Article

    SLA Policies

    7 min read
    Last updated 1 day ago

    SLAs help your team track time-based support commitments across conversations. You can use them to define response and resolution targets, apply different targets by priority, pause timers when a conversation is on hold, and report on where work is on track, at risk, or breached.

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    How SLA Policies work

    An SLA Policy is a reusable set of time targets. When a conversation receives an active policy, Unthread creates SLA timers for the metrics configured in that policy. Each timer tracks its own deadline, warning time, status, and completion result.

    SLA timers can be:

    • Running: The timer is active and counting toward its deadline.
    • Due soon: The timer has reached its warning time or is within 15 minutes of its deadline.
    • Breached: The deadline passed before the metric was completed.
    • Met: The metric was completed before the deadline.
    • Paused: The conversation matches one of the pause statuses configured on the policy.
    • Cancelled: The timer no longer applies, usually because the conversation's policy or priority changed.

    You can configure a policy to pause timers when a conversation has the Needs response, In progress, or On hold status type. When the conversation leaves the selected statuses, Unthread resumes its active timers and moves their deadlines forward by the time spent paused.

    SLA metrics

    Each policy can include one or more metrics:

    • First Response: Time from when the conversation is ready for an agent response to the first agent response. For conversations that are ready immediately, the timer begins at conversation creation.
    • Next Reply: Time from a customer reply to the next agent response.
    • Resolution: Time from conversation creation to conversation resolution.
    • Escalation Acknowledgement: Time from escalation creation to acknowledgement.
    • Escalation Closed: Time from escalation creation to close or resolution.

    First Response and Resolution are conversation-level metrics. Next Reply starts each time a customer reply requires a new agent response. Escalation metrics apply to escalation workflows.

    Which SLA Policy applies?

    A conversation can have an explicit SLA Policy, which takes precedence over configured defaults.

    For a new conversation without an explicit policy, Unthread selects a default in this order:

    1. Account SLA Policy Override
    2. Customer or channel SLA Policy
    3. Project default SLA Policy

    Unthread saves the selected policy on the conversation. Changing an account, customer, channel, or project default affects new conversations; it does not replace the policy already saved on an existing conversation.

    To change an existing conversation, open its Additional information panel and select SLA policy. You can also use the Set Conversation SLA Policy automation action.

    Create or edit an SLA Policy

    1. Open an SLA Policy selector from project, channel, customer, or account settings.
    2. Select Create SLA policy, or select Manage SLA policies and open an existing policy.
    3. Enter a policy Name and optional Description.
    4. To pause timers based on conversation status, turn on Pause SLA timers and select one or more status types.
    5. Turn on the metrics you want to enforce.
    6. For each metric, configure its target rows:
      • Priority: Use Any priority as a fallback, or add targets for individual priority levels.
      • Target: The number of minutes before the SLA is due.
      • Warning: The number of minutes after the timer starts when the SLA should be considered at risk. The warning must be less than the target.
      • Business Hours: When enabled, Unthread counts only the conversation's effective working hours. When disabled, the timer uses calendar time.
    7. Use the Enabled toggle to make the policy active or inactive.
    8. Select Create or Save.
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    Metric changes apply to SLA instances created after you save. Existing SLA records keep the timing details they were created with. Changes to Pause SLA timers are reconciled against active timers using each conversation's current status.

    You cannot remove a metric while it has active SLA instances. Complete or cancel those instances before removing the metric.

    Workspace owners and admins can manage workspace-wide policies. Project owners and members with permission to manage project settings can manage project-scoped policies.

    Apply SLA Policies

    You can apply SLA Policies in several places:

    • Project default SLA Policy: Set the default policy for conversations in a project.

    • Channel or customer SLA Policy: Set the policy used for conversations that come through supported Slack, email, Microsoft Teams, widget, or customer-specific settings.

    • Account SLA Policy Override: Override project and customer/channel defaults for a specific account.

    • Conversation SLA policy override: Use automations or conversation-level actions to set or clear the policy for a specific conversation.

    • Automations: Use the Set Conversation SLA Policy action to apply or clear an SLA policy override based on workflow conditions.

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    How SLAs appear in the UI

    SLAs appear anywhere your team needs to understand urgency:

    • In the inbox and conversation lists, Unthread shows the most urgent actionable SLA.
    • On the conversation details page, the status row shows the primary SLA timer.
    • In the conversation's Additional information panel, Unthread shows the saved SLA policy and all non-cancelled SLA metrics.
    • SLA tooltips show the metric, status, whether business hours are used, and relevant due, breach, pause, or completion details.

    Badge colors help you triage quickly:

    • Green: Running and on track, or completed successfully.
    • Yellow: Due soon or past the configured warning time.
    • Red: Breached.
    • Gray: Paused.

    If a conversation has multiple actionable timers, Unthread highlights breached timers first. Otherwise, it shows the active timer with the nearest deadline.

    Use analytics to understand SLA performance

    SLA analytics help you understand whether your team is meeting commitments and where work is getting stuck. Review SLA data by filtering or reporting on:

    • Status: Running, paused, breached, completed, or cancelled.
    • Metric type: First Response, Next Reply, Resolution, Escalation Acknowledgement, or Escalation Closed.
    • Deadline date range: See what is due soon, overdue, or coming up in a specific period.
    • Breach date range: Identify when breaches happened and whether they cluster around certain teams, channels, priorities, or customers.
    • Completion date range: Measure how often SLAs were met and how quickly completed work closed.
    • Policy name: Compare performance across different SLA Policies.
    • Conversation context: Segment by project, account, customer, channel, assignee, priority, or conversation status when building operational reports.

    Best practices

    • Start with a simple policy that includes First Response and Resolution targets.
    • Add Next Reply once your team is ready to enforce every customer follow-up.
    • Use priority-specific targets when urgent conversations truly need different commitments.
    • Enable Business Hours for commitments that should only count during support coverage.
    • Leave Business Hours off for 24/7 commitments.
    • Set warning times early enough for agents to take action before a breach.
    • Use account or customer overrides for premium support commitments.
    • Review breached SLA trends regularly and adjust targets or staffing before they become chronic.