Group SLAs are separate policies between your internal teams that define a target ownership time for a group. They are also commonly known as Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) and are used in workflows that involve multiple teams solving tickets.
Group SLAs create transparency amongst teams by providing a clear understanding of how long tickets are assigned to certain teams. You can view reporting about your group SLAs on the Group SLAs dashboard tab in Zendesk Explore.
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Setting up group SLA policies
Each group SLA policy has a set structure that measures the ownership time that a specified group is assigned a ticket. (see Structure of SLA policies).
To set up a group SLA policy
- In Admin Center, click
Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Business rules > Service level
agreements. - Select Group SLAs.
- Click Add policy.
- Enter a Policy Name.
- Optionally, enter a Description.
- In the Conditions section, select the Group or Groups for this
policy.Note: If you want multiple groups to have the same target, you can include them in the same policy. This can help you avoid creating a policy for each group individually.
- In the Metrics section, enter a time target for the Ownership time metric and
ticket priority. You can enter hours, minutes, or both.
If you’ve set a schedule, you can select either calendar hours or business hours for Hours of operation.
- Click Save.
Understanding what group SLA metrics you can measure
You can measure the Ownership time metric for group SLAs. Ownership time measures the length of time the ticket is assigned to a group. It starts when a group is assigned to a ticket and ends when the ticket is reassigned or solved. If the ticket is reopened, a new group ownership time is started for the group.
If you’ve set a schedule, you measure ownership time in either calendar or business hours.
11 Comments
So in my testing of this new feature it looks like this new feature activates even on new tickets for the 1st group it goes to if they are part of a Group SLA Policy. I was hoping that this Group SLA policy would only activate if the ticket moved internally beyond the 1st team which makes more sense to me. Meaning if the ticket started and stayed with one group then a Group SLA Policy would not be enforced as there is no need to ensure that tickets are moving around internally as at that point the only SLA needed would be the original SLA between the company and the client contact (public reply).
Not having any options beyond setting a time for each priority makes this 'feature' look to simply timebox tickets being open and staying within a single group which is not super helpful.
Is this really how you intended it to work? If so, is there going to be more flexibility released at a later date?
Jennifer Gillespie Yes, that's how it operates. We built it in a way we can add more flexibility later, based on customer demand.
So, it appears that this still does not solve setting traditional SLAs (First response, second response, etc) for agents that submit their own tickets, correct? We use Zendesk for Customer Support (external) and IT Helpdesk (Internal). Currently, there is no way to apply our standard SLAs to users that submit IT helpdesk tickets is they are an agent in the same instance.
These group SLAs do not solve for that, correct?
Hi Justin Carpenter,
Yes, that's right. Group SLAs only allow you to measure the Ownership time metric for a group. This metric measures the length of time the ticket is assigned to this group. It starts when a group is assigned to a ticket and ends when the ticket is reassigned. The targets are still the same and cannot be adjusted to a company's standard SLAs.
Arianne Batiles Thanks for the confirmation. Is there anything that allows us to apply standard SLAs to a ticket that an agent submits then?
Hi Justin Carpenter,
May I ask if you are referring to the FRT target for tickets created by an agent? The way SLA works for this metric would still be the same. If an agent creates a ticket on behalf of a customer with an internal note, the first reply time target starts when the customer makes a public comment and ends when the agent makes a public reply. Now, when the comment is of an agent is in public, the first reply time is not calculated since the SLA first reply time target is immediately satisfied. It does not activate or record an achievement.
Let me know if you are referring to this or a different metric.
The group SLA feature is great for measuring ownership time. However, we have different targets for ownership time based on the request type for the same group. Are you planning to add additional conditions such as form or custom fields?
Thanks!
I like where things are going. How do I report on Ownership time? i don't see it in explore.
It's good to know we can measure on a success rating, but I would like to know if we can report on the actual duration of group assignment, rather than achieved y/n
Bobby Koch Check out this Explore recipe which it think will help you get what you need. Just remember to substitute "Group SLA" for "SLA". e.g. "Group SLA metric time completion (min)". Also, I should add there is a Group SLA tab in the dashboard, but it will only appear once you actually have some tickets with Group SLAs on them.
Hi Mc Bourgie,
At the moment, additional conditions for group SLA is not yet available but we are listening to feedback and suggestion, so I encourage you to post this as a feature request in our feedback forum.
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