Jira Service Desk's SLAs are composed of two parts: how time is to be calculated and the goal to achieve under the given criteria. The goal setting part is quite straightforward:

• A JQL query to define the rule: For example, priority = High means that all requests within the project with their priority set to High will have this SLA goal.
• The goal to achieve specified in time: For example, 8h means the goal for this SLA is 8 hours.
• The calendar to use: This defines the time and day when calculating whether the SLA goal has been met.

The actual SLA calculation part is slightly more complex. When calculating SLA, we need to define the following:

• When to start counting: This is defined in the Start column. In our recipe, we selected the Issue Created option, which means that the SLA will start counting as soon as a customer has created a request.
• When to stop counting: This is defined in the Stop column. In our recipe, we selected the Entered Status: Resolved option, which means that as soon as an agent puts the request into the Resolved workflow status, the SLA will stop counting.
• When to pause counting: This is optional, and is defined in the Pause on column. In our recipe, we selected the Status: Waiting for customer option; this means that once an agent has requested additional information from the customer, the SLA will be paused. Once the customer has provided the requested information, the SLA will resume counting again.