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Activate SLA targets based on any comment from an end user, or other updates

Completed


Posted Aug 11, 2021

We've found that our goals with SLAs can't quite be achieved with the available targets, for the following two reasons:

1. We would like an SLA target that restarts whenever a ticket is opened for any reason (ie. response from requester, response from a non-requester/someone who's CC'd, automation/trigger opens ticket). Next Reply Time works well when the ticket opens due to the requester responding, but it doesn't treat a response from a non-requester in the same way, which means that we could miss responding to a message from a non-requester in a timely manner.
To get around this, we use both Next Reply Time and Agent Work Time, but it doesn't entirely fix the issue. If we set Agent Work Time to the same value as Next Reply Time, it handles the case where a non-requester replies, and ensures those get treated the same way, but then it ends up making some of our tickets look older than they really are since Agent Work Time is cumulative.

2. We also want an SLA target to stop any time the agent takes any action (ie. public response or internal note, or even setting the ticket back to pending/on hold manually or with a macro) 

Currently we have found that the Periodic Update achieves # 1 and not # 2, since it requires a public response to reset it, and a combination of Next Reply Time and Agent Work Time achieves # 2, but doesn't achieve # 1 perfectly as explained above. 

We would love to see some additional SLA targets added that could help achieve the above. Thanks!


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6 comments

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Rudolph

Zendesk Luminary

@... - This is the exact SLA issue we're running into as well! I detailed our situation in an email, but just wanted to flag this post for you, so you could see another example and potentially sync up with @...'s account executive.

Thank you for posting, Rachel!

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I’ve been dealing with this exact problem for over two years now. I even left one company to join another one and found they had the same issue. I described it a while ago in this thread.

The solution I would like to see is virtually the same as what OP is suggesting, but slightly more specific to just apply updates with comments. If any end user (the requester, a CC, or someone not included on the ticket at all), comments on a ticket (public or private), an SLA timer should run. It should stop only when an internal user makes a public comment. 

This is somewhat similar to the request here, but not quite the same. In that request, internal users' private comments would also trigger the SLA. I see a use case for that, but it would be a separate SLA metric from what I'm looking for. 

CC @...

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Scott Allison

Zendesk Product Manager

Thank you Rachel W. for starting this thread! Your feedback is truly appreciated. 

I want to make sure that you did see a partial fix for this issue, specifically for CC'd users who reply. That is detailed in my comment on this thread.

However, this doesn't work if a user who was forwarded the ticket replies. For that I'm going to rename this thread to cover that and other use cases.

Regarding your second request " We also want an SLA target to stop any time the agent takes any action", take a look at this other thread and please upvote/comment if that is the same need you describe. Thank you.

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@... thanks for the response!

It looks like you accidentally linked to the same thread twice in your response; can you share the link to the thread that covers the partial fix for CC'd users who reply? 

As for the SLA target stopping any time an agent takes an action, I agree that the request in the thread you linked is similar to what I'm asking. The scenario described in that thread is more specific than what I was thinking – as I want a way for any update by the agent to stop the SLA, kind of regardless of context – but generally it sounds like the same idea/need.

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Scott Allison

Zendesk Product Manager

Rachel W. Sorry about that. The correct link is here: CCs and followers – Tickets replied to by a CC get no SLA 

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Scott Allison

Zendesk Product Manager

I wanted to provide you all with an update here, and point you to a release that we started rolling out today. 

 

We're introducing advanced settings to three of the SLA metric types, first reply time, next reply time and periodic update. These new settings are optional, and give you the ability to change the logic for when an SLA metric is activated or fulfilled, on an individual policy basis.

 

It addresses these needs

  • Ensure end user tickets can have first reply time applied for all common use cases
  • Apply SLAs when a CC’d end user replies to a ticket (next reply time)
  • Apply First and Next Reply Time SLAs when an agent or light agent is the requester on a ticket
  • Apply or fulfill First, Next and Periodic Update SLAs with internal notes

Read more in the announcement here:

 

https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/7411959450778-Announcing-advanced-SLA-configuration-settings

 

Given the main request here was around Next Reply Time I'm going to mark this request completed. If you want to want to create a new request for any remaining needs, please do that here using the product feedback template. Thank you!

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