SLA policies and business hours
Named SLA policies counted around the clock or in business hours, per customer and per contract, statuses that pause the clock, and warnings before a ticket is late.
Updated
An SLA policy says how soon each priority needs a first reply to the customer and a resolution. Owners and admins manage them in Settings → Tickets → SLA policies.
Which policy a ticket gets
When a ticket opens, it takes the first of these that exists:
- the policy named by the customer's active contract that's in force today;
- the customer's own policy;
- your default policy (the first policy you add is the default; Settings → Tickets edits its times);
- the built-in times, around the clock.
The ticket keeps its due times from then on; they're worked out again only when its priority changes. A customer's policy and the policy a contract names are set on the same SLA policies page.
Business hours
A policy can count business hours only: nights, weekends and holidays don't count, so a ticket opened on Friday evening with a 4-hour first reply is due at noon on Monday if you open at 8.
Set your hours, time zone and holidays in Settings → Business hours. A customer that works different hours, or in another time zone, gets its own in its customer settings → Business hours; its tickets then count its hours.
Pausing the clock
A status can pause the SLA (Settings → Tickets → Statuses), such as "Waiting on customer". While a ticket is in it, the ticket isn't overdue and isn't in the Overdue list. When it moves to another status, the time it waited (in the policy's hours) is added to its due times.
Warnings
A policy can warn at a percentage of each target, from 10 to 100. At 75%, a ticket with a 4-hour resolution warns after 3 hours. Each clock warns once. The warning is a notification, SLA warning, that nobody gets until they switch it on in their notification settings (in the app or by email). Automations can act on it too.