Before you begin
- Atlas Flow on your plan (Atlas AVD) and turned on for the tenant
- An Atlas role with the Manage Atlas Flow settings permission (Atlas administrators have it)
Step 1: Create a policy
In Atlas Flow, open the Settings tab, find Service levels and select Add SLA policy.
- Policy name: what technicians see, for example Standard or Gold support.
- Active: turn a policy off to stop its escalation without deleting it.
- Apply to new tickets: the policy every new ticket gets. Only one policy can do this; choosing it on another policy moves it there. It is marked Default in the list.
- Targets: for each priority (Low, Medium, High, Critical), the hours allowed for the first response and for resolution. Use decimals for part hours, such as 0.5 for 30 minutes. Leave a target empty when that priority has none.
A policy applies to tickets created after it becomes the default. Tickets that already exist keep the due times they have.
What counts as a response and a resolution
The first-response target is met when a technician posts a public reply on the ticket, or moves it on from New. An internal note does not count, because the requester can't see it. The resolution target is met when the ticket is resolved or closed. If you change a ticket's priority, the targets it has not met yet are recalculated from when the ticket was created, using the new priority.
Business hours and holidays
By default the clock runs around the clock. To count only working time, clear Count around the clock and set:
- Time zone: the zone your service desk works in. Each day's hours are read in this zone, including across daylight-saving changes.
- Days: the days of the week you work.
- Opens and Closes: the working hours on those days.
- Holidays: dates when the clock does not run, even on a working day. Add each date with Add holiday.
With business hours, a 1-hour target on a ticket that arrives at 17:30, when you close at 18:00, is due at 09:30 the next working day.
Pause the clock while a ticket is Waiting
Turn on Pause the clock while a ticket is Waiting when time spent waiting on the requester or a third party should not count against your targets. While a ticket is in a Waiting status, its clock stops and it can't miss a target. When it moves out of Waiting, its open targets move out by the time it spent waiting (counted in business hours when the policy has them). The ticket shows Paused next to its service level while the clock is stopped, and the timeline records when the clock paused and restarted.
When a target is missed
When a target passes, Atlas records it on the ticket's timeline and notifies the assignee. The first time a ticket misses a target, the policy can also escalate it. Under When a target is missed, choose any of:
- Raise the priority one step (never above Critical). The targets the ticket has not met yet follow the new priority.
- Reassign to: a technician who takes over the ticket and is notified.
- Move to team: the team the ticket moves to.
See a ticket's service level
On the ticket page, Service level shows each target with its due time, or Met or Missed once it is settled, and Paused while the clock is stopped. The timeline shows when the due times were set or changed, when a target was missed, and what the escalation did.
Close resolved tickets automatically
Under Auto-close in the Settings tab, enter how many days a ticket can stay resolved before Atlas closes it, then select Save. Atlas checks every minute and moves each ticket that has been resolved that long to your default Closed status. Its timeline says it was closed automatically. A ticket that is reopened before then is left alone. Enter 0 to turn auto-close off, which is the default.
Deleting a policy
Select the delete button next to a policy and confirm. Tickets that were under it keep their due times, and a missed target is still recorded and notified, but no longer escalates. If it was the default, new tickets get no service level until you choose another default.