SLAs set the response and resolution times promised to the requester; OLAs set how long a support group may keep a ticket. Both are counted in business hours, according to a calendar. These settings are on the Calendars, SLA policies and OLA tabs of Service Desk settings, restricted to Administrators and Service Desk administrators.
Calendars
A calendar describes the business hours of a typical week. New calendar asks for a Name and a Time zone; saving opens the calendar so you can add its periods.
Under Add a period, choose the Day, the Start time and the End time, then Add. Add one period per working day (for example Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 18:00). Tick Break for a non-working slot inside a day, such as lunch: it is removed from business time. An inactive calendar is no longer offered.
A calendar needs at least one working period before it is used: without one, no deadline can be calculated. A calendar used by an SLA policy cannot be deleted.
Public holidays and exceptions
Below the periods, the Public holidays and exceptions section removes public holidays and closures from working time:
- Public holiday sets: in Add a set, choose the country (for example "Spain (national)"), then, if needed, the region ("Spain — Community of Madrid"): sets add up. Dates are calculated automatically every year, including movable feasts (Easter, Ascension…) and the moves to Monday specific to some countries, such as Colombia. France (and Alsace-Moselle), Spain and its main regions, Colombia and Peru are available.
- Add an exception: a Closure (bridge day, annual shutdown, public holiday specific to your organization) or an Exceptional working day. Enter the Date and a Label. Without hours, a closure covers the whole day; with hours, only that range is removed. An exceptional working day requires its Start and End hours, and counts even on a public holiday. Tick Every year for a date that comes back every year.
- Year preview: the list of the year's public holidays and exceptions, with their effect ("Working day" or "Non-working day"). The arrows move to the previous or next year. The bin button on a row deletes the exception.
Public holidays and closures do not count towards deadlines: a ticket created on Wednesday evening, the day before a public holiday, has its deadline moved to the next working day. Spanish regional calendars change every year by decree: check the preview at the start of the year and add missing days as exceptions.
SLA policies
An SLA policy applies to the tickets of one priority. New policy asks for:
- Name;
- Priority: the priority of the tickets concerned, or "— Default (all priorities) —" for the policy that applies when no policy exists for the ticket's priority;
- Calendar of business hours;
- Response time (min) and Resolution time (min), in business minutes since the ticket was created;
- Response warning threshold (min) and Resolution warning threshold (min): after this time, the ticket goes into warning (orange badge). Each threshold must be lower than the matching time;
- Pause the SLA while waiting for a supplier: while a ticket is with a supplier (possible when the Contract management module is installed), its deadline is frozen; it resumes when the supplier responds.
Only one active policy can exist per priority. To prepare a new version, the copy button on a row creates an inactive copy with no priority, which you complete and then activate in place of the old one. The Pause the SLA while waiting for a supplier box is not carried over to the copy: tick it again if needed.
The clocks are also suspended while the ticket is in a status that Pauses the SLA (see "Set up the ticket reference data"). The response is counted at an agent's first public comment. Warnings and breaches are checked every five minutes.
OLA
The OLA tab lists the OLA targets: the internal commitment of a support group, that is the maximum time a ticket may stay assigned to that group. New OLA target asks for:
- Name and Active;
- the Group concerned;
- Priority: a specific priority, or "All (group default)". A priority-specific target takes precedence over the group's default target;
- Calendar of business hours. At least one calendar must exist;
- Target (min) and Warning (min): the warning must be lower than the target; 0 means no warning before the breach.
Only one active target can exist per group and priority. The clock starts when the ticket arrives in the group and stops when it leaves; it is suspended in statuses that pause the SLA. On a breach, the assigned agent is notified, or failing that every member of the group. The warning and the breach are also recorded in the ticket history, so automation rules can use them. The Internal and supplier commitments card on the ticket page shows the OLA deadline of the assigned group.
Depending on your license
The SLA policy imposed on a client by their support contract, OLAs and transmission to a supplier belong to the "Multi-policy SLA" option. If your license does not include it, tickets always follow the policy of their priority, the OLA tab does not appear and neither does the Transmit to supplier button; returning a case already transmitted is still possible. Deadlines already computed do not change.
See also
- "Configure escalation": reassign or notify automatically when a ticket is late.
- "Set up the ticket reference data": statuses, priorities and priority matrix.
- "Monitor Service Desk indicators": SLA and OLA compliance rates.