Creating and Configuring SLAs and Escalations

To add and configure an SLA and escalation:

1. Log into the Admin Control Panel and click the SLA link on the sidebar.
2. First, team's work schedule needs to be defined, so GFI HelpDesk knows what hours of the day should count toward the time limits. To do this, click Schedules.
3. On this page, you can see the default work schedule that comes built-in. But we want to customize a new one, so click New in the upper right area.
4. In the Schedule Title field, enter a name for your schedule.
5. Click the Open (Custom) radio button on the 'Monday' row. (As per our example - team is working from 9-5, Mon-Fri).

   

   Click Open(Custom) radio button

6. Option to define your Open and Close times is displayed. Select '9:00' and '17:00' respectively.
7. Repeat that process for the Tuesday through Friday rows.
8. Click Insert at the top of the page to create your new schedule. The working time is configured!

Now that the working time is configured in GFI HelpDesk, next the SLA plan needs to be set up.

1. Click the Plans link on the sidebar.
2. List of existing SLAs in GFI HelpDesk is displayed. Click New to add a new SLA.
3. In the SLA Plan Title field, enter a descriptive title for your SLA.
4. In the is configured field enter 2 to set the two-hour target.
5. In the Resolution Deadline field, enter 4.
6. From the SLA Schedule dropdown, select the work schedule created above.
7. Leave SLA Plan Enabled set to Yes to activate this SLA right away.
8. Enter 1 in the SLA Plan Sort Order field. This sets GFI HelpDesk to apply this SLA first, in any situation where more than one SLA applies to a ticket.

Now, configure GFI HelpDesk to set which tickets this SLA should apply to. (As per our example, we want to apply this SLA to any open, high-priority tickets).

1. In the first row, select Ticket Status in the first dropdown and Open in the third.

   

   Select Ticket Status

2. To set the second criteria, click the Insert Criteria button, and select Ticket priority in the first dropdown and High in the third.
   NOTE:

   As you can see, there are a lot of options for how to define the criteria for SLAs. It's worth taking note of the other options available here, for future SLA projects.

3. Click Insert to create your SLA plan.

Finally, GFI HelpDesk needs to be configured to handle tickets that do not meet the deadlines set in the SLA plan. In other words, escalations needs to be configured.

1. Click the Escalations link on the sidebar.
   NOTE:

   Remember, you need to have cron enabled on your server for the escalations to work.

2. List of existing Escalations are displayed. Click New to start a new Escalation Rule.
3. In the Rule Title field, add a descriptive title for your escalation.
4. From the SLA Plan dropdown, select the SLA plan you created above.
5. From the Escalation Type list, select Either reply or resolution overdue because we want the ticket to be escalated if it misses either of these deadlines.
6. In the Actions section, you can set what actions to perform on the tickets violating SLA. We just want to bump the ticket priority up a level so from the Ticket Priority dropdown, select Critical.

   

   Select critical

7. Setting up notification email whenever the escalation is applied. At the top of the screen, click the Notification tab.
   NOTE:

   You can also set up broader rules for sending email notifications. Check out our user guide article about notifications to learn more.

   

   Click Notification tab

8. On this tab, you can insert notification emails for various stakeholders. We are just going to set one up for the staff member assigned to the ticket. Click Insert Notification.
9. Select Staff (Owner) from the dropdown.

   

   Select Staff (Owner)

10. Fill out the Subject field with the subject line for the email, and add the body of the message in the text area below.
11. Next, switch back to the General tab.
12. Review your escalation and click Insert to save and activate it.

A new SLA is created!