# Set SLA targets

Decide how fast tickets must get a first reply and be resolved, per priority, with an option to count only your business hours.

An SLA policy is your promise on speed: how long a ticket may wait for its first reply, and how long until it is resolved. Ha Tang puts both deadlines on every ticket, warns the assignee when one passes, and shows what is overdue, so urgent requests do not sit behind routine ones.

## The policy

Go to **Customer Support → Tickets** and click **SLA policy**. You need the **Manage** access level for Customer Support.

![The SLA policy with the default targets for each priority](https://hatang.dev/help/img/en/automation/sla.webp)

For each priority, set **First response (minutes)** and **Resolution (minutes)**. The defaults suit a small team:

| Priority | First response | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| **Urgent** | 15 minutes | 240 minutes (4 hours) |
| **High** | 60 minutes | 480 minutes (8 hours) |
| **Normal** | 240 minutes (4 hours) | 1,440 minutes (1 day) |
| **Low** | 1,440 minutes (1 day) | 4,320 minutes (3 days) |

60 minutes is one hour and 1,440 minutes is one day. Click **Save policy**.

## Calendar time or business hours

By default the clocks run in calendar minutes, nights and weekends included. Tick **Count business hours only** to stop the clock outside the website's office hours and on its holidays: a Normal ticket created on Friday evening is then due on Monday, not on Saturday. Office hours are set per website in **Website settings → Office hours**. See [Set your office hours](https://hatang.dev/help/widget/office-hours).

## When the policy applies

- A changed policy applies to tickets created from then on, and to existing tickets when their priority changes. Tickets already open keep their deadlines.
- New email conversations get a first-reply deadline from the **Normal** first response target. The inbox shows "Reply by …" on them, then "Reply overdue".
- To give every incoming email a ticket with both clocks, add a [distribution rule](https://hatang.dev/help/automation/routing-rules) for the `email` channel with **Also open a ticket, priority**.

## When a deadline passes

- The ticket is marked as breached and shows as overdue in the ticket list (**Overdue only** filters them).
- The assignee gets a push notification.
- A webhook event is sent, if your developers use them.
- The **Tickets** page counts breaches over the last seven days (**SLA breached (7d)**).

See [Handle SLA breaches](https://hatang.dev/help/tickets/sla-breaches).

> [!TIP]
> Set targets you can keep on your busiest day. A policy that is breached every afternoon stops meaning anything; a realistic one tells you when something is really wrong.