How to configure SLAs for customers in different time zones?

[Debora Silva]

We have customers in three different time zones, GMT+00:00, GMT-04:00 and GMT+09:00. 

What would be the best practice to set up SLAs for customers based on these three different regions?

[Phill Fox · Accepted solution]

Hi @Debora Silva 

The first thing to check is that you have a way of distinguishing which customers, or more accurately which issues, relate to which timezone. 

Once you can identify them in this way you can then use different calendars for each set of issues based on the JQL you have used to define which relate to which timezone. 

I did write a few years ago on using different SLAs for different timezones which is loosely related to this (it shows how you can define different SLAs for different times of the year) https://www.adaptavist.com/blog/handling-daylight-saving-changes-in-jira-service-desk

Hope this points you in the right direction to solve your challenge. 

Phill

[Debora Silva]

Many thanks, Phill.

I'm looking for a way to distinguish the customers.

I come from OTRS and am running a trial to migrate our service desk. I'm sure I can customize this sort of thing in OTRS, but I'm still learning about Jira.

Kind regards,

Debora

[Phill Fox]

Hi @Debora Silva 

One thought that might help you in identifying the timezone of your user is to look at the API for the user /rest/api/2/user and store this timezone information away in your ticket using one of the automation tools.  You can use a hidden field to hold this information.

You could then set your automation up to correctly attribute a timezone to each ticket on creation.

Note however that if a user has not updated their preferences they will get the system default timezone. 

Hope this helps

Phill

[Debora Silva]

Many thanks, @Phill Fox 

As we are considering opening tickets via email as well as the portal, I'm not sure it's possible to have this information linked to a ticket.

As we currently have a customer database, I'm thinking about creating a dynamic field (eg region) in "Organizations" to define where the customer is based.

I only need to define 3 different time zones as follows:

EU - For customers in Europe

US - For customers in America

APAC - For customers in Asia and the Middle East.

As I have this information defined by the customer, I can use the information in this field + the priority to define a calendar to be used in the SLA.

e.g:

JQL: Priority = High AND (region)

Use: 10-16 weekday calendar - US

Is it possible?

Thanks again,

Debora

[Adrian F_]

@Debora Silva

 If you have setup organizations in your project then I assume based on the customer the ticket will have the correct Organization added after creation.

Then you can either use that info in the JQL for SLA goal or use an automation to set another field (ex: Region) based on the Organization value and use that field in the SLA goals.

See this post if you are interested in setting up the SLA goals and calendars after dong the above : https://howtojira.blogspot.com/2022/05/how-to-setup-jira-slas-for-global-teams.html Thanks