Overview of ERM - SLA Monitoring & Management in CIC

Ecosystem Relationship Management (ERM) is designed to manage and improve the efficiency of order acknowledgements, shipments, and invoicing through document-specific Service Level Agreements (SLAs). While ERM Standard Metrics help maintain compliance with operational mandates, integration compliance, and trading partner agreements, there are also configurable fallback settings that are applied when, for example, values expected by the selected ERM Module are not present in the documents being processed. 

In addition, you can configure custom metrics where you select the document, directions, responses, and different time-based conditions and details to set up event-based and partner-specific SLAs around response time or expected message volume. 

For both standard metrics and custom metrics, you can configure notifications to be triggered when SLAs are at risk or are missed. 

As you and your trading partners generate SLA data, you can review response time data in CIC Cockpit.

Configuring Standard Metrics ERM Modules

SLA entries are created on the Network > Partners pages.  To configure Standard Metrics, select from the following modules:

• Retailer Relationship Manager
• Supplier Relationship Manager
• Shipper Relationship Manager
• Carrier Relationship Manager

While not all fallback settings are available for all metrics, basic configuration is the same across all the ERM Modules. 

1. Go to Network > Partners.
2. Select your partner and then click ERM.
3. Click Add Metric or click the Add button.
4. Toggle one or more of the metrics on or off and click Done.
5. The selected metrics are displayed.
6. If necessary, specify settings to be used if CIC cannot determine from the document in question what the SLA values should be. Click the pencil icon.

7. Specify fallback configuration values for your metric. See Settings and Track Financial Impact below for more information.

   

Settings

On the Settings tab, you specify fallback values to be used if the values cannot be derived from the documents being processed. 

The following table describes fallback settings. Please note that not all fallback settings are available for every metric. 

Track Financial Impact

In ERM, financial impact tracking is the capability to apply and monitor penalties imposed for missed SLAs—such as late shipments, unconfirmed orders, or delayed invoices—across trading partners.  

Options specified on this page are reflected on the Partner Scorecard. See ERM Partner Scorecard.

1. Click the toggle to enable financial impact tracking.

2. Select an option: Flat Fee or Percentage

   Flat fee	A fixed monetary amount applied when the SLA is missed.
   Percentage	A monetary amount equal to some percentage of the transaction being processed (for example an invoice or an order) when the SLA is missed.

3. Specify an amount (flat fee or percentage) for the financial impact.
4. Click OK to save your changes

Configuring Custom Metrics

Custom metrics in ERM (Ecosystem Relationship Manager) are adjustable guidelines that help monitor and verify critical processes like order acknowledgments, shipments, and invoicing using time- or volume-based parameters. 

1. Click Add Metric and select the type of metric you want to create from the drop down menu. 

   

2. Choose Expected Volume or Response Time. See ERM Custom Metrics for more information.

Enabling Notifications in ERM

Notifications in ERM are designed to keep users informed about key events and actions related to their business processes. To receive notifications, users must be registered in CIC. Notifications can also be sent to distribution lists, such as an EDI team, by creating a CIC user with the distribution list as the email address for the account.

Notifications are managed based on the user and can be configured via their CIC account notification settings. Users have the ability to configure their account notification preferences to notify them when there has been a missed commitment.

For more information about Notifications, see Enabling Notifications. 

1. Go to Admin > My Profile > Notifications tab.
2. Toggle the notifications on or off as necessary.

   

3. Click Save.

Viewing Response Time SLA Status and Warnings in the Cockpit

You can view the status of the Response Time SLA custom metrics and any of the Standard Metric SLAs. A Response Time SLA can have the following status levels:

• At Risk
• Missed
• Met
• Pending

These statuses are represented by SLA badges and are displayed per message on the Messages page in Tile View, List View, and Detail View.

Tile View

The example here shows how badges appear on individual messages in Tile View.

List View

The List View contains a column that shows SLAs (Pending, At Risk, Missed, Met).

Detail View

In addition to badges, the Detail View contains more detailed information about each message's SLA, if any.

This PO acknowledgment has been received on time.

In this one, note that there is a warning.

In case the SLA is missed, this is how it displays.