SLA rules

An SLA rule sets a time threshold on one of four conversation metrics. When a conversation exceeds the threshold, the rule fires breach notifications to the configured recipients and surfaces in the supervisor breach feed.

Creating a rule

1. Settings → SLA Rules → + New.
2. Name (e.g. FRT 60s, Resolution 4h).
3. Metric — pick one:
   • First response time — seconds from the customer’s first message to the first agent reply.
   • Response time — time between subsequent customer messages and the next agent reply.
   • Resolution — total time from conversation start to close.
   • Queue wait — time a conversation spends queued before assignment.
4. Threshold — a positive number and a unit (seconds / minutes / hours). The live preview shows the equivalent in seconds.
5. Clock — pick one:
   • Business hours — the timer pauses outside the team’s business-hours group. Recommended for most rules.
   • Calendar time — wall-clock seconds, running through nights, weekends, and holidays.
6. Scope — pick one:
   • Tenant-wide — applies to every conversation in the workspace.
   • Specific departments — chip multi-select; only conversations whose assigned team belongs to one of these departments are evaluated.
7. Notifications on breach — tick any combination of:
   • Notify managers (email to tenant managers).
   • Supervisor alert (lights up the supervisor breach feed).
   • Notify the assigned agent (in-app toast on the breaching conversation).
   • Notify the customer (sends the breach apology template — use sparingly).
8. Active — inactive rules are stored but don’t evaluate or alert.

How the clock resolves

When the rule’s clock is set to Business hours:

• Department-scoped rules use the business-hours group attached to that department.
• Tenant-scoped rules use the tenant-default business-hours group.
• If no business-hours group is available, the rule falls back to calendar time.

Edits propagate to the live runtime immediately — in-flight breaches reflect the updated configuration within seconds.

Best practices

• Start tenant-wide with one FRT rule and one Resolution rule, then add department-specific overrides only when SLAs actually differ.
• Prefer the business-hours clock for FRT and Response Time. Customers don’t expect a reply at 03:00.
• Use calendar time sparingly — typically only for queue-wait thresholds where after-hours waiting is itself a problem.
• Don’t tick “Notify the customer” unless you have a specific apology template the customer should receive. It can amplify dissatisfaction on already-late conversations.

Deleting a rule

Conversations currently breaching the rule stop alerting once the change propagates. Historical breach records on the conversation are preserved.