Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
Overview
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) help your team track and meet response and resolution time commitments. An SLA defines time-based targets — such as how quickly a conversation should receive a first reply, or how long a task should take to resolve — and continuously monitors progress against those targets in real time.
SLAs can be applied to two types of entities:
Conversations — customer-facing communication threads managed through your inboxes
Lab Tasks — internal or customer-shared tickets created from task templates
Once an SLA is applied, a live countdown badge appears on the entity showing time remaining against the most urgent target. If a target is missed, the badge turns red and shows how far overdue it is. If all targets are met, the badge turns green.
SLA timers start automatically when the SLA is applied and can be paused under certain conditions (such as when a conversation is snoozed or a task is waiting on the customer).
SLA Targets
An SLA policy can include any combination of the following targets. Each target is optional — you only need to configure the ones relevant to your workflow.
Conversation Targets
Target | Description | Starts Counting From | Stops When |
First Response Time (FRT) | Time allowed before your team must send the first reply to a customer | SLA start (conversation creation or SLA application) | A team member sends a reply |
Next Response Time (NRT) | Time allowed to respond after each new customer message | The customer's most recent message | A team member sends a reply |
Time to Close (TTC) | Total elapsed time allowed before the conversation must be closed | SLA start | The conversation is closed |
Lab Task Targets
Target | Description | Starts Counting From | Stops When |
Time to Resolve (TTR) | Total elapsed time allowed before the task must reach a Resolved state | SLA start (task creation or SLA application) | The task state changes to a Resolved category state |
Time to Close (TTC) | Total elapsed time allowed before the task must be closed | SLA start | The task is closed |
Target Statuses
Each target transitions through the following statuses:
Pending — the timer is running; the target has not yet been met or missed
Hit — the target was met within the allowed time
Missed — the allowed time elapsed before the target was met
Fixed — the target was previously missed but has since been fulfilled
Pause Behavior
SLA timers can be configured to pause automatically under specific conditions, so your team isn't penalized for time spent waiting on external factors.
Each SLA policy has two pause settings:
Pause on Snoozed — when enabled, the SLA timer pauses while a conversation is snoozed and resumes when the snooze expires
Pause on Waiting on Customer — when enabled, the SLA timer pauses while a conversation or task is in a "Waiting on Customer" state and resumes when the state changes
When paused, the SLA badge displays "Paused" instead of a countdown. The total paused duration is tracked and subtracted from the elapsed time, so only active working time counts against the targets.
Snoozing functionality is under development
Default SLAs
You can configure default SLA policies so they are applied automatically without manual intervention.
Default SLA on Inboxes
Each inbox can have a default SLA policy. When a new conversation is created in (or moved to) that inbox, the inbox's default SLA policy is automatically applied to the conversation.
To set this up, go to Settings → Inboxes, select an inbox, and choose a default SLA policy.
Default SLA on Lab Task Templates
Each task template can have a default SLA policy. When a new task is created from that template, the template's default SLA policy is automatically applied to the task.
To set this up, go to Settings → Task Templates, select a template, and choose a default SLA policy.
Overriding the Default
The default SLA is a starting point — it can be changed at any time on individual entities:
At creation time — when creating a conversation or task, the SLA policy field is pre-filled with the default but can be changed to any other policy (or removed entirely) before submitting
After creation — open the conversation or task detail view, find the SLA section in the sidebar, and either apply a different policy or remove the current one
Removing an SLA from an entity stops all tracking for that entity. Applying a new SLA replaces the previous one and starts fresh timers.
Creating SLA Policies
SLA policies are managed under Settings → SLA Policies. Each policy has:
Name — a descriptive label (e.g., "Standard Support," "Premium SLA," "Critical Issues")
Description — optional context about when this policy should be used
Targets — configure one or more of the available targets with a time duration (hours and minutes). Leave a target at zero to skip tracking it.
Pause settings — choose whether to pause on snoozed and/or waiting on customer
A single policy can be used across multiple inboxes and task templates. Changes to a policy do not retroactively affect entities that already have an SLA applied — only new applications of the policy use the updated values.