SLA Policies

SLA policies set time targets for your help desk tickets, so your team knows how quickly a ticket should get a first response and how quickly it should be resolved. Tickets that are approaching or past a target are flagged on the ticket list and the help desk dashboard, and the people assigned are notified before the target is missed, so nothing quietly slips.

Managing SLA Policies

Go to Settings → SLA Policies.

From here you can add, edit, and delete policies. Deleting a policy simply stops it from measuring tickets; nothing on your tickets is lost.

Adding or editing a policy

Select Add Policy (or Edit on an existing one) and complete the form:

• Policy Name (required): a recognizable label, for example High priority - 4 hour response.
• Active: only active policies measure tickets. Turn a policy off without deleting it.
• Applies To: scope the policy by Priority, Department, both, or neither. Leave both as Any for a catch-all that covers every ticket.
• Response Target: how long a ticket may wait for its first reply from a technician.
• Resolution Target: how long a ticket may stay open before it is closed. You can set a response target, a resolution target, or both.
• At-Risk Threshold: how much of a target may elapse before the ticket is flagged as at-risk. For example, at 80% a four-hour target is flagged after three hours and twelve minutes.

Which policy applies to a ticket

A ticket is measured against the single most specific active policy that matches it. A policy pinned to both a priority and a department wins over one pinned to just one of them, which in turn wins over a catch-all. This lets you set a general target for everything and tighter targets for the tickets that need them.

How Tickets Are Flagged

Once a policy applies, a ticket moves through three states as time passes:

• On track: comfortably within its targets.
• At risk: past the at-risk threshold but not yet over the target.
• Breached: a target has been missed.

The response clock stops when a technician first replies; the resolution clock stops when the ticket is closed.

You will see these flags in three places:

• Ticket list: at-risk and breached tickets are highlighted, with a badge next to their status.
• Help desk dashboard: tiles show how many open tickets are currently at risk and how many have breached.
• Notifications: the people assigned to a ticket are notified when it first becomes at risk, and again if it breaches, so they can act before and after the target. A summary also goes to your help desk admins so tickets no one is assigned to are still seen.

Getting Started

A simple way to begin is one catch-all policy (priority and department both set to Any) with the response and resolution targets your team aims for, then add tighter policies for your highest-priority work or your busiest departments as you need them.