| Announced on | Rollout starts | Rollout ends |
| May 10, 2023 | May 15, 2023 | May 19, 2023 |
Zendesk is excited to announce the introduction of group service level agreement (SLA) policies! Commonly known as operational level agreements (OLAs), group SLAs are a new type of SLA that allow you to set specific targets for groups working on tickets.
Group SLAs are available on Enterprise plans.
This announcement answers the following questions:
What is changing?
Tickets often pass between multiple departments or teams on the path to resolution. Group SLAs allow admins to set target times for those groups and separately track resolution times between departments.
When you hover over the SLA badge on a ticket, you can view which SLAs and group SLAs are applied. Group SLA policies are identified by the metric, “Group ownership time”, and display the name of the group to which the policy applies.
In Views, you can add the new column “Group SLA”, which identifies when the group SLA will be breached.
There are also separate dashboards and reports for group SLAs in Explore (see Overview of the Zendesk Support dashboard).
Why is Zendesk making this change?
We’ve listened to your feedback and heard that this was a need that was not being fulfilled. SLAs are designed to track the agreement between the customer and company, but in order to resolve a ticket, multiple groups may be involved along the way. Group SLAs ensure that departments working on tickets have clear targets and are accountable to meeting those.
What do I need to do?
Group SLAs are available to any account on an Enterprise plan. You can set up group SLAs in Admin Center.
To learn more, see About SLA policies and how they work and Defining group SLA policies.
17 Comments
I see the screenshots are for custom statuses. Is there any requirements to be able to set a group SLA? Or where the option to set Group SLA will be visible as "Admin Centre" is not specific?
Sydney Neubauer The screenshots above are for Group SLA. You don't need to be using Custom Status to use Group SLA, but you won't see it yet in Admin Center as this new feature won't start rolling out until next week. To get to Admin Center you go to yourzendesksubdomain.zendesk/com/admin, then just type in SLA on the left hand side. Full help center documentation will be published next week to coincide with the rollout starting.
Hi Scott Allison to clarify what I mean by images above using "Custom statuses", the image contains that feature so I was not sure if it was required.
And I know that it is not live yet, but I was wondering if it would be in the same place as SLAs, and does it change the look of the SLA interface (ie. another selection)
Hi Scott Allison Scott Allison
Very interesting! Could you please elaborate a bit on the new metric "Group ownership time"?
What conditions activate and satisfy such a target?
I would also like to see the admin side of this, are OLA policies managed alongside SLA's or something separate?
Jacob the Moderator Sure! Group ownership time starts when a group is assigned a ticket and ends when it is reassigned elsewhere. Group SLAs will be alongside SLA admin, with a new tab. Full details will be published when we start the rollout, and this article will be updated with a link to that.
Thanks Scott! Looking forward to the rollout.
Do you mean that Group ownership time resets when a ticket is moved to a new group?
And, does it pause and/or stop on ticket status change?
Hi Scott Allison, do you mean there isn't another metric that start when someone, that belong that group, assign to himself the ticket?
Because when a ticket is assigned to a group we also need to track the 'FRT' of that agent's group
We're starting the rollout today, and you can learn more in the updated documentation:
As a reminder, the rollout will happen gradually over the course of this week so if you don't see it yet in your account, check back later!
Jacob the Moderator Yes, group ownership time resets if the ticket is moved to a new group. It does not pause or stop on ticket status change.
Riccardo Centomo It's based only on the group assignment, and at present we'e offering just group ownership time. We did build this in a way it could be extended and enhanced later, based on customer demand.
I have a question about Explore/Report Group SLAs:
1. Why I can't find any metrics about Group SLA - Value? (*picture) - In the red rectangle
2. Why I can't find any custom fields in attribute (row/column)?
Scott Allison it's great to see this finally come out and I hope it sets the stage for some quick enhancements in this space. We really want first and next reply time metric for groups.
Currently we use pausable update to sort of hack this solution together. When a ticket is sent to another group, we add a tag that triggers a different SLA policy on the ticket. When the ticket is replied to by a new owner in the group, we remove the tag and the policy reverts back to the customer policy on the ticket. This gives our team the benefits of the SLA timer, but it doesn't necessarily help us understand if groups are picking up tickets in a timely manner when they get transferred to. I commented on your community post asking for SLA feedback as well with this and other general feedback.
Group SLAs are a great feature, but it's baffling why Zendesk continues to only offer email notifications when you have the ability to send in-app notifications (for example, emailing a certain user when a Group SLA is breached).
We want our agents in a "single pane of glass" with Zendesk; the fact that so many notifications can only be configured to send by email instead of "sticky" in-app push notifications is a constant struggle. This pushes users into siloed email inboxes, when they should be able to get this info from the Zendesk workspace directly.
Even when in-app notifications are available, those only stay on the screen for a few short seconds, making an email backup a necessary evil.
We can use 3rd-party apps like SweetHawk's "Notify" to fill in some of these feature gaps, but it's not always possible to define a triggering action. Sticky in-app notifications should really be a native feature, and it should be available as an alternative anywhere an email notification can be configured for Zendesk...
Ariya Thank for the questions. I would recommend you open a ticket with our support team so we can look into this for you. But I should point out that Group SLA is only available with the Enterprise plan type.
Dan Cooper Thank you for your feedback! It's much appreciated. We built Group SLA in a way that we could add to it in future. We don't have current plans for adding reply time, but we're monitoring the feedback and this could change.
Harper Dane Thank you for the feedback! We do plan on adding real time notifications, and reminders for SLAs, and it's on the roadmap for late this year. It will include in product notifications, which as you say would be temporary, but would also include a place for you to see historic notifications too, so you don't miss anything. I'll keep this other thread updated as development begins.
Hi Scott Allison, in our Org we generally move the cases back and forth between teams. The group SLA seems to be resetting when the case is moved to the group again.
Group 1 = Group SLA starts (Eg: 15 mins).
Case moved to Group 2 after 10 mins.
Case moved again to Group 1 = The Group SLA runs again from 15 mins (And not from where it was left; 5 mins).
Karan Singh Thanks for the question. I can confirm that is the expected behaviour it starts over when reassigned, it does not count cumulatively.
En los sla de grupo cuando el tiquete se envia pendiente no para el tiempo , esto no es logico ya que si siguen corriendo los tiempos no se tendrian metricas de la gestion verdadera y si para el tiempo de resolución
para mi percepcion es un error
tener en cuenta ya que la funcionalidad no es optima
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