Create an SLA policy

Walk through building a working SLA policy from scratch. By the end you’ll have a Standard Support policy live on email and chat, tracking First Reply and Resolution.

Before you start

• Admin permissions on SLA Policies
• Opening Hours configured for your workspace (the SLA timer respects them by default). The SLA follows the opening hours set per team and channel; a team with no hours set, and a conversation with no team yet, use the default hours.
• A clear answer to: which channels does this policy cover, and what response targets do you want?

Steps

1. Open Settings → SLA Policies.
2. Click the + button.
3. Fill in the basics:
   Name — descriptive, e.g. Standard Support.
   Description — optional, but useful for “why does this policy exist” context that future admins will want.
   Active toggle — leave on so the policy applies as soon as it’s saved.
   Ignore office hours — leave off for standard policies. Toggle on only for 24/7 SLAs (see Run an SLA 24/7).
4. Pick the metrics to track. For most teams, start with First Reply Time and Resolution Time — see the metric types reference for picking the right combination.

5. Configure the priority targets for each metric. For Standard Support:

   | Metric | SLA | At risk | Urgent | Breach | |—|—|—|—| | First Reply | 0 | 1h | 4h | 24h | | Resolution | 0 | 1d | 3d | 5d |

   Remember: these are time tripwires, not agent-assigned priorities. See priority band targets explained. 6. Set Assign to Channels — the channels this policy applies to. For Standard Support, pick Email, Chat, SMS (or whichever channels you operate). Leave specific teams empty for a default policy that applies broadly.

   If you use the Form Builder, you can also pick Form. It matches conversations from a form made in the Form Builder, also when they arrive as email, and it is used instead of Email for them. See The Form choice. 7. Save.

The policy is now live. New conversations matching its scope start showing SLA badges. Saving does not add the SLA to conversations that are already open.

Tip — set hours per team. The SLA counts in the opening hours of the conversation’s team and channel. To give a team its own hours, open Settings → Opening Hours → Coverage and pick a rule in the team’s row (the All channels column sets every channel at once). A cell left on Inherit uses the default hours. A conversation with no team yet also uses the default hours.

Verify it worked

1. Open a conversation that arrived after you saved and matches the policy’s scope (e.g., an email conversation if you picked Email under Assign to Channels).
2. Look at the conversation header — there should be an SLA badge.
3. The badge should show a remaining-time countdown for live SLAs, or Met / Breached for closed ones.
4. Open a conversation that’s outside the scope (e.g., a voice call if you only assigned Email). It should have no SLA badge — confirming the scoping is working.

Targets that work for most teams

• Standard support, mixed channels — 24h — 3–5 days
• Premium / paid support — 4h — 1–2 days
• Enterprise tier with contractual SLAs — 1h — match contract
• Internal IT / helpdesk — 4–8h — 5 days

Calibrate the lower bands (At risk, Urgent) at 1/3 and 2/3 of the Breach target as a starting point.

Iterate over time

Don’t try to nail the perfect targets on day one. Ship a reasonable first pass, watch the breach rate in Analytics for a few weeks, and adjust:

• Breach rate >20% on First Reply → either the team is under-staffed or the target is unrealistic. Pick one to fix.
• Breach rate <2% across the board → the targets are too loose; tighten until they’re meaningful.

Troubleshooting

• Symptom: Conversation has no SLA badge even though the policy is active. Fix: Check that the Assign to Channels list includes the conversation’s channel. A policy assigned only to Email won’t apply to Chat.
• Symptom: The badge shows but the timer never moves. Fix: The timer pauses outside office hours. If the conversation arrived after-hours, the timer is paused until business hours resume. To verify, check the opening hours of the conversation’s team and channel in Settings → Opening Hours → Coverage — or the workspace’s default hours if the conversation has no team yet.
• Symptom: Two policies match the same conversation. Fix: The most-specific assignment wins (Team + Channel beats Team beats Channel). See Set up channel-specific SLAs for how the assignment matrix resolves.

See also

• Metric types reference
• Priority band targets explained
• Set up channel-specific SLAs