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SLA

Go to Settings β†’ Tickets β†’ SLA to set up deadline and first answer calculation rules.

An SLA (service level agreement) here is a ticket deadline: how long your team has to first respond to a ticket and to solve it. It is not the same as the service level of calls and chats β€” the share of activities answered within a target time β€” which you measure in reporting. See the glossary for both terms.

Recommended starting values

Setting Default in Daktela Start with Why
SLA on the ticket category None One SLA on every category A category without an SLA gives its tickets no deadlines at all β€” nothing turns red and nothing can be measured.
Working time on the category None Your support hours (time group) Without it, the SLA clock runs 24/7, including nights and weekends.
Unit β€” Hours Easier to read than minutes unless you promise answers within the hour.
Response per priority Empty (optional) e.g. High 1, Normal 4, Low 8 hours Without it, only the solution deadline is tracked β€” fill it in so a slow first answer shows too.
Solution per priority Required e.g. High 8, Normal 24, Low 40 hours Counted in working hours β€” with 9:00–17:00 support hours, 8 hours is one working day.

The examples are a starting point, not a standard β€” set targets you can meet with your current team, then tighten them using the ticket statistics.

SLA Details

Fill out the Title and select if you will count your SLA in Hours or Minutes under Unit. Enter how long agents have to reply to the customer (Response) and to solve the ticket (Solution) in each priority (Low, Normal, High). Solution is required; Response will appear once you enter a Solution. The total SLA time is the sum of both types.

Warning

Only the Working hours you set up in the ticket's Category are counted in your SLA calculation. Example: Your SLA is 4 hours to solution. Your working hours are 9 AM – 5 PM daily. If you receive a new ticket at 4 PM, you will meet your SLA if you provide a solution by 12 noon the next day.

If the category has no Working time, the SLA clock runs around the clock.

Save your SLA.

Info

How is the deadline calculated?

First, Daktela will determine which SLA will be used to set the ticket deadlines:

  • If the ticket's primary Contact is part of a CRM Account, the Account's SLA times will be used.
  • If no primary Contact is selected or if the Contact is not part of a CRM Account, the ticket Category's SLA will be used.

  • The Category's Working hours will always be used to determine deadlines. When a new ticket is created, its deadline will be set using the following rules (taking into account the Working hours set up in the ticket's Category):

  • When only Solution has been entered: deadline = ticket creation time + Solution.

  • When both Solution and Response have been entered: deadline = ticket creation time + Response. Once the ticket has a response (see below), the deadline will automatically be changed to: deadline = ticket creation time + Response + Solution.

While a ticket is in the Waiting stage, it has no deadline and the SLA clock is paused; it resumes when the ticket is open again.

You can see the deadlines and completion times in the tooltip in a ticket. The First answer and Closed times will be green or red depending on whether they were done within the deadline or not. Ticket tooltip showing the deadline, first answer and closed times

Tip

What is counted as a response?

A response to a ticket is an activity that conveys to the customer information about what is being done to solve it. The following activities created in the ticket or merged with it are counted as responses:

  • An outgoing email sent by an agent or by an Emailbot AI Coworker (auto-answers and other automatic emails are not counted)
  • An SMS, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or Viber message
  • A call that is connected

Warning

A call that is NOT connected will NOT be counted as a response as no information about the ticket is conveyed to the customer.

With the exception of email, a response can also be an incoming activity. E.g. when a customer sends an email, a ticket is created. If they then call and the agent merges the call with the ticket, the call will be counted as a response.

Tip

What is counted as a solution?

A ticket is considered solved when it is closed.

Not Working?

Tickets have no deadline, or the deadline looks wrong? Check that the ticket's category has an SLA and a Working time selected, and remember that the account's SLA wins over the category's when the ticket's contact belongs to an account with its own SLA. More checks are in Troubleshooting.