Core Concepts
Resolve is built on ITIL vocabulary. Two sets of terms cause most of the confusion, and the app itself ships explainer cards for the second — which is a good sign they are worth reading.
1. Ticket, problem, change, release
| Record | Answers | Lives on |
|---|---|---|
| Ticket / Incident | "Something is broken for this customer, now." | Resolution Queue |
| Problem | "Why does this keep happening?" — carries a root cause and a workaround | Problems |
| Change | "We are going to modify something; who approves it?" | Changes |
| Release | "When do these changes ship, together?" | Releases |
| Service Request | "I need something provisioned" — not a fault | Request a Service |
The distinction that matters day to day: an incident is restored, a problem is solved. Restoring service for one customer closes a ticket. It does not close the problem.
2. SLA, OLA and UC
Three clocks, three different counterparties.
| Term | Between | Example |
|---|---|---|
| SLA — Service Level Agreement | You and your customer | "First response within 4 business hours" |
| OLA — Operational Level Agreement | You and another internal team | "Network team acknowledges an escalation within 1 hour" |
| UC — Underpinning Contract | You and a vendor | "The hardware supplier replaces a failed unit within 5 days" |
An SLA you promised the customer can only be met if the OLAs and UCs behind it hold. All three are configured under Settings → Business Hours & SLAs.
The two ticket clocks
Every ticket runs two SLA timers, shown as dials on the ticket:
| Clock | Starts | Fulfilled by |
|---|---|---|
| Response SLA | Ticket creation | The agent's first public reply. Internal notes are ignored |
| Resolution SLA | Ticket creation | Status reaching resolved or closed |
Replying after the response deadline fulfils the SLA but keeps the breach visible. Reopening a resolved ticket resumes the resolution clock rather than starting a new one.
100% means the full window is still available — not that the work is done. Both clocks pause in any workflow status flagged Pause SLA (typically Pending), and resume where they left off.
Business hours decide what "4 hours" means. A 4-hour SLA on a Friday evening is not breached by Monday morning if the weekend is outside business hours.
3. Scope: organization, project, ticket
Resolve is project-scoped. Tickets, catalog items, issue types, statuses, agents and SLA policies all belong to a project — a fact worth internalising before you go looking for a ticket you cannot find. If a queue is empty, check the project switcher before checking the filters.
4. Names that collide
Resolve reuses several words for different objects. These are the ones that cause real mistakes:
| Term | Sense A | Sense B |
|---|---|---|
| Problem | A PROBLEM ticket type in the queue — has SLA clocks, an assignee, counts as a ticket | A problem record on Problems — no SLA, not a ticket |
| Change | A CHANGE ticket type | A change record on Changes, with CAB approval |
| Knowledge base | AI training sources at /org/knowledgebase | Customer help articles in Settings → Knowledge Base |
| Service catalog | Ordering from it — Request a Service | Authoring it — Settings → Service Catalog |
| Status | A ticket status from the workflow | A release status (Draft/In Progress/…) |
| Stage | A release board column | Nothing to do with ticket statuses |
| Approval | CAB approval for a change | Service request approval for a catalog item |
CAB approval (Changes) and service request approval (Request a Service) share a word and nothing else — different records, different approvers, different configuration. Saying "it's waiting for approval" is ambiguous; say which.