SLA Response / Resolution Deadline
Service level agreement response/resolution clocks.
Written and maintained by Paul Clark, Redmoon Software · Rules last verified
These calculators are for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice.
How the SLA Response / Resolution Deadline works
The SLA Response / Resolution Deadline calculator takes the moment a ticket is opened and a target expressed in business hours, then returns the exact deadline timestamp against your working calendar. It is built for support and operations teams whose SLAs should pause overnight and at weekends instead of running on raw wall-clock time.
Measuring an SLA in raw calendar hours breaches tickets nobody was scheduled to work; measuring in business hours holds you to the promise you actually made. Stacking priority tiers — different response and resolution clocks per severity — is where hand-tracking fails, and where this tool earns its keep.
Worked example
A P2 ticket with a 4-business-hour response target, opened at 3pm on a Friday with a 9am–5pm calendar, is due at 11am the following Monday — two hours used Friday afternoon, two on Monday morning, with the weekend ignored.
Frequently asked questions
Does the SLA clock pause outside business hours?
Yes. Time only accrues inside your defined working window, so overnight and weekend hours do not burn down the deadline.
Can I model different priority tiers?
Yes. Compute separate response and resolution deadlines for each severity by entering that tier’s target in business hours.
How do holidays factor in?
They do not. This calculator models only your daily working window and your workweek — it has no holiday calendar and no custom-closure field — so a public holiday that lands on one of your working weekdays still burns SLA time exactly like an ordinary working day. Treat the result as the deadline against a normal week and adjust it by hand for any full-day closure inside the window.
Should the clock pause while we wait on the customer?
That is a contract question, not a calculation one, and it is where most real SLA disputes start. Many agreements pause the clock while a ticket is awaiting customer response; many do not say. This calculator counts elapsed business hours without pausing, so if your agreement allows pauses, subtract them yourself.
What this calculator does not do
A limitation you know about costs far less than one you find after the deadline. These are the specific things this tool cannot work out for you.
- SLA terms are contractual. The business-hours window, the holiday calendar and whether the clock pauses while a ticket is awaiting customer response all come from your agreement, not from any external standard.