Lessons · IT support · the SLA clock
The SLA is a clock, and a breach is the clock running out
A service level agreement says how fast the desk promises to respond and to resolve, by priority. The clock starts when the ticket is opened; a breach is when the promised time passes and the ticket is still open. Time remaining is the target minus the time already gone.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
A P2 ticket opened at 09:12 with a four-hour resolve target is due at 13:12. At 11:40 you are still on it and think you have plenty of time. You have 92 minutes, one of which you just spent thinking that. Knowing the number is what lets you decide, now, whether to keep going or to hand it up before the clock runs out on the whole team.
How to think about it
Write the opened time and the target as minutes and subtract. Elapsed is now minus opened; remaining is target minus elapsed; a negative remaining is a breach, by that many minutes. If the desk works business hours, the clock pauses when the desk closes, so count only the minutes the desk was open.
Worked example
Opened 09:12, target 4 h = 240 min, now 11:40Three numbers. Everything else is subtraction.
Elapsed = 11:40 − 09:12 = 148 minTwo hours and twenty-eight minutes gone.
Remaining = 240 − 148 = 92 minNinety-two minutes, so the escalation decision is due at about the halfway mark you have already passed.
Resolved at 13:40 → 240 − 268 = −28 minIf it had gone to 13:40, that is a breach by 28 minutes, and it is written as one.
Your turn
A ticket with a 2 h target was opened at 14:05. Write the time it is due.
Due at
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Reading the clock from the last note instead of from the opened time. Every update you write restarts nothing. The SLA clock started when the ticket did, and it does not care how busy you were.