Service levels
Service levels are the times your team promises: how soon a case gets its first answer, and how soon it's
resolved, per priority. The desk puts the due times on every case, counts them in business hours if you want, and
shows agents what is due and what is late. You manage them under Settings → Service levels, with Service level
settings (sla.settings: Service Level Manager, Administrator).
Policies and units
A policy belongs to one unit and covers that unit and every unit below it, unless a lower unit has a policy of its own. A unit has at most one policy. Start with a policy on the organization to give every case targets, then add policies to the units that promise something different.
Where they apply shows the unit tree with the policy each unit uses: its own (as a badge), one it inherits from above (marked inherited), or No targets.
Creating a policy
- Choose New policy.
- Fill in the fields below.
- Pick Create policy.
| Field | What |
|---|---|
| Name | Shown on the case next to the targets, such as "Standard" or "Priority support". |
| Applies to | The unit. Units that already have a policy are marked (has a policy) and can't be picked. |
| Clock | Around the clock (24/7), or one of the organization's business hours (below). |
| Targets | A First response and a Resolution time for each priority, in minutes, hours or days. Leave a box empty for no target. A policy needs at least one target, and a target can be at most a year (365 days). |
A new policy is filled in with these targets, which you can change:
| Priority | First response | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Urgent | 1 hour | 8 hours |
| High | 4 hours | 16 hours |
| Normal | 8 hours | 40 hours |
| Low | 16 hours | 80 hours |
Edit or delete a policy in the … menu on its card. When you delete one, its cases fall back to the policy above, if there is one.
Business hours
Business hours say when the clock runs. Outside them, and on holidays, targets wait. A policy without business hours counts every minute. With them, a 4-hour target on a case that comes in at 15:00 on a Friday, with hours of 08:00 to 16:00 on weekdays, is due at 11:00 on Monday.
Targets in days
A target in days counts business days: the case is due at the same time of day, that many open days later (days with business hours that aren't holidays). A case that comes in at 14:00 on a Thursday with a 2-day target is due at 14:00 on Monday; one that comes in after closing is due at closing time. Without business hours, a day is 24 hours. The list shows such targets as "3 business days" (or "3 days").
Setting up business hours
Choose New business hours and fill in:
| Field | What |
|---|---|
| Name | Such as "Office hours". |
| Time zone | The hours are in this time zone, including daylight saving time. It starts as your browser's. |
| Organization | Only asked when the desk has more than one. Policies can only use the business hours of their own organization. |
| Opening hours | For each day, a switch for open or closed and the times it opens and closes. Pick 23:59 as the closing time for "until midnight". Copy Monday to weekdays copies Monday's hours to Tuesday to Friday. New business hours start as Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 16:00. |
| Holidays | Dates when the clock stops all day. Pick a date and Add holiday; remove one with its ×. |
[!IMPORTANT] Add each year's holidays; they don't repeat.
Edit on the business hours changes them later; Delete in the dialog removes them, and the policies that used them count around the clock from then on.
Waiting for the requester
Case created → Clock running → Resolved
Clock running → Paused: the case is Pending or On hold
Paused → Clock running: the case is open again; the target moves later by the business time it was paused
Resolved → Clock running: the case is reopened; the time it was resolved isn't taken off
While a case is Pending or On hold, the resolution clock is paused. When the case becomes open again, the resolution target moves later by the business time it was paused. The case shows "Paused while waiting for the customer" in the meantime.
[!NOTE] The first-response target doesn't pause. It's met by the first reply an agent sends to the requester; internal notes don't count.
The resolution target is met when the case is resolved. If a resolved case is reopened, its resolution target applies again, and the time it was resolved isn't taken off.
What agents see
| Where | What it shows |
|---|---|
| On the case | A Service level block in the side panel names the policy and shows First response and Resolution: "Due in 3h 10m", "Overdue by 45m", "Met", "Missed by 2h", or paused. Hover over it for the exact time. |
| In the inbox | Each case shows a chip with the time left to its next target, the first response until it's answered and then the resolution. It turns amber within the hour and red when overdue, with "over" after the time. Resolved and closed cases show no chip, and neither do paused cases that already have their first answer. |
| Due soon | The inbox view with the cases that are overdue or due within the hour, most urgent first. Its count is in the sidebar. Due soonest sorts any view by the next target. |
See Working on a case and The inbox. Automations can act on the targets too, with the Next SLA target condition: for example, make a case urgent and email the assignee 30 minutes before it's due.
Changing a policy
Due times are worked out when a case is created, and again whenever its status, priority or unit changes, or it gets its first answer. A case moved to another unit gets the targets of that unit's policy.
When you create, change or delete a policy, the desk works out the due times again for every case in its units that isn't closed, counting from when each case was created. Changing or deleting business hours does the same for every policy that uses them. Closed cases keep the times they had.
[!WARNING] A tighter target can make open cases overdue at once, and a looser one can turn an overdue case back to due.