Departments, Teams & SLAs

Departments organize ticket routing and access control. Teams provide cross-departmental grouping. SLAs define response and resolution time targets.

---

Departments

Creating a Department

1. Navigate to Admin → Agents → Departments
2. Click Add New Department
3. Configure:

Field	Description
Name	Department display name
Type	Public (visible to clients) or Private (internal only)
SLA	Default SLA plan for tickets in this department
Manager	Department manager (receives escalation notices)
Email	Department-specific email address
Auto-Response	Enable/disable auto-reply on new tickets
Assignment	Auto-assign rules (round-robin, least tickets, etc.)

4. Save the department

Department Access Control

• Staff only see tickets in their assigned departments
• Extended access grants visibility to additional departments
• Department managers receive all alerts for their department
• Private departments are hidden from the client portal help topic list

Ticket Routing

Tickets are routed to departments based on:

1. Help Topic selection (maps topic → department)
2. Email account (each inbox can route to a specific department)
3. Filter rules (keyword/header matching)
4. Manual transfer by staff

---

Teams

Teams are cross-departmental groups that allow collaborative work:

Creating a Team

1. Navigate to Admin → Agents → Teams
2. Click Add New Team
3. Set team name and lead
4. Add members (from any department)
5. Configure alert routing

Team Features

Feature	Description
Cross-Department	Members can be from different departments
Team Assignment	Tickets can be assigned to a team (all members see them)
Team Lead	Receives team-level alerts and escalations
Alert Routing	New ticket/message alerts can target the team

When to Use Teams vs Departments

Use Case	Recommendation
Organizational grouping with SLAs	Department
Access control boundary	Department
Cross-cutting project group	Team
On-call rotation	Team
Escalation group	Team

---

SLA Plans

SLA (Service Level Agreement) plans define time-based targets for ticket handling.

Creating an SLA Plan

1. Navigate to Admin → Manage → SLA Plans
2. Click Add New SLA Plan
3. Configure:

Field	Description
Name	SLA plan name (e.g., "Priority — 4 Hour")
Grace Period	Hours before ticket becomes overdue
Status	Active / Disabled
Transient	If enabled, SLA resets on each response
Disable Overdue Alerts	Suppress overdue notifications
Schedule	Business hours schedule to apply

SLA Application Priority

SLAs are applied in this order (first match wins):

1. Help Topic SLA — topic-specific override
2. Department SLA — department default
3. System Default SLA — global fallback

Business Hours Schedules

Schedules define when the SLA clock runs:

1. Navigate to Admin → Manage → Schedules
2. Create a schedule (e.g., "Business Hours M-F 8am-5pm CST")
3. Define working days and hours
4. Add holidays/exceptions
5. Assign the schedule to SLA plans

When a schedule is attached to an SLA, grace period hours only count during business hours.

---

Help Topics

Help topics are the categories clients select when creating tickets. They control routing and initial configuration.

Creating a Help Topic

1. Navigate to Admin → Manage → Help Topics
2. Click Add New Help Topic
3. Configure:

Field	Description
Topic Name	Display name for clients
Status	Active / Disabled
Type	Public (client-visible) or Internal (agent-created only)
Parent Topic	Nested hierarchy support
Department	Route tickets to this department
SLA Plan	Override department SLA
Priority	Default priority
Auto-Assignment	Assign to specific staff/team
Custom Form	Additional form fields for this topic

Routing via Help Topics

Client selects Help Topic "Billing Issue"
  → Ticket created in "Billing" department
  → SLA: "Priority — 8 Hour" applied
  → Auto-assigned to Billing team
  → Custom "Billing Details" form fields shown

---

Escalation Rules

Department-Level Escalation

Each department can configure escalation behavior:

• Manager receives overdue alerts — when SLA breaches
• Disable auto-claim — prevent staff from self-assigning without PM approval
• Transfer rules — auto-transfer to escalation department after time threshold

Custom Escalation System

The ticket system adds a custom escalation system beyond osTicket's built-in:

Type	Behavior
Emergency	Immediate email + SMS to PMs and assigned staff
Higher Priority	Added to daily escalation digest (7:30 AM CST)
48-Hour Cooldown	Clients can only escalate the same ticket every 48 hours

See Escalation for the full escalation workflow.

---

Filter Rules

Filters automatically process incoming tickets based on criteria:

Creating a Filter

1. Navigate to Admin → Manage → Ticket Filters
2. Click Add New Filter
3. Define matching rules:

Criteria	Options
Email address	From, To, CC contains/matches
Subject	Contains, starts with, matches regex
Body	Contains specific text
Help Topic	Matches specific topic
Source	Web, Email, API, Phone

4. Define actions:

Action	Description
Set Department	Route to specific department
Set Priority	Override default priority
Set SLA	Apply specific SLA plan
Assign To	Auto-assign staff/team
Set Status	Set initial status
Auto-Respond	Send/suppress auto-response
Reject	Reject the ticket entirely

---

Best Practices

1. Keep departments focused — each department should represent a distinct service area
2. Use teams for projects — cross-cutting work should use teams, not shared departments
3. Set realistic SLAs — overdue alerts lose meaning if SLAs are too aggressive
4. Use business hours — attach schedules to SLAs to avoid after-hours overdue alerts
5. Review filters regularly — stale filters can route tickets incorrectly
6. Test help topics — verify routing works by submitting test tickets from the client portal