SLA Pulse for Jira — User Documentation

Getting Started

Installation

Go to the Atlassian Marketplace and search for "SLA Pulse for Jira"
Click Install and authorize the required Jira permissions
Once installed, you'll see SLA Pulse for Jira in your Jira project sidebar
Click SLA Pulse for Jira to open the app
Select your project from the dropdown and click Get Started

First-Time Setup (30-second onboarding)

Go to Settings tab
Under SLA Rules, set your SLA hours by issue type and then by priority level (each project can also have its own rules, see "SLA rules per project" below):
Highest: e.g., 4 hours
High: e.g., 8 hours
Medium: e.g., 24 hours
Low: e.g., 48 hours
Lowest: e.g., 72 hours
Click Save SLA Rules
(Optional) Scroll down to Slack Integration and paste a webhook URL if you want alerts
Done. Your SLA dashboard is now live.

Tabs Explained

1. Overview Tab

Your executive dashboard — the most important view.

Executive Health Score (top): A single 0–100 score and letter grade (A–F) that blends: - SLA compliance % (met vs. breached) - Risk (% of tickets at risk) - Mean time to resolution (MTTR) - Reopen rate (how often closed tickets re-open) - Workload (how many open tickets per team member)

Metric Cards: Below the gauge, see: - Total = all issues in the project - Met = finished within the SLA - Breached = SLA time already passed - Near breach = 25% of the SLA left (never less than 2 hours) - On track = open, not yet breached, and outside the near-breach window - Compliance % = Met / (Met + Breached). Only issues with a decided outcome (Met or Breached) are counted; open issues that are On track or Near breach are left out; if nothing is decided yet, it shows N/A.

SLA Health by Group: A table showing SLA metrics per Jira group (if your team members are added to Jira groups). Filter by group to drill into a specific team's health.

7-Day Trend Chart: Shows your compliance % over the last 7 days — is health improving or declining?

How to use: Share the screenshot of this tab with stakeholders. The health score tells the whole story instantly. Click any metric card to jump to that filtered list of issues.

2. Issues Tab

Every issue in your project, with SLA data.

Columns shown: - Issue Key (clickable) — opens the issue in Jira - Summary — issue title - Status — current workflow status (To Do, In Progress, In Review, Done, etc.) - Priority — Highest/High/Medium/Low/Lowest - Assignee — who it's assigned to - SLA Status — Met / Breached / Near breach / On track - Time Remaining — hours left before breach (e.g., "3.2h remaining") - Time Elapsed — how long it's been in the current status

Sorting: Click any column header to sort (e.g., click "Time Remaining" to see the closest-to-breach issues first).

Filtering: Use the Status / Priority dropdowns above the table to narrow the list.

How to use: Check this tab daily. Sort by "Time Remaining" to find what needs immediate attention. Click any issue to jump to Jira and take action.

3. SLA Tab

Dedicated breach risk scoring view.

Breach Risk Scoring Panel: - Shows all issues grouped by outcome: Met / On track / Near breach / Breached - Each group shows count + % of total - Click into a group to see the specific issues

Risk-Scored Table: - List of all issues sorted by urgency (Near breach first) - Shows issue key, summary, priority, assignee, time remaining - Outcome pills (Met / On track / Near breach / Breached) for instant visual scanning - Click any issue to open in Jira

Resolution-Time Estimate: Each ticket's time remaining is estimated from the average progress of similar-priority issues. It's a rule-based calculation, not an AI or statistical model.

Breach Cause Hints: If available, shows a brief hint about why this ticket is at risk (e.g., "Status: In Review for 2 days").

How to use: Every morning, check the "Near breach" section. Assign resources to unblock the top 3–5 issues. Use this to prevent breaches, not respond to them.

4. Reports Tab

Understand why you're missing SLAs.

"Why Are We Missing SLAs?" Diagnosis: - Breach Cause Analysis: Five rule-based checks automatically surface the drivers behind breaches: - "Status bottleneck: 8 tickets stuck in In Review" → Recommendation: increase review capacity - "Assignee overload: Jane has 14 open items, SLA avg 1.2h" → Recommendation: rebalance work - "Priority misclassification: 6 Medium items acting as Highest" → Recommendation: audit priority rules - "Slow first response: avg 6h to start work" → Recommendation: triage SLA - "Chronic backlog: 23 Lowest items never started" → Recommendation: capacity planning

Priority Breakdown: - Count of Met / Breached / Near breach per priority level - Helps you see if specific priorities are problematic (e.g., "Medium is failing, High is fine")

Export: - CSV Export: Issue list with all SLA data for use in Excel or Slack - PDF Export: Formatted report for stakeholder presentations (includes charts, metrics, top issues)

How to use: Review diagnoses weekly. Use the recommendations to guide team discussions. Export the PDF for monthly status reports to leadership.

5. Insights Tab

Trends, patterns, and team health.

Weekly SLA Trend: Chart showing compliance % for the past 4 weeks. Trending up = improving, trending down = risk.

Risk Hotspots: - Which statuses have the most at-risk issues? (e.g., "In Review" is a bottleneck) - Which priorities are underperforming? (e.g., "Highest has 80% breach rate") - Which assignees have the most at-risk work? (early warning for overload)

Assignee Performance Table: - Total issues, % met, % breached, average time-to-completion - Helps identify who needs support or unblocking

Reopen Rate: % of closed issues that were re-opened. High reopen % suggests quality issues or incomplete work.

How to use: Use this in team retrospectives. If "Code Review" is a hotspot, discuss ways to speed up reviews. If one person has high reopen %, invest in pair programming or mentoring.

6. Settings Tab

Configuration and permissions.

SLA Rules (Jira administrators for the site default, project administrators for their project): - Editable SLA hours by issue type, then by priority (Highest / High / Medium / Low / Lowest, and any other priority) - Click the number to edit; click Save SLA Rules when done - Changes apply immediately to all issues

Slack Integration (admin only): - Webhook URL field: Paste a Slack webhook URL (get this from Slack app management) - Test Connection: Sends a test message to verify the webhook works - Enable Alerts: Toggle to send near-breach and breach notifications to Slack (real-time) - Enable Daily Digest: Toggle to send a daily summary at 9 AM in your timezone

Manual Actions (admin only): - Send Alerts Now: Manually trigger breach/near-breach alerts (useful for testing or immediate escalation) - Send Digest Now: Manually trigger the daily summary

Permissions: - If you're not a Jira admin, the Settings tab shows read-only. You'll see a banner: "Read-only view. Jira admin permission required to change settings."

How to use: Jira admins: set up SLA rules on day one, then review quarterly. Connect Slack early so the team gets alerts. Non-admins: reference SLA rules here to understand the expectations.

SLA rules per project

Each project can have its own SLA targets, set in hours by issue type and then by priority. Projects without their own rules follow the site default.

Default targets (before anyone changes them):

Highest: 12 hours
High: 24 hours
Medium: 36 hours
Low: 48 hours
Lowest: 72 hours
Any other priority: 60 hours

Who can change them:

Jira administrators set the site default.
A project's administrators set that project's rules.
Everyone else sees the rules read-only.

Resetting a project returns it to the site default. Jira organization admins who are not Jira admins cannot edit.

Note: SLA Pulse uses its own rules and does not read Jira Service Management's built-in SLA goals, so numbers can differ.

Download the SLA rules (PDF)

Working hours and holidays

By default the SLA clock runs 24/7. You can optionally set a working-hours calendar for the whole site or for a single project.

Choose a time zone.
Choose the working days, and the start and end time for each day.
Add holidays by date.

Shifts that run overnight (for example 22:00 to 06:00) are not supported.

Pause the clock

Each project can choose statuses that pause the SLA clock, such as "Waiting for customer". Pause is set per project only, and no status is selected by default.

A paused issue keeps its On track or Near breach status and shows a Paused tag.
No Slack alerts are sent for an issue while it is paused.
An issue resolved while it is in a paused status stops at its resolution time.

How outcomes and compliance are calculated

Every issue has one of four outcomes:

Met — finished within its SLA hours.
Breached — over its SLA hours. Breaches use exact time, not rounded hours.
Near breach — open, not yet breached, and 25% of the SLA time or less is left (never less than 2 hours).
On track — open, not yet breached, and outside the near-breach window.

Compliance = Met / (Met + Breached). It shows N/A when nothing has been decided yet.

MTTA (mean time to acknowledge) is the time from creation to the first public comment by someone other than the reporter. Internal notes and app comments do not count.

MTTR (mean time to resolution) is shown as both the mean and the median.

Period selector: choose 7, 30 or 90 days.

Common Workflows

"I need to show SLA health to my boss"

→ Go to Overview → take a screenshot of the Health Score and Metrics → attach to your status report. Done.

"We're missing SLAs. What do we do?"

→ Go to Reports → read the "Why Are We Missing SLAs?" breach cause analysis → act on the top recommendation (e.g., "unblock Code Review"). Recheck in 1 week.

"Which issues will breach in the next hour?"

→ Go to SLA tab → sort by "Time Remaining" → look at the Near breach and Breached pills.

"Jane's team is struggling. Which issues are theirs?"

→ Go to Overview → filter by the group in "SLA Health by Group" → see their metrics and breached items.

"I want a report for stakeholders"

→ Go to Reports → click PDF Export → email it.

"Slack isn't alerting us"

→ Go to Settings → Slack Integration section → click Test Connection → if red error appears, check your webhook URL. If green success, webhook is good.

FAQ

Q: How often is SLA data updated? A: In real time. Every time an issue status or priority changes, the SLA calculations update instantly.

Q: Can I change SLA rules mid-project? A: Yes. Go to Settings, edit the hours, and click Save. Changing SLA targets, working hours or pause statuses recalculates every issue in the selected period, including finished ones, so compliance and counts can change.

Q: What if an issue isn't in a Jira group? A: It won't appear in the "SLA Health by Group" panel. But it still counts toward overall project metrics.

Q: Does SLA Pulse for Jira work with Service Desk? A: Yes. If you have Service Desk requests, they appear in SLA Pulse for Jira alongside standard issues.

Q: Can I export SLA data for integration with other tools? A: Yes, use the CSV export in the Reports tab. You can then import into Excel, Tableau, Looker, etc.

Q: What if I uninstall SLA Pulse for Jira? A: All your configuration (SLA rules, Slack webhook) is deleted within 30 days. Your Jira data is untouched.

Q: Is there a mobile app? A: Not yet. The dashboard is responsive and works on mobile, but the experience is optimized for desktop.

Q: Who can edit SLA rules? A: Only Jira admins and project admins. Regular team members see the Settings tab in read-only mode.

Getting Help

Email: [email protected]
Response time: We aim to respond within 24 hours

Version

SLA Pulse for Jira v2.9.0 — October 2026

Last updated: October 2026