When SLAs are enabled, every incoming thread is matched against your SLA policies top to bottom. The first matching policy applies — the rest are ignored. Each policy defines up to three time targets:
First response — How quickly your team should send the initial reply to a new thread.
Next response — How quickly your team should reply after each subsequent customer message (resets every time the customer sends a new message).
Time to close — How long until the thread should be fully resolved.
Every thread with an active SLA shows a status badge:
On track — More than 60 minutes remain until the deadline.
At risk (yellow) — 60 minutes or less remain.
Breached (red) — The deadline has passed.
Each policy can either apply to all threads (catch-all) or use conditions to target specific threads. Conditions can match on:
Thread fields: Pain level (High/Medium/Low), origin (Widget, Email, Slack, Portal, Live Chat, API, etc.)
Company fields: Name, size, revenue, tier, status
Contact fields: Email
Conditions support operators like equals, not equals, contains, starts with, greater than, less than, etc. You can combine multiple conditions with ALL (every condition must match) or ANY (at least one must match) logic.
When you first enable SLAs, four policies are created:
Policy | First response | Next response | Time to close |
|---|---|---|---|
High Priority | 1 hour | 4 hours | 1 day |
Medium Priority | 4 hours | 8 hours | 2 days |
Low Priority | 8 hours | 1 day | 1 week |
Default (all threads) | None | None | None |
You can edit, reorder, add, or remove policies at any time.
When Use office hours is enabled, only time during your defined office hours counts toward SLA deadlines. Time outside office hours (nights, weekends, holidays) is not counted. If a deadline would fall outside office hours, it's pushed to the start of the next office hours window.
Configure your office hours and timezone under Settings > Office hours.
Go to Settings > SLAs
Toggle Enable SLAs on
Optionally toggle Use office hours to only count business hours
Configure your policies using Add Policy or edit the defaults
You can manually set or remove an SLA deadline on any individual thread. Manual overrides are preserved — the system won't overwrite them with auto-calculated deadlines.