How can I troubleshoot common SLA issues?

Question

How can I troubleshoot common SLA issues?

Answer

When creating SLAs, things can get confusing if they don't work as expected. This article contains the following scenarios for the most common SLA issues:

• The new policy not being displayed
• SLA applied only to some tickets
• First reply time metric not working
• SLA is not paused when ticket status is Pending
• Target hours showing incorrectly
• Newly applied SLA executes additional breach event

New policy not being displayed

A newly created SLA policy is not applied to existing tickets, or an updated SLA policy is not applied to tickets already using that SLA.

Explanation

SLAs are based on ticket events. For tickets to be matched to an SLA policy, something needs to happen to the ticket, like a ticket creation or update event. Otherwise, the ticket shows no SLA information or keeps showing the old SLA information.

In this example, an SLA policy was not applied because either there wasn't an existing policy to apply the last time the ticket was updated, or the ticket didn't meet the policy's conditions:

In this example, an SLA policy is applied after an update to the ticket, after either a policy was created, or the ticket was updated to meet an existing policy's conditions:

SLA applied only to some tickets

An SLA is not applied to tickets that meet all of the SLA policy conditions.

Explanation

This happens when tickets do not have a set ticket priority. Tickets must have a priority for the SLA target to apply.

SLA policies can have different target times depending on the ticket priority:

If the ticket doesn't have a priority to match the target time set in the SLA policy, the target time is not applied and no timer is displayed until a priority is added.

In this example, no SLA policy is applied because the ticket was created without a priority:

After the same ticket is updated to have a priority, the SLA policy is applied:

First reply time metric not working

A newly created ticket doesn't show a timer for the First reply time metric even though it meets all the criteria for the SLA policy.

Explanation

This happens when a ticket is created by an agent on behalf of an end user and the first comment is public. The first reply target is fulfilled at the ticket creation because the first public comment is submitted by the agent, which is considered to be the first reply.

In this case, there is no first reply time metric applied, because the ticket was created by an agent:

However, the first reply time metric is applied to the tickets created by an end user:

SLA is not paused when ticket status is Pending

The SLA timer does not pause when the ticket status is changed to Pending.

Explanation

This happens because the ticket is waiting for the First reply time or Next reply time metric to be fulfilled. Reply metrics do not change based on ticket status. They can only be fulfilled if there is a public reply made from an agent to the requester.

First reply time and Next reply time always use an end user comment as the starting point and a public agent response as an endpoint. For more information, see the article: Defining and using SLA policies (Professional and Enterprise).

Target hours showing incorrectly

Tickets with SLAs that have a target in business hours show a higher number of hours than what the SLA metrics should have set.

Explanation

SLA time targets are always displayed in one unit of measurement: calendar hours. Although you can choose to calculate the target time in business hours the timer will still display time in calendar hours and will not take into consideration non-working days or holidays set in your account.

A longer explanation for this case can be found in Why do I see differences in SLA target hours?.

Newly applied SLA executes additional breach event

When a new policy is applied to a ticket that already had the SLA breached, even if it’s only a modified version of an existing policy, the system records another breach event at the time of the update. For example, there is a ticket in which the current policy is breached. The new policy that was added to the ticket on 20th April at 11:06 should have breached on 15th April at 12:00. In this case, the SLA target counter displays not the actual time when the SLA should have breached but the time when the new SLA was posted on the ticket, which is 20th April 11:06.  

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Explanation

The system can’t modify past ticket events history from the technical point of view. When a new SLA application happens, the SLA counter always looks forward from that point. 

For additional information about SLAs, see the article: Defining and using SLA policies.