Business Hours & SLAs
Route: /org/resolve/settings?tab=hours_sla · Permission: Manage Helpdesk Settings
The densest tab in Resolve, and the one everything else measures against. Four cards: Business Hours, SLA Target Policies, Internal OLA Policies and Underpinning Contracts.
1. Why this tab comes first
Every clock in Resolve is measured in business hours, against a target, for a counterparty. This tab defines all three. Configure it last and every breach number you have already reported is wrong.
| Card | Counterparty | Answers |
|---|---|---|
| Business Hours | — | What does "4 hours" mean? |
| SLA Target Policies | Your customer | How fast did we promise? |
| Internal OLA Policies | Another internal team | How fast must they hand back? |
| Underpinning Contracts | A vendor | How fast must they fix it? |
See Core concepts for the SLA / OLA / UC distinction.
2. Business Hours
| Field | Control | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Timezone Anchor | Dropdown | e.g. Asia/Kolkata (IST). Every clock is evaluated in this timezone |
| Weekly Schedule | Checkbox + start/end per day | Unchecked days show Closed and are excluded from elapsed time |
Then Save Calendar.
Clocks do not follow the agent's local time. A ticket raised at 18:00 in London against an
Asia/Kolkata anchor is raised after hours, and its clock does not start until the next working
morning in Kolkata. If your team is distributed, pick the anchor deliberately.
With Saturday and Sunday unchecked, a 4-hour response target on a Friday 17:30 ticket expires at roughly 12:30 on Monday. That is the intended behaviour — and it is also why turning a weekend on silently tightens every target.
3. SLA Target Policies
Four priority cards, each with a response and a resolution target in minutes:
| Priority | Description shown | Example targets |
|---|---|---|
| P1 - Urgent | Critical outages, direct logistics blocks | 30 / 120 |
| P2 - High | Broken workflow, system degraded | 120 / 480 |
| P3 - Normal | Routine tasks, functional requests | 480 / 1440 |
| P4 - Low | Minor queries, visual optimizations | 1440 / 2880 |
| Field | Control | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Response (min) | Number | Fulfilled by the agent's first public reply |
| Resolution (min) | Number | Until status is resolved or closed |
| Biz Hours Only | Checkbox | When ticked, the clock only runs inside the calendar above |
| Update Pn | Button | Saves that priority's policy |
Scope selector
A dropdown at the top of the card reads All Issue Types (Default).
The default set applies to everything. Switch the dropdown to an issue type and you define a
separate set for it — so an RMA can carry a resolution target measured in days while an
INCIDENT is measured in minutes. If a ticket's targets look wrong, check which scope you edited.
In the example above, P1 has it unticked while P2–P4 have it ticked. That is deliberate: a critical outage's clock runs through the night. It is also the single easiest setting to get wrong in the other direction — an unticked P4 quietly demands weekend work.
The P1 - Urgent card carries an Update P4 button, P2 carries Update P3, and so on. The button uses the internal priority level (4 = most urgent) while the card uses the display name. Same policy, two numbering schemes. Save from the card you are reading.
4. Internal OLA Policies
An OLA is your internal commitment between departments. The clock starts when a ticket is assigned to an agent whose department has a policy here.
Add OLA Target Policy
| Field | Control | Required | Source of values |
|---|---|---|---|
| Policy Name | Text | ✅ | Free text, e.g. "QA Tier 2 Target" |
| Target Department | Dropdown | ✅ | The organisation's employee departments — managed at Org → Users → Departments (/org/users?tab=departments) |
| Response Target (min) | Number | Default 60 | |
| Resolution Target (min) | Number | Default 240 |
Then + Save OLA Target. Saved policies list below with their department code, targets, and edit/delete actions.
A configured OLA whose department code matches no employee department is flagged in place:
⚠ No employee department matches this code — OLA clocks will never start for it.
The policy saves happily and does nothing. This happens when a department is renamed or deleted after the policy was written. A policy showing this warning is dead configuration.
Two steps, both outside this tab: maintain the departments master under Org → Users → Departments, then set each user's Department on their Employee Details in Org → Users. The OLA clock starts when a ticket is assigned to an agent whose department has a policy here — so an agent with no department never triggers one.
5. Underpinning Contracts (Vendor SLAs)
A UC is a vendor's commitment to you. Its clock starts when a ticket enters a vendor-wait status.
| Field | Control | Required | Source of values |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vendor / Provider | Dropdown | ✅ | The project vendor master — /org/crm/vendors |
| Response Target (min) | Number | Default 60 | |
| Resolution Target (min) | Number | Default 240 |
Then + Save Vendor Contract.
A contract naming a vendor that is not in the project vendor master is flagged:
⚠ Not in the project vendor master (/org/crm/vendors).
Add the vendor there, or the contract is decoration.
6. How the three tiers stack
The SLA is the only clock the customer sees. The OLA and UC exist so that when you miss it, you can tell where the time went — which internal team, or which vendor. All three appear on ticket detail: SLA as the two dials, OLA and UC in the Internal OLA & UC targets panel.
7. Don't confuse these
| These two | Differ by |
|---|---|
| SLA vs OLA vs UC | Customer-facing vs internal-team vs vendor. Three counterparties |
| Business Hours vs Biz Hours Only | The calendar vs the per-priority switch that decides whether a target uses it |
| Response vs Resolution | First public reply vs status reaching resolved/closed |
| Pause SLA (not here) | Set per status in Statuses & Workflows, not on this tab. It stops a running clock |
| Department (OLA) vs Agent | The OLA attaches to the agent's department, not the agent |
8. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause |
|---|---|
Every ticket shows NO SLA | No policy for that priority — or you configured a per-issue-type scope, not the default |
| A P4 breaches over the weekend | Biz Hours Only is unticked for P4 |
| Clock started at 09:00 for a ticket raised at 02:00 | Correct — the calendar's opening time, in the timezone anchor |
| OLA clock never starts | The warning under the policy: no employee department matches the code |
| Vendor contract does nothing | The vendor is not in /org/crm/vendors |
| Targets changed but old tickets look unchanged | Targets are evaluated against the policy in force; check per-issue-type scope |
| Saved from the wrong card | The button says Update P4 on the P1 - Urgent card — internal level vs display name |
Related
- Core concepts — SLA, OLA and UC
- Ticket detail — where the clocks are read
- Settings overview