SLA Response / Resolution Deadline
Service level agreement response/resolution clocks.
Written and maintained by Paul Clark, Redmoon Software · Rules last verified · Changes & corrections
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.
Public holidays on the calendar you select, and any closure dates you add, stop the clock like a weekend, and the result lists every closure it skipped. For a tier your contract runs around the clock, tick 24×7 coverage and the target becomes plain elapsed time: four hours from 15:00 is 19:00, whatever the day.
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?
Pick the country whose public holidays close your desk and the clock skips them; add company closures (a Christmas shutdown, say) as custom dates. A 16-business-hour target from 15:10 on Friday 15 January 2027 with an 08:00–18:00 window lands at 11:10 on Wednesday 20 January with the US calendar, because Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday 18 January is skipped, and at 11:10 on Tuesday 19 January with no calendar. Use the calendar your contract names, which is usually the vendor’s.
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.
- Holidays come from the calendars you select and the closure dates you type; select the calendar your agreement names (usually the vendor’s), not the customer’s by default.