SLA Calendar setup when Agents are wordlwide

Question

I am trying to think of a "Best way" to setup my SLA's for problem tickets. The issue I am having is that I now have agents that are not just in one location (timezone)

Initially our SLA's were

Critical == 4 hours

Major == 8 hours

Minor == 32 hours

Trivial == 40 hours

Where our calendar was 9-5 Eastern

Now we have Agents in France as well. So this calendar will no longer work.. If I change our Calendar to cover between 3AM - 5PM (that covers us pretty much between our supporting time zone) The Sla's won't work, as the specific agents that get assigned the ticket may be asleep. I cannot find a way to create a calendar based on the Assignee and such.

Does anyone have a best practice or Idea? I know I could just increase my SLA's to math, but if I move my Critical to 8 hours then it sort of defeats the purpose.

Thanks for the input!

Mark Segall · Answer

The first question you need to answer is who are you trying to satisfy with the SLA, the customer or the agent?  If the customer, then you want the SLA to be active regardless of when the agents work and if it's about the agent, you want the SLA to be specific to the agent's hours.

My proposed solution of a region field is based upon the agent availability.  If the ticket comes in at 4 PM eastern and is assigned to a French agent, the clock doesn't start ticking until 3:00 AM.  Similarly, if a ticket comes in at 3:00 AM, but assigned to a US agent, the clock doesn't start ticking until the US agent comes online.

If you're looking for satisfying the customer, you need to establish a follow-the-sun support mechanism where the clock is ticking within that 3:00 AM to 5:00 PM and make sure the ticket is assigned to someone who is working during the time it comes in.

Jean-Francois Noel · Answer

Hi @Dave Mathijs , the customers (employees) are world wide and have different time zones too! Initially though, the expectation was that we functioned from 9-5 eastern time. But now, we have 2 different "support time zones"

Jean-Francois Noel · Answer

Hi @Mark Segall ,

An example could be, the reporter creates a ticket, "I need a new computer" , and let's say that should take 8 hours to accomplish. If this is received and 4 PM eastern, then normally they would have 1 hour to work on it day of then 7 hours next day starting at 9am. If the Reporter is in France, then it may start at 3am Eastern.

The Assignee technically could be in either region and the reporter could be techincally in either region (some have specialities and some are tier 1 support )