Business hours and holiday lists are essential tools for managing Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in your helpdesk. They ensure that tickets are processed within the expected time frames based on your organization’s working hours and holidays. This guide will walk you through what multiple business hours and holiday lists are, how they function, and how to set them up in an easy-to-follow manner.
Understanding business hours
Business hours define the working schedule of your organization, specifying the timeframe during which tickets are actively handled. They play a critical role in managing Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and determining ticket resolution timelines.
Key options:
- Time zones: You can assign a specific time zone to your business hours. This is especially useful for organizations operating in multiple locations or serving clients globally.
- All hours (24/7): The system operates continuously, considering holidays as part of SLA calculations. This means SLA timers include holidays, ensuring countdowns proceed uninterrupted regardless of the day.
- Business hours: You set specific working days and hours, such as Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM. SLAs begin and progress only during the defined business hours. Optionally, you can configure holidays to exclude them from SLA calculations. For example: If business hours are 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM and a ticket is received at 8:00 AM on a Monday, the SLA countdown starts at 9:00 AM. If the ticket is received on a public holiday, the SLA countdown starts at 9:00 AM on the next working day.
By defining these settings, your organization can ensure that ticket priorities align with actual operational hours and service commitments.
What are holiday lists?
Holiday lists represent non-working days for your organization, such as public holidays or company-wide breaks. When associated with business hours, they ensure that ticket SLAs are calculated accurately by excluding these non-working days from the SLA timeline.
Key options:
- Multiple holiday lists can be created for different regions or teams.
- Holiday lists can be configured for both the current and upcoming year.
- Each holiday list can be linked to specific business hours for precise SLA tracking.
How do business hours and holiday lists work together?
When a ticket is created, its due time is calculated based on the business hours and the holiday list assigned to the group the ticket belongs to. This ensures that tickets are resolved within the working schedule of the team handling them.
SLAs are adjusted automatically to reflect the group’s operating schedule, including any holidays specified in the associated holiday list. This setup ensures accurate tracking and fair resolution timelines.
Configuring business hours and holiday lists
Follow the below steps to set up and manage your business hours and holiday lists:
Configuring business hours
- Navigate to the Settings > Admin > Business Hours section in your agent portal.
- Click on the ‘ + New Business Hours’ button.
- Enter a name and description for the business hours, specify the time zone and define the working hours for each day of the week. Leave non-working days blank.
- Review the details and click Save to activate the business hours.
Configuring holiday lists
- Similar to business hours navigate to Settings > Admin > Holiday Lists in your helpdesk.
- Click on the ‘+ New Holiday List’ button. Give your holiday list a name, select the current or the upcoming year and add specific dates to the list.
Associate holiday list with business hours
While creating or editing business hours, select the appropriate holiday list from the dropdown menu and save the configuration.
Assigning business hours to groups
- Navigate to Settings > Admin > Groups.
- Select a group to edit and assign the appropriate business hours to the group. Click Save to update the group settings.
Behavior of SLAs with business hours
SLAs behave differently depending on how business hours and holiday lists are configured. Here are some key scenarios:
1. Resolution time set in hours
If an SLA specifies a resolution time of 4 hours and the ticket is created at 4:00 PM when business hours end at 5:00 PM:
- The SLA countdown will start at 4:00 PM and pause at 5:00 PM.
- It will resume at 9:00 AM the next business day, giving the team until 12:00 PM to resolve the ticket.
2. Resolution time set in days
If an SLA specifies a resolution time of 2 days and the ticket is created on a Friday:
- The SLA countdown will consider the next two working days, skipping the weekend.
- If Monday and Tuesday are working days, the ticket is due by the end of Tuesday.
3. Deactivating business hours
- If business hours are deactivated for a group, the system will switch to the default business hours set for your helpdesk.
- SLAs will calculate resolution times based on the default business hours, aligning with the standard working schedule.
4. Deleting a holiday list
- If the associated holiday list is deleted, the system will automatically apply the default holiday list.
- SLAs will exclude holidays as defined in the default holiday list, ensuring calculations are consistent with the organization’s standard holiday schedule.
5. Deleting a specific holiday
If a specific holiday is removed from the holiday list, SLAs will no longer exclude that date from calculations, and it will be treated as a regular working day.
Best practices
- Multiple business hours: Create separate business hours for teams with different working schedules, such as regional support teams.
- Regular updates: Keep holiday lists updated to include upcoming holidays.
- Test configurations: Test your business hours and holiday list settings by creating sample tickets to ensure SLAs are calculated correctly.
By properly configuring business hours and holiday lists, you can ensure that SLAs reflect your organization’s operational schedule, leading to better ticket management and improved customer satisfaction.
