About Service Infractions Policies

Considerations When Creating New Policies

When you create a new policy, you may want to use a spreadsheet to predefine the warning levels and suspension levels for the policy being created.

It is also a good idea to create the template letters that are used to generate case-specific letters in advance. (Letters are needed for each warning alert stage, for the violation alert stage, for approved appeals, and for denied appeals.) You can set up the policy in one session if you have this information available.

Policies and Policy Time Periods

Two types of threshold time periods can be used for policies: rolling window periods and fixed duration periods.

Policies that use rolling window threshold time periods look back a set number of days from the current date. For example, on December 15th, a 30-day rolling window policy would look back to November 15th; on December 16th, it would look back to November 16th. As thresholds can be reached at any time, Trapeze recommends using this option when infractions are processed on a daily basis.

Typically, rolling window policies created using a violation calculation type based on infractions, which means that the suspension level is determined by the total number of infractions. Suspension-based rolling window policies can also be created, but the look-back horizon for prior suspensions begins at the policy start date. If the last sanction in a rolling window policy is older than the rolling window duration, cases can only be promoted to the first sanction level.

Policies that use fixed duration threshold time periods create cases and accrue infractions for user-defined periods of time. There are four types of fixed duration policies:

• Standard Infraction-based policies, where the sanction levels and suspension levels are determined by the number of infractions in the current period. This means that a client can only be escalated to a suspension if they have been sent warnings earlier in the period. When the next period starts, the client’s status reverts to the lowest sanction level (that is, the first warning level). Therefore, this type of policy should only be used if cases are processed frequently throughout the period. Typically, a quarterly or annual period would be used for an infraction-based policy.
• Suspension-based policies, where the sanction level is again determined by the number of infractions in the current period. However, if the client progresses to a violation sanction level, the length of the suspension is determined by a count of the number of prior suspensions within a user-defined look-back period. This type of policy also works best if cases are reviewed on a regular basis throughout the period.
• Flag-period policies, where both sanction levels and suspension levels are determined by the number of prior flagged periods (in which the client has achieved the infraction threshold) within the look-back period. This type of policy is available only for periods of one month, with a review of cases taking place at the end of each month.
• Multi-period infraction-based policies, which behave a lot like flagged-period policies except that the suspension level is based on the highest prior suspension level within a user-defined case life span period (not the number of flagged periods in the look-back period). Multi-period infraction-based policies are restricted to monthly periods.

Fixed duration policies differ primarily in how the suspension level is determined once a violation threshold is reached:

• Infraction-based policies set the suspension level based on the number of infractions in the current period. There is no prior time frame referenced.
• Suspension-based policies set the suspension level based on how many suspensions have already been imposed within some prior time frame, called the look-back period.
• Flag periods policies set the suspension level based on the number of periods in which the infraction threshold was reached within some time frame, called the look-back period.
• Multi-period infraction-based policies set the suspension level taking into consideration the number of infractions in the current period and the highest suspension level within some prior time frame, called the case life span.

Example of Fixed Duration Policy Differences

This example examines the differences among flag periods policies, suspension policies, and multi-period infractions policies.

In this example, all three policies are configured with a six-month prior (case life span or lookback horizon) period. In five successive months a client reaches the first warning level, the second warning level, the first suspension level, the second suspension level, and the third suspension level. The client then has four months where not enough infractions are incurred to reach the next threshold. The following month (the tenth month) they reach the next infraction threshold.

In this scenario:

• A suspension-based policy would find that the client has two suspensions in the last six months, which would result in a third-level suspension.
• A flag periods policy would find that client has two flagged periods in the last six months, which would result in a first-level suspension.
• A multi-period infraction policy would find that the client has a third-level suspension within the last six months, which would result in a fourth-level suspension.

One of these policy types may fit your current code of conduct policy better than the others.

Minimum Policy Requirements

After policies have been set up, they must be activated.

Policy Status

Policies can be Not Yet Activated, Active, or Inactive. When a policy exceeds its End Date, it can be Expired, or Closed.

Policies expire when the current date is greater than the policy end date and active cases exist for the policy. If no active cases exist, the policy will enter a Closed state instead.