Skip to content

Ticket fields & SLA

Two things shape how tickets behave beyond the built-in fields: your own columns, and SLA targets.


Tickets have their own set of custom columns, separate from the ones on your chats. A Stage column on chats and a Stage column on tickets are two different things and don’t share values.

From the Tickets page, open the ticket columns manager and Add column. You choose:

  • Name
  • Type — Text, Long text, Number, Date, Select, Multi-select, Checkbox
  • Options — for Select and Multi-select, each with a colour
  • Icon — optional icon or emoji

The types behave exactly as they do on chats. See Columns & custom fields for the details of each type.

  • Inline in the ticket table.
  • In the Custom Columns section of the ticket details panel.
  • In bulk from the ticket selection toolbar.

Options can be added from a cell while you’re working, so you don’t have to stop and open settings.

Deleting removes the column and every value stored in it, permanently. Entergram warns you before it happens.

Column and option changes are audited — you’ll see Ticket column created, Ticket column updated, Ticket column deleted, Ticket option created and friends in Log history.

  • Keep the built-ins (Status, Priority, Assignee, Due date) doing their job — don’t recreate them as custom fields.
  • Add one routing field (Team, Product area) before adding anything else.
  • Prefer a Select with five options over five checkboxes.

An SLA gives a ticket a deadline. Entergram then tracks whether you hit it, how late you were when you didn’t, and which people and hours breach most.

Settings → Workspace → Privacy & Settings → SLA Configuration (owners and admins).

  • Global SLA (hours)“Default SLA for all new and existing tickets without manual SLA override.” Pick a preset or enter a Custom number of hours.
  • The section shows Enabled or Disabled.
  • Saving confirms “Global SLA set to {n}h.”; clearing it confirms “Global SLA disabled.”

A value must be a positive number of hours.

Any ticket can carry its own SLA value, set from the ticket details panel. A manual value always wins over the global default.

Every ticket shows an SLA badge:

BadgeMeaning
Due in {duration}Still within target
Overdue {duration}Past target and unresolved
MetResolved before the deadline
Met late ({duration})Resolved, but after the deadline
{duration} lateSmall overrun
Not setNo SLA on this ticket

Hovering shows the exact SLA target date.

The ticket table filters on SLA state: On Track, At Risk, Breached, Met, Met Late, Not Set. “Breached open” is the list you want on a morning triage view.

Analytics → Tickets carries the SLA reporting:

Card / chartWhat it tells you
Tickets With SLAHow much of your work is even being tracked
Open SLA TicketsUnresolved within the selected range
Breached OpenOpen tickets already past target — your fire list
SLA Met RateHow many resolved tickets met their SLA
SLA State MixDistribution of states across the range
SLA Events TrendOpened vs Breached vs Resolved On Time vs Resolved Late
SLA Met Rate TrendMet-rate by period
SLA Breach HeatmapWhen breaches happen most often (UTC day/hour)
Member SLA PerformancePer member: Created SLA, Assigned Open, Breached Open, Resolved SLA, Met, Late, Met Rate, Median Resolve

SLA Risk Owners shows members currently owning breached SLA tickets — the fastest route to “who needs help right now”.

See Ticket & SLA analytics.

How to use SLA without it becoming theatre

Section titled “How to use SLA without it becoming theatre”
  1. Start with one global SLA — a single realistic number beats a matrix nobody maintains.
  2. Watch Breached Open, not Met Rate. Met Rate is a lagging average; breached-open is the queue that’s on fire today.
  3. Read the breach heatmap before hiring. Breaches clustered in a few UTC hours are a coverage problem, not a headcount problem.
  4. Check Median Resolve, not just the mean. The panel shows median, average and P90 — the gap between them tells you whether you have a long tail or a systemic delay.