How SLA Tracking Works

Tracking is automatic once a policy exists. Here's the shape of it before the details:

You define the rules

Create SLA policies that set first-response and resolution time targets for each priority level (urgent, high, normal, low).

The clock runs on its own

An inbound message starts the clock and both deadlines are fixed at that moment. The resolution clock pauses after an agent replies and resumes when the customer writes back.

Your team stays informed

The Details panel of a conversation shows a live countdown to each deadline. When one is missed, a breach notification goes to the assigned agent and to the owner and admins.

Success Check: You understand the three-part flow: define policies, automatic tracking, breach notifications.

Creating SLA Policies

Owner Only

Each SLA policy is tied to a priority level and defines how quickly your team should respond and resolve conversations at that priority. You can have one active policy per priority.

Setting up your first policy

1
Open SLA Policies
Click the Manage icon in the sidebar, then select SLA Policies from the Manage menu.
2
Find the priority level and click "Add"
The settings page lists all four priority levels (Urgent, High, Normal, Low) in rows. Click the Add button next to the priority you want to create a policy for. If a policy already exists, you'll see an Edit button instead.
3
Name your policy and set time targets
The row expands into a form with Policy Name (pre-filled with something like "Urgent Priority"), First Response Target and Resolution Target. Both targets are in minutes — up to 10,080 (7 days) for first response and 43,200 (30 days) for resolution.
4
Decide how the clock counts
Business Hours Only is on by default and calculates deadlines from the working hours in ManageCompany Info (08:00–17:00 in your company timezone until you change them). Turn it off and the clock runs around the clock.
5
Save and activate
Leave the Active toggle on — an inactive policy is ignored by tracking — and click Save. The row collapses and shows the targets you set.

SLA Policies page under Manage with the urgent policy form open: Policy Name, First Response Target, Resolution Target, Business Hours Only and Active toggles, Save and Cancel, plus a saved normal-priority row and Add buttons for the other priorities

To remove a policy, click the trash icon on its row. There is no confirmation step, and conversations at that priority stop being tracked from that moment.

Understanding the two time targets

First Response Time

How quickly your team should send the first reply after a customer reaches out. The clock starts when the inbound message arrives and stops when any agent sends a response.

Resolution Time

How quickly the conversation should be marked Resolved. Its deadline is set when the clock starts; pausing stops the alerts while you wait on the customer, it does not push the deadline back.

Pro Tip: One target is enough. Leave the resolution field empty if you only care about first response — but you have to fill in at least one, or saving fails with "Set at least one target".

Success Check: You have at least one active policy, and its row on the SLA Policies page shows the targets you saved.

Setting Customer Priorities

A policy is matched to a conversation by the contact's priority. Every contact starts at Normal, and any team member can change it — including agents, who cannot open the policy settings themselves.

The four priority levels

Urgent

Critical issues that need immediate attention. Use for outages, security incidents, or high-value customers with time-sensitive problems.

High

Important issues that should be addressed promptly. Use for VIP customers or complex problems that can't wait.

Normal

The default for all conversations. Standard support requests handled within your regular SLA targets.

Low

Non-urgent inquiries like feature requests or general feedback. Longer response windows keep your team focused on what matters.

Changing a customer's priority

1
Right-click the customer in the contact list
A context menu appears with a Priority submenu.
2
Select the new priority
Choose Urgent, High, Normal, or Low; the level the contact already has is greyed out. The change saves immediately.

Contact list context menu with the Priority submenu open showing Urgent (red), High (orange), Normal (blue) and Low (grey), alongside the Details panel with the SLA Status card

You can also change it from the open conversation: the Priority dropdown in the Details panel, directly above the SLA status. That dropdown only appears once at least one active policy has a target set.

A new priority does not reset a running clock. The deadlines already on the conversation stay as they are. The new level is picked up the next time tracking starts — when the customer writes again after both clocks have finished, or when you mark the conversation Resolved and then Open again, which rebuilds the record from scratch.

Filtering by priority

Need to see all urgent conversations at once? Click the filter icon in the contact list, tick one or more levels under Priority, then click Apply.

Pro Tip: Create SLA policies for at least Urgent and Normal priorities. This gives your team clear expectations for critical vs. standard requests without overcomplicating things.

Success Check: You can change customer priorities from the context menu and filter the contact list by priority level.

Understanding the Tracking Lifecycle

One tracking record lives per contact, and it moves through five states as the conversation goes back and forth.

1

Start

An inbound message arrives for a contact whose priority matches an active policy. Both deadlines are calculated at that moment and stored. If a record already exists and either clock is still pending, the existing deadlines are kept.

2

First Response

An agent sends the first reply and first response is marked Met or Breached against its deadline. A reply from the AI first-responder counts too; an auto-reply — an away message or a handoff acknowledgment — does not.

3

Pause

The same reply pauses the record. While it is paused, a passed resolution deadline raises no alert — the conversation is waiting on the customer, not on you.

4

Resume

The customer sends another message and the record un-pauses against the same deadline it started with. Paused time is recorded but never added back to the target.

5

Resolution

You mark the conversation Resolved and resolution is marked Met or Breached against its deadline. Moving it back to Open throws the record away and starts a fresh one from the contact's current priority.

Business hours mode: with Business Hours Only on, the deadline is pushed forward over the hours outside your daily window. A 30-minute target on a message at 16:50, with hours ending at 17:00, lands at 08:20 the next morning. Working hours are a daily time range, so weekends are not skipped — a Saturday deadline is still a Saturday deadline.

Pro Tip: Pausing protects you from alerts while the customer is thinking, not from the deadline itself. If threads on your team routinely sit with the customer for days, set the resolution target long enough to cover that, or leave it empty and track first response only.

Success Check: You can trace a conversation through start, first response, pause, resume and resolution, and you know which of those move a deadline.

Breach Notifications

A background check runs every 2 minutes and looks for deadlines that have passed. A paused record is skipped for resolution, so only work that is genuinely sitting with your team raises an alert.

Who gets told

Assigned conversations

The assigned agent gets an in-app notification, plus a browser push if they have push notifications switched on. The owner and admins get the same in-app alert.

Unassigned conversations

With nobody assigned, the alert goes to the owner and admins only, marked "SLA Breached (Unassigned)" so it reads differently in the notification list.

A conversation alerts once per tracking cycle. If first response breaches and the resolution deadline passes later on the same record, no second notification is sent — the status catches up when you resolve the conversation.

Pro Tip: Assign conversations early. An unassigned breach is only visible to the owner and admins, and it is the one shape of alert nobody personally owns.

Success Check: You know a breach reaches the assigned agent and the owner and admins, and that each tracking cycle alerts once.

Reading the SLA Status Card

SLA status lives in one place: the Details panel of an open conversation, under the Priority dropdown. Open a conversation and click the info icon in the chat header if the panel is hidden.

Details panel of an open conversation showing the Priority dropdown and the SLA Status card with First Response pending, a 29m remaining deadline, Resolution pending and a 3h 59m remaining deadline

What the card shows

Two rows, one per target

First Response and Resolution each read Pending (yellow clock), Met (green check) or Breached (orange warning). A target you left empty counts as met from the start and never appears as pending.

A live deadline

While a target is pending, a Deadline line counts down — "29m remaining", then "12m overdue" once it passes. It refreshes every 30 seconds. Once a target is met, the countdown is replaced by when it happened.

A Paused chip

Next to the SLA Status heading when the conversation is waiting on the customer. The deadline shown keeps counting down; what pausing stops is the breach alert.

The card is hidden in three cases: no active policy has a target, the contact's priority has no policy, or the conversation is already Resolved. Nothing is broken when you don't see it — nothing is being tracked.

Success Check: You can open a conversation, find the SLA Status card in the Details panel, and read both deadlines from it.

Best Practices & Tips

Start with two policies

Create policies for Urgent and Normal priorities first. This covers most scenarios without overwhelming your team with too many tiers.

Keep Business Hours Only on

Unless someone is on duty overnight, leave it on so a 2am message isn't already late by the time your team logs in. Set the hours first in ManageCompany Info; the default window is 08:00–17:00.

Allow for weekends yourself

Business hours are a daily window with no weekday setting, so Saturday and Sunday count like any other day. If your team is Monday to Friday, pick targets long enough to absorb a weekend or accept the Monday-morning breach alerts.

Set realistic first-response targets

A 15-minute first response for Urgent and 60 minutes for Normal is a good starting point. Adjust based on your team's capacity and customer expectations.

Assign conversations promptly

An assigned conversation alerts the person holding it, on their phone too if they have push on. An unassigned one only reaches the owner and admins, who may each assume someone else has it.

Use priority filters in the inbox

Filter by Urgent or High priority to focus on the conversations that matter most. This helps agents triage their queue efficiently.

Read the numbers in Employee Analytics

The owner-only Employee Analytics page has an SLA Compliance figure, an eight-week trend and a per-agent breakdown. It scores replies against the first-response target of the matching policy, so setting a Normal policy is what makes that number mean anything — without one it falls back to 5 minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens if I don't create a policy for a priority level?

Conversations at that priority are not tracked: no deadlines, no SLA card in the Details panel, no breach notifications. Add a policy later and tracking starts on the next inbound message.

Can I have multiple policies for the same priority?

No. Each priority level can have only one active policy. If you need different targets, consider using a different priority level or adjusting the existing policy.

Does the SLA clock run outside business hours?

Only if you switch Business Hours Only off. Left on, deadlines skip the hours outside your daily window in your company timezone. Weekends are not skipped, because working hours are a single daily range with no weekday setting.

What happens when I change a customer's priority?

Nothing changes on the conversation in front of you — the deadlines already running stay put. The new priority is used the next time tracking starts: when the customer writes again after both clocks have finished, or when you mark the conversation Resolved and reopen it, which builds a fresh record.

Why is the resolution clock paused?

An agent replied and the conversation is now waiting on the customer. Pausing suppresses the breach alert for as long as that lasts; it does not move the resolution deadline, which was fixed when tracking started. The next customer message un-pauses it.

Do I need to set both first response and resolution targets?

One of the two is enough — saving with both fields empty is rejected. Track first response only, resolution only, or both.

Does an auto-reply count as the first response?

No. Away messages and handoff acknowledgments leave the first-response clock running, which is the point — an automated "we'll be with you shortly" is not an answer. A reply from the AI first-responder does count, because it answers the customer's question.

Why did a resolved conversation still breach?

Resolving a conversation closes the resolution target, not the first-response one. A thread closed without any reply — spam, a duplicate, a question that answered itself — leaves first response pending, so it can still breach afterwards. Send a short reply before resolving, or expect the alert.