Creating SLA Goals
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Each SLA has contracts regarding the agreed-upon aspects of the service to be provided. Each contract includes a set of goals to determine whether the SLA has been met or not. Each goal can be a specific timeframe (days, hours, minutes) or a fixed deadline, such as a due date or custom field in Jira issues. They are tracked according to your working hours.
You can add numerous goals by using the + Add goal button and arrange them by dragging and dropping as you please:
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Each SLA goal must have a goal context, goal calendar, and goal target type. Each section is examined in detail below:
Goal Context
The goal context options define the scope and conditions under which the SLA goal is applied. The available options are:
Default (All issues in the SLA context) – Applies the SLA goal to all issues within the broader SLA context without any additional filtering.
Request Type – Tailors the SLA goal based on the specific request type associated with an issue.
Issue Type – Categorizes SLA goals according to the issue type assigned to an issue.
Issue Priority – Categorizes SLA goals according to the priority level assigned to an issue.
Assignee – Tailors the SLA goal based on the assignee of the issue.
JQL – Create queries to filter and retrieve specific sets of issues, allowing for precise control over which issues the SLA goals should apply to.
Goal Calendar
For the goal to be calculated according to your holidays and working hours, you need to pick a calendar for it. The default calendar is 7x24; however, you can select one of the calendars you've created from the Goal Calendar list, or easily create a new one by clicking + Add New Calendar on the list.
Calendar via Jira Issue
Alternatively, you can select the Calendar via Jira Issue option, enabling you to select your calendar dynamically. This empowers team members across different time zones to customize adjustments on a per-issue basis, eliminating the need to generate multiple goals for various time zones.
To use this feature, you need to add the TTS - Dynamic Calendar field to your instance and make sure it’s available on all screens you need. To do that, follow these steps:
Navigate to the Jira top bar and open Jira Settings > Issues.
Click Custom Fields on the sidebar.
Search for “TTS - Dynamic Calendar”, and click the three-dot icon to reveal the options.
Cick Associate to Screens.
Select all the screens you want to see the custom field on.
Click Update. This will add the custom field to those screens.
Goal Target Types
There are five goal target types you can choose from.
Duration
Use this if the SLA has a fixed time frame. Just type a duration (e.g., 2d 5h), which will be your SLA’s goal. Keep in mind that when the letter “d” is used in the duration, it is interpreted as a “calendar day,” which could be 8 hours, for example. The deadline is calculated as Deadline Date = SLA Start Date + SLA Goal + SLA’s Pause Duration.
The SLA will begin counting after the Start Date is met, and you'll have as much time as the duration you have specified here.
Negotiation Date
The Negotiation Date is the date that the SLA timer counts down to.
How does it work? An SLA ends on the issue's exact resolved date, and the SLA Goal is the issue's due date that a user sets in SLA Configurations. When the issue is resolved, TTS checks whether the due date has passed or not in order to determine if the SLA has been breached or violated. If you select the Negotiation Date as the SLA Goal, TTS will compare the SLA's actual end date and the date given in the field chosen as the Negotiation Date.
When you set the SLA Goal as a negotiation date, the SLA will continue to count even when it’s paused. This means that even if the SLA pause condition is met, the Target Date won’t change.
If the selected field is a date picker instead of a date-time picker, then an extra “offset” selection will appear. This is because a time information needs to be part of the deadline.
Dynamic Duration
Dynamic Duration is a Jira custom field. When you enter a time string here, Time to SLA will set the SLA duration as the input entered in this field. This allows users to enter different SLA goals for each issue!
To set an SLA Goal as a Dynamic Duration, you need to create a custom field that will store the SLA duration beforehand. This custom field will appear only in the screens you select while creating the custom field, regardless of whether you designate the SLA Goal as Dynamic Duration or not.
First, you need to create the custom field. If you don’t know how, refer to this document. Then, you can set the SLA Goal as a dynamic duration.
Next Business Day
"Next business day" refers to the next working day according to the regular business hours of the company. For example, let’s say a company operates from Monday to Friday, from 8 am to 6 pm. For an SLA that started counting at 9 am, selecting Next Business Day will give you time to work on the issue until 6 pm. You can pick as many business days as you'd like and not worry about break times, as the calculation will be done accordingly.
For instance, if a customer creates a ticket outside of the company's working hours, such as at 8 pm on a Friday, the SLA will start counting from 9 am on the following Monday, and will end at 6 pm on that same Monday. This is the standard practice for most companies when using the "next business day" calculation.
No Target
Use this option if you don’t have a Target Date. You can use this if you only want to see the Elapsed Duration in the SLA Panel or see how long you worked on the issue. When you pick No Target, the SLA Panel will look like this: