Reading SLA Timers on Tickets
What the SLA badge on a ticket means, and why business-hours policies count working time rather than clock time.
Tickets covered by an SLA policy show a badge for each target: First response and Resolution.
Business hours vs 24/7
Each SLA policy runs in one of two ways:
- Business hours. The clock only runs during your working hours. A ticket logged at 7 pm starts its clock at the next opening time, and evenings and weekends don't count.
- 24/7. The clock runs all the time.
The badge shows which one applies, for example Standard High · business hours.
What the badge shows
- Due in 3h 20m working. On a business-hours policy, this is the working time left. It is not clock time.
- Due Tue 6 Oct, 15:30. When the target is a day or more of working time away, the badge shows the actual due date and time instead.
- Met or Missed. This shows whether the target was hit.
Hover over a badge to see:
- the exact target time
- when the target was met, if it has been
- the time remaining, or how far over it is
- whether the policy runs in business hours or 24/7
Example
On a business-hours policy with a 2-hour first-response target and a 32-hour resolution target, a ticket logged on Wednesday at 19:13 works out like this:
- First response is due Thursday at 11:00. The clock starts when you open at 09:00 and runs for 2 working hours.
- Resolution is due about four working days later. 32 working hours is roughly four days of 8 hours, not "1 day 8 hours".
If you want targets measured in clock time, set the policy to 24/7 under SLA policies.
On hold
A ticket in Waiting, Waiting on customer or Waiting on third party stops its SLA clock. Time you spend waiting for someone else is not counted against you.
While a ticket is on hold:
- the badge reads On hold with the time left, for example Resolution on hold · 3h 20m working left
- that time stays the same until work resumes
- no target is marked as breached
When the ticket leaves the waiting status, each open target moves out by the working time it was held. On a business-hours policy, a ticket held from Friday 16:00 to Monday 10:00 was held for 2.5 working hours, so its targets move out by 2.5 working hours. A hold that falls entirely outside working hours changes nothing.
Three rules keep this fair:
- A target that was already missed before the hold stays missed.
- A reply sent during a hold is measured to the moment you sent it.
- A ticket resolved while on hold is measured on the time your desk had, not the time spent waiting.
The clock resumes however the status changes: by hand, by an automation rule, or when the customer replies in the portal.
Reopened tickets
If a resolved or closed ticket is reopened, its resolution target becomes live again. The time the ticket spent resolved is not counted. Reports show the ticket as open until it is resolved again.
Resolving or closing a ticket also counts as responding to it, so a ticket fixed in one step meets its first-response target at that moment.
Choosing which statuses pause the clock
Each SLA policy has a Statuses that pause the clock field:
- Leave it blank to pause on every Waiting status. This is the default.
- List statuses, separated by commas, to pause only on those. Spelling is forgiving: "Waiting on Customer" and "waiting_customer" are the same status.
- Type none for a policy whose clock should never stop.
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