SLA to count down to duedate

Question

Good morning,

My maintenance team wants a SLA to count down to a due date. With some research I found some older documentation that seems to be for a different version of JSM than I am using.

Maybe I am overlooking or overthinking, but I cant get it to work the way I was envisioning. We have tickets with the due date specified, and I dont see a way to make the clock count down to the due date. My alternative idea was to have the SLA be 4 hours on the due date, so it would elapse on the next day but I am not seeing the SLA appear on my issues.

Has anyone got a SLA similar to what I am looking for? If so, how do I make it?

Hannes Obweger - JXL for Jira · Answer

Hi @Chris Quantrell

not sure if this quite what you're looking for, but just to put it out there: If you're open to solutions from the Atlassian Marketplace, you may want to have a look at the app that my team and I are working on, JXL for Jira.

JXL is a full-fledged spreadsheet/table view for your issues that allows viewing, inline-editing, sorting, and filtering by all your issue fields, much like you’d do in e.g. Excel or Google Sheets. It also comes with,

* a long list of so-called smart columns that aren’t natively available, including the time to due date, and
* a range of advanced features, including support for conditional formatting. With conditional formatting, you can define conditions on your issues - such as different due date ranges - and if these conditions are fulfilled, set the color of either the entire issue row or a particular cell.

With these, you can build a view like e.g. this in just a couple of clicks:

To be clear, these aren't technically SLAs (in Jira's sense of the word) - but depending on your exact use case, it may provide a quick and easy way to track and highlight issues as you're getting closer to their due date.

I should also add that JXL can do much more than the above: From support for configurable issue hierarchies, to issue grouping by any issue field(s), or sum-ups.

Any questions just let me know,

Best,

Hannes

Olha Yevdokymova_SaaSJet · Answer

Hello @Chris Quantrell

It sounds like you're trying to set up an SLA that counts down to a specified due date, but you're having trouble getting the SLA to trigger as expected.

In native Jira Service Management (JSM), SLAs are typically used to count time based on certain conditions (like "Time to First Response" or "Time to Resolution") but not directly on custom fields like a Due Date.
I’d recommend using SLA Time and Report,developed by my team which allows more flexibility in configuring custom SLAs based on fields like Due Date. Here’s how it could help:

1. Choose the SLA Type: Negotiated Date

* Go to the SLA Time and Report configuration page.
* Click Add New to create a new SLA.
* Select Negotiated Date as the SLA type. This SLA type allows you to base SLA goals on a specific date and time field, such as Due Date or a custom date field.

2. Define Start and Stop Conditions:

* Start Condition: Define when the SLA should start, such as when the issue moves to a specific status (e.g., "In Progress"), or when a particular field is updated.
* Stop Condition: Define the event that stops the SLA (e.g., when the issue is resolved or moves to a "Done" status).

Note: The SLA will run until the Negotiated Date (e.g., Due Date) is reached, based on the calculation of remaining time between the start event and the Negotiated Date.

3. Set the Negotiated Date Field (Due Date):

* When setting up the SLA, select the Negotiated Date field, which could be the Due Date or any other custom date/time field.
* The system will automatically calculate the time remaining between the Start Condition and the Negotiated Date.

Example:

* If your Start Condition is set to "In Progress," and the Due Date (Negotiated Date) is set for Monday at 10 a.m., the SLA will count down the time remaining until that due date.

4. Set Calendar (Work Schedule):

* After defining the Start and Stop conditions, set up the Calendar (Work Schedule) to exclude non-working hours such as weekends or holidays.
* The system will exclude non-working hours from the SLA countdown.

Example:

* If the issue’s Start event is on Friday at 9 a.m., and the Negotiated Date is Monday at 10 a.m., the weekend will be excluded from the calculation.

5. Calculation Principle:

* The system calculates the SLA based on the time remaining until the Negotiated Date (e.g., Due Date).
* If the issue is resolved before the Negotiated Date, the SLA is met. If it exceeds the Negotiated Date, the SLA is breached.

6. Monitoring the SLA:

* Once the Negotiated Date SLA is set, you can monitor the SLA progress in real time through the issue layout and generate reports to track the SLA status (whether it was met or breached).
* Custom Fields: You can use custom fields to sync the SLA status directly in the issue view.

7. Automated Actions for Breached SLAs:

* Set up automated actions in SLA Time and Report for when the SLA is breached:* Notify individuals or groups via comments or Slack.
* Change the assignee, issue priority, or status automatically.

Mikael Sandberg · Answer

You could do this if you trigger the SLA to start when the due date is set, the only thing is that you would have to cover the amount of time between now and the due date in your goals. At most you could only cover due dates that are 90 days out or less, since the SLA can only have 90 goals. So if the due date was lets say 91 days out your SLA would not pick that up.