An SLA (Service Level Agreement) is an agreed-upon time period within which a response and/or resolution should be provided for a ticket.
Within Freshdesk, you can create an SLA policy under Admin > Workflows > SLA policies > Add Policy. You can set the SLA Targets and set rules for which this SLA will have to apply.
You also have the option to associate specific Business Hours with the SLA so that the SLA applies only for that business hour (time period).
When a ticket is newly created on the portal, the default status of this ticket is "open." So this is when the SLA timer begins on the ticket and the time gets calculated on the ticket. The response time and resolution time on a ticket are determined by the SLA policy applied to this ticket and the details of this could be checked in Admin ->Workflows -> SLA policies.
When you reply to a customer or wait for a third party to give you information, you could change the status to pending or "waiting on third-party response." The SLA timer could be switched off for such statuses in Admin -> Workflows -> ticket fields -> click on the status dropdown to toggle off the respective times next to these statuses.
Go to the Tickets tab -> click on a ticket, in the Ticket details page, you'll find the 'Edit' option right above the Subject of the ticket.
Note:
1) The option to change the due date will only show up when the ticket is assigned to statuses that have the SLA timer ON (example: Open).
You can check which statuses have their SLA timers ON or OFF under Admin > Workflows > Ticket Fields > Status field. Once a manual change is done to the Due Time of a ticket, it will not change again when the ticket properties (for example, a change in priority) are updated.
2) The due by date and time can always be updated only to a value greater than the First response time, which is the 'Response due' time on the ticket.
When a ticket is created in your portal, you could set a priority to the ticket according to the subject and level of urgency expressed by the customer. In the SLA policy, you would be able to set a first response time as well as resolution time. Please navigate to Admin -> Workflows -> SLA policies -> click on edit next to the policy.
When the first response time is violated the ticket would contain a "response due" tag which could be seen when you see this ticket in the queue within your tickets list view.
The resolution time when violated would give the ticket a tag called "overdue" which can also be seen when you check your queue.
While configuring SLA, you would also have to option to set up escalation rules, which would send out notifications to the chosen agents, whenever the configured SLA is violated. This could be set up under Admin > Workflows > SLA Policies > Edit >"What happens when this SLA is violated?" where you could add multiple levels of escalation.
However, only agents(any agent within your Freshdesk Account, even from a different group) in your account could be added under this section and third parties could not be added.
Escalations can crop up for many reasons, like miscommunication with agents, technical delays, missed SLAs, etc. It is essential to set up the right processes and mechanisms to effectively manage escalations and prevent them from achieving a great customer experience.
Freshdesk enables you to configure Escalation Rules and Supervisor Rules when an agent has not sent the first response within a set time.
Escalation Rules
Please follow the steps below to configure Escalation Rules under SLA Policies.
Navigate to Admin. Select Workflows and click on SLA Policies.
Click on Edit next to the SLA Policy you wish to set up the escalation rule.
Under the Send escalation when the SLA is violated section, click on Add new escalations.
Now, select When First response target is not met escalate immediately(or select any preferred time interval) to Assigned agent(and/or the Supervisor).
Click on Save.
Supervisor Rules
You can also set up Supervisor Rules through automations, enabling you to customize your escalation email sent to the agent’s supervisor. Here is how you can do it.
Navigate to Admin from the menu. Under Workflows, click on Automations.
Choose the Tickets tab and then Time Triggers.
Click on the New Rule button and provide a rule name.
Under the On tickets with these properties: section, click on Match ALL of the below option.
Select In Tickets, if Hours since first response due, Greater than 1.
Click on Add new condition.
Then, select In Tickets, if Hours since first response due, Less than 2.
Under the Perform these actions: section, select Send email to agent option from the dropdown.
Customize your email with dynamic content using Insert Placeholder option.
Click on Preview and Save and then Save and enable.
Please reach out to support@freshdesk.com if you require further assistance.
You could configure Business Hours on your account, based on your active time period for each day of the week. This could be done from under Admin > Service Management > Service desk settings > Business Hours > Edit and change under "Business Hours".
Once this is done, you could associate the SLA to work based on Business Hours.
Effectively managing holidays and configuring the calendar is essential for maintaining efficient support operations.
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Setting Holidays
To set holidays on your Freshdesk Business Calendar, follow these simple steps:
- Go to Admin > Team > Business Hours.
- Click on your configured Business Hours to edit it.
- Select the Holidays tab and click on Add Holidays.
- Enter the date and the name under the Exclusive or Regional Holidays category as per your requirement and click Add.
- Click Save to confirm your changes.
Once you have added a holiday to your Freshdesk Business Calendar, it will be marked as a non-working day on your calendar.
Changing Calendar Holidays
If you need to change a calendar holiday to a working day, you can do so by following these steps:
- Go to Admin > Team > Business Hours.
- Click on your configured Business Hours to edit it.
- Select the Holidays tab and find the holiday you want to change.
- Click on the Remove button next to the holiday.
- Click on Save to confirm the changes.
Removing a holiday from your Freshdesk Business Calendar will be marked as a working day on your calendar.
The yearly holiday list needs to be updated annually. Custom leaves allocated for the current year cannot be carried forward to future years. To ensure accurate holiday configurations, it is necessary to update the holiday list each year manually.
Please navigate to Admin -> Account -> Helpdesk Settings to see the option to change the time zone.
Kindly change it with respect to your location and it would reflect in your portal.
As of now, Freshdesk does not have an option to have the Time Format to be available in a 24-hour format.
