Accurate Date/Time of First Responses?

[Chris Green]

Does anyone have a foolproof way to get accurate date/times of first responses back to customers? We had always used the "Date of First Response", but that will store the first comment added to a ticket, whether it's public or an internal comment -- so any automations that we have that add an initial internal comment or instances where a customer might respond with a first comment (with additional information) will play into this -- not good. 

Atlassian's suggestion was to create a custom field and run an automation to trigger when a first 'public' comment is made on a ticket (discussion), however in our case, we'd only want it to be a first public comment by an internal agent, not a customer. 

Does anyone have a foolproof solution in place for this? 

or

Are there any add-ons that will help us achieve this? 

Thanks,

Chris

[Esteban Diaz · Accepted solution]

Hi @Chris Green , 

Why don't you try an automation triggered by a comment that specifies the user who created the comment is not a customer? Here is a screenshot that may help you...

You can stamp the time in a new custom field... and maybe a flag custom field to detect if this is the first comment or no...

Does it make sense?

Cheers, 

Esteban

[John Funk]

Hi Chris,

You should be able to create an automation rule following that guidance and include a Condition for the public comment and a Condition for an internal agent. 

Give that a try and if you have problems, please post back here with a screenshot of your entire rule and let us know what is not working with it. 

[John Funk]

Glad to hear you got it working. Please consider clicking on the Accept Answer button above so we can close this one out. Thanks!

[Chris Green]

@John Funk / @Esteban Diaz 

This is what I ended up doing with my conditions and so far so good.....

[Esteban Diaz]

Awesome!

[John Funk]

That looks good - have you tested it out? 

[Chris Green]

Yes, works perfectly!

[Alina Kurinna _SaaSJet_]

Hi @Chris Green 

If you're looking for a foolproof way to capture the exact time of the first public response by an internal agent, I’d recommend trying the SLA Time and Report for Jira app, developed by our team at SaaSJet.

It gives you full control over who and what triggers SLA time – avoiding cases where internal automation or customer replies accidentally count as “first response.”

How to configure this in SLA Time and Report

You can easily set up a Time to First Response SLA goal that only starts and stops based on your exact conditions. For example:

• Start: When the ticket is created and enters a status like “Waiting for support”

• Pause: Optional – if you want to exclude time waiting on the customer

• Stop: When the first public comment is made by a team member (not the customer!)

Here's how this works in the app:

• In the PAUSE or STOP condition, you can select:

  • Comment → From Assignee

  • Or Comment → From Specific User if you want to limit it to exact team members

• This way, only the first agent response will be counted – not automation, not customer replies, not internal notes.

Bonus: SLA Reporting and Dashboards

Once configured, the app gives you access to powerful reporting features:

• Visualize SLA results by assignee, team, priority, etc.

• Monitor SLA performance across multiple projects with real-time tracking.

• Add SLA charts to Jira dashboards.

• Export reports for audits, SLA compliance, and optimization.

If you're open to trying Marketplace apps, I think this will give you a much more reliable and scalable approach than relying on custom fields and automation workarounds.

Let me know if you have any questions – happy to help you get started or walk through your specific use case!