SeamlessDesk

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) Explained

Service Level Agreements (SLA)’s are a way for Administrators to alert Agents and other Administrators about when a ticket should be responded too or resolved within a certain amount of time set when configuring SLA’s. Let’s dive a little deeper into this.

Understanding SLA’s #

The first thing you need to understand is that SLA’s are based on the priority of the ticket.

  • Low
  • Normal
  • High
  • Urgent

You can set up a total of four different SLA’s, one for each of the priorities.

Respond Within #

Please note the following that qualifies as a response for a ticket.

  • Leaving a comment
  • Changing the status
  • Assigning ticket to another Agent
  • Changing the department of a ticket
  • Changing the priority of the ticket

Please note the following that does not qualify as a response for a ticket.

  • Reading a ticket
  • Creating a Calendar Event
  • Printing a ticket
  • Deleting a ticket
  • View the history of a ticket
  • Merging a ticket

 

Response Times

There are three types of response times you can choose from (Minutes, Hours or Days)

Respond within is defined as the time that a ticket must have had any response made to it before the threshold is reached.

Example

Let’s say you have set all Normal priority tickets to be responded to within 1 hour. So if a Normal priority ticket was created at 4:40 PM the TPD requires that a response from an agent must be made no later than 5:40 PM. If no response has been made by this time then every agent when viewing the ticket (whether assigned to them or not) will see a priority alert notification on the ticket notifying them that the response time is past due and that one should be made.

Resolve Within #

Please note the following that qualifies as a resolution for a ticket.

  • Ticket status is marked as Solved

Please note the following that does not qualify as a resolution for a ticket.

  • Everything else

 

Resolve Times

There are two type of resolve times you can choose from (Hours or Days)

 

Resolve within is defined as the time that a ticket must be resolved by before the threshold is reached.

Example

Let’s say you have set all Normal priority tickets to be resolved within 2 days. So if a Normal priority ticket was created at 9:38 AM on Sep 10, 2017, the TPD requires that the ticket must be resolved by no later than 9:38 AM on Sep 12, 2017. If no resolution has been made by this time then every agent when viewing the ticket (whether assigned to them or not) will see a priority alert notification on the ticket notifying them that the response time is past due and that one should be made.

Operational Hours #

Operational Hours are the business hours in which your company currently functions at. There are two types of operational hours.

  • Business Hours
  • Calendar Hours (24 Hours)

Business Hours are the hours you have set in your Branding section in Settings.

Calendar Hours (24 Hours) is based on a 24 hour 7 days a week schedule which can be achieved simply by not adding any business hours to your Branding. By not adding any hours we will automatically assume you are a 24-hour business.

If you are a 24-hour business then there is no need to fill out any business hours since we will automatically assume.

Escalation Alert #

The Escalation alert is an option you can set with your TPD that will send an activity alert to the Agent inbox when the threshold of the TPD has been reached. This will only happen after it is past due, not before.

If there is no Department assigned to the ticket then the alert will be received by all agents in all departments.

If there is no Agent assigned to the ticket but is assigned to a Department then the alert will be received by everyone in the department.

If there are Agents assigned to the ticket and a department then the alert will be received by the Agent only.

Change escalation alert date #

There may be times where you need to change the date of the escalation alert to a later date. You can do this by clicking on the pen icon next to the date of the alert.