How to show SLA metrics to customers in the JSM portal

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If you have ever sent a request via the Jira Service Management customer portal, you know how it goes. You wait, tapping your fingers on the desk, but hours pass, and all you see is “Open” or “In progress.” Will you hear back today—or next week?

Let’s talk about SLAs in JSM from the perspective of customers. 

Any updates, sir?

When customers cannot see what’s happening behind the scenes, frustration builds fast. That’s when duplicate follow-ups, escalations, and “any update?” messages start piling in.

Agents get overwhelmed. Lucky ones, they see SLA timers ticking. Customers don’t.

                                        “Open”. And what? For how long?

What JSM shows by default

In Jira Service Management, agents see SLA timers, color-coded warnings, and countdowns. Customers, though? They see statuses like “Waiting for support” or “In progress.” That tells them what is happening, but not when. 

                           Customer’s view in Request Page in the JSM portal

                                               Agent’s view in JSM queues 

In short, agents are racing the clock while customers stay in the dark.

How to show SLA timers in the portal

Unfortunately, natively in JSM there is no built-in way or documented workaround to show SLA progress to customers. 

If you want them to track SLA progress themselves, you can rely on add-ons at the Marketplace provided by Atlassian partners. 

At Deviniti, we took a closer look at this visibility gap while interviewing JSM users and diving deep into the Community threads. The problem was one of the most discussed. 

“Is it possible to show SLA to customer at customer portal on his request?

Maybe there is possibility to copy SLA to Due Date column by some automation?

I've tried the second solution, but I didn't figured it out :(“

One of the users’ comments on Atlassian Community

The solution has been introduced in the SLA Time Management app, which adds an intuitive SLA panel directly within the customer portal. 

Customers can see:

• live progress bars, 
• target completion dates, 
• SLA times that are adjusted to their own time zone.

In the SLA Time Management app, you can set the visibility while creating a new SLA

               The result is a simple panel in the request view on the Customer Portal

Best practices for displaying SLA info to customers using SLA Time Management 

Simply exposing SLA data isn’t enough. To make it effective, keep these two practices in mind while creating your SLAs. 

Respect time zones and working calendars. If a ticket shows “2 hours left” but your team is offline until tomorrow, customers will feel misled. Firstly, adjust SLA calendars to reflect actual working hours.

Pair SLA visibility with status updates. If an SLA is paused because you’re waiting on a third party, say so. Context prevents confusion.

Pro-tip: If you already use My Requests Extension for Jira Service Management, your customers can display SLA status as a dedicated column across all their requests.

                                        SLA column in My Requests Extension

Wrap-up: SLA visibility = smoother communication

At its core, SLA visibility isn’t about dashboards or compliance. It’s about trust.

When customers see the same ticking clock that agents do, it changes the dynamic. Instead of wondering if their request has been forgotten, they know exactly when to expect a response. 

Your support teams free their time from follow-ups, duplicate tickets, and frustrated escalations. For customers, it means transparency and reassurance.