadog
Datadog is a monitoring tool capable of aggregating data from a vast array of sources across your development stack. With Datadog, you can access reports from cloud providers, automation tools, source control software, databases, server components, and more.
More importantly, Datadog comes with SLA monitoring capabilities. The platform automatically generates SLA reports with error budgets. These reports can be broken down by geographical region, enabling you to provide higher-quality services across multiple locations.
Using Datadog, you can monitor trends and metrics over time, which gives you the information you need to adjust your SLAs to more realistic standards.
Price: TheDatadog Pro plan starts at $15 per month per host or application.
3. SolarWinds Service Desk
SolarWinds® Service Desk is a help desk solution with SLA reporting capabilities. Using Service Desk, you can keep an eye on customer satisfaction and internal SLAs.
For internal SLAs, you can set specific operation hours and ticket response times to enable your team to attend to incoming requests within a reasonable time frame.
With Service Desk, you can set up automated notifications for SLA breaches, and you can configure these notifications to ensure they reach the right team or person at critical times. The software also lets you monitor trends to adjust SLA expectations and identify areas for improvement.
Price: TheSolarWinds Service Desk Business plan starts at $39 per agent per month, and you can also access a 30-day free trial.
4. Freshservice
Freshservice is a service desk platform with SLA monitoring capabilities. Using the built-in SLA monitoring tools, you can design satisfaction and productivity agreements capable of driving your agents’ performance.
Freshservice also enables you to define operation hours, deadlines, and ticket priorities as part of your SLA agreements. The ability to set different operation hours can be particularly helpful for global teams.
Once you set the metrics you want to monitor and your target levels, the software enables you to monitor how well your agents are meeting those numbers. You can also configure automated notifications to inform the relevant teams when there’s an SLA breach.
Price: The Garden plan starts at $49 per agent per month.
Conclusion
SLA monitoring is essential for modern businesses relying on multiple third-party services and vendors. As the web of services you use grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to use SLA monitoring software to ensure you’re hitting your performance goals and remaining in line with your contractual obligations.
There are many fantastic SLA reporting tools you can use, and the following are four of the best options available:
- ManageEngine: You can request a custom quote for your business through the ManageEngine website.
- Datadog: The Pro plan starts at $15 per month per host or application.
- SolarWinds Service Desk: The Business plan starts at $39 per agent per month, and there’s a 30-day free trial available.
- Freshservice: The Garden plan starts at $49 per agent per month.
*As of November 15, 2020. All pricing in USD.