Configuring SLAs in Jira for Different Time Zones: a Comprehensive Guide for Quality Customer Service
SLAs or Service Level Agreements are essential for any business aiming to deliver quality customer services (more details about SLAs definition you can find in the What is Service Level Agreement in Jira? article). SLAs help set clear customer expectations and ensure the service provider delivers as promised. However, ensuring that SLAs are met can be challenging, especially when dealing with customers in different time zones.
For instance, if a customer reports an issue at 10 pm in their local time, but the service provider is located in a different time zone, the SLA clock will start ticking based on the service provider’s time zone, which might not be fair to the customer.
To address this challenge, we can use custom fields to capture the customer’s time zone when they report an issue. This way, we can start the SLA clock based on the customer’s local time, ensuring that the SLA targets are fair to all customers. One easy way to achieve this is by using an app like SLA Time and Report for Jira add-on, which provides the ability to create custom fields that capture the customer’s time zone when they create an issue. This information is then used to calculate the SLA clock’s start and end time, ensuring that the SLA targets are fair to all customers, regardless of their time zone.
Next, we will show how to configure SLAs for different time zones using Jira Custom fields and SLA Time and Report add-on by SaaSJet.
Creating Working Schedules for Each Team
We have teams from different countries: the USA, India, Portugal, and Australia. We need to calculate SLAs for all groups, given that they are in different time zones.
First, create separate calendars for each team, setting the appropriate time zones and work schedule (working days, working hours, breaks, add holidays).
Time zones: India – Kolkata, USA – Los Angeles, Australia – Melbourne, Portugal – Lisbon.
Save all calendars and go to the SLA Configuration Manager. Here you can create a new one or edit the existing ones. Add the configuration name for which team you set up the SLA and select the appropriate calendar. Select the conditions for Stop/Pause/Stop and the SLA time goals, and save the configuration. You can create other configurations using the same logic and then use these configurations for reports.
Adding Custom Fields to Select Team Location
Let’s take the case of using a custom field in a ticket, where the assignee must select the Location of his team. The SLA should be performed according to the time zone of the selected Location.
To do SLA in Jira for different Time zones, you must create these custom fields in Jira. It is worth mentioning that only users with admin privileges can do this.
Go to Settings and select Issues. In the sidebar, find the Custom Fields item and select it.
Create a custom field “Select List” type (single choice), and add all the required options. For us, it will be the “Location” field with the following options: USA, India, Portugal, and Australia. Save it.
Next, associate the created field with your needed screens.
After these steps, the new field should appear in projects with the corresponding Screen Scheme, and each team can select their Location in the ticket.
Getting SLA Reports for Each Country
If you want to get the SLA report for each of them:
- Return to the SLA Configuration Manager and open one of the created configurations.
- Add to the Start condition the Location with the appropriate country for the current SLA.
- For the Stop condition, add all other values of the Location field and save changes.
- Do the same for the other SLA configurations and Go to reports.
That’s all. After these steps, you allow seeing SLA report for each country separately. You can set the created SLAs as an issue filter and get a report.
If you want to set more specifically filter, you can use JQL “Location[Dropdown]”= USA (or another time zone).
In conclusion
Managing SLAs can be a complex process, especially when dealing with multiple time zones and teams. However, with the help of add-ons such as SLA Time and Report, you can streamline your SLA management process and ensure that your team meets the service level expectations of your customers. By leveraging the advanced features offered by this add-on, you can easily configure and track SLAs across different time zones and generate SLA reports per country to help you identify areas for improvement. We recommend taking advantage of the 30-day trial to see the benefits for yourself.
By the way, if you want to track the Jira time in status data for teams which work from different time zones, it would be a great decision to try Time in Status for Jira Cloud. All you need to do is to create a new calendar, choose the necessary time zone and schedule for each team. Easy-peasy. Don’t hesitate to try the add-ons described in the article and you won’t regret the results!
Find out more about the SLA Time and Report
Visit the app page for more information
