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A first-response SLA target tells VGraple CRM how quickly your team should reply to a new conversation; the inbox tracks every open conversation against it and raises an alert the moment one is left unanswered too long. This article covers turning the target on, reading the badges it produces, and what the breach alert actually says.
SLA targets and alerts: first 5 of 6 steps
- 1Go to Settings, then Inbox
- 2Turn on the First-response SLA toggle
- 3Pick a target
- 4Click Save
- 5Watch the badges appear in the inbox
Before you start
- Turning the SLA target on or off requires access to Settings, then Inbox, which needs the workspace settings permission (Owners and Admins by default).
- The SLA only measures first response time on WhatsApp-style conversations that have an inbound message; a conversation your team starts itself, with no reply yet from the customer, cannot breach because it has nothing to respond to.
- Breach alerts use your organisation's existing alert channels (in-app, and email or mobile push if you have those configured under notification settings); no separate SLA notification setup is required beyond turning the target on.
- SLA badges appear to every teammate who can see the conversation, following the same visibility rule as the rest of the inbox: Agents and Viewers only see badges on conversations assigned to them or unassigned.
Steps
- Go to Settings, then Inbox. This page has three cards: Auto-assignment, First-response SLA, and CSAT surveys.
- Turn on the First-response SLA toggle. A row of six preset buttons appears: 5 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1 hr, 2 hr, 4 hr.
Pick a target. Choose the maximum time you want to pass before an unanswered conversation counts as breaching. A salon with two front-desk staff might pick 30 minutes; a clinic triaging urgent messages might pick 5 or 15 minutes.
Click Save. The setting confirms with a small "Saved" message, and takes effect immediately for every conversation currently open, not only new ones created after you saved.
Watch the badges appear in the inbox. Once enabled, any open conversation without a first reply starts showing an SLA badge once it crosses 75 percent of the target time (amber, "approaching") and turns red once it crosses the full target (breached).
Respond to breach alerts as they arrive. When a conversation actually breaches, VGraple CRM sends an organisation alert naming the customer, how many minutes they have waited, and your configured target, with a direct link to open that conversation.
Why a badge and an alert, not just a report?
A response-time report you check at the end of the week tells you what already went wrong. VGraple CRM's SLA badges are designed to be seen while there is still time to fix it: the amber badge at 75 percent of the target gives an agent a visible nudge before the customer has actually waited too long, and the breach alert goes to the whole organisation rather than only the assigned agent, so a manager or a colleague can step in if the assigned person is away from their desk. This mirrors how Zendesk and Intercom surface SLA risk directly in the queue rather than burying it in analytics.
Example
A coaching institute sets a 15 minute first-response target during admission season. A prospective student messages at 11:40 AM asking about fees. By 11:51 AM the conversation shows an amber SLA badge in the inbox list, and by 11:55 AM, with still no reply, it turns red and an alert goes out to the team naming the wait time. A supervisor who is not the assigned counsellor sees the alert and answers the message directly rather than letting it sit until the assigned counsellor is free.
Because the target is a single organisation-wide setting rather than per-team or per-number, the simplest way to use it well is to set it to the response time you actually want for your busiest, most time-sensitive channel, and treat any breach anywhere as worth investigating, even on a quieter WhatsApp number in the same workspace.
What you will see
With the SLA target on, any conversation sitting open without a first agent reply shows a small "SLA" badge next to its unread count as it approaches the deadline, turning from amber to red once the target passes. The conversation itself is stamped with a breach timestamp the first time this happens, which is permanent for that conversation, even after an agent finally replies (the badge itself clears once someone responds, since first_response_at is now set). An organisation-wide alert lands the moment the background sweep catches the breach, which runs on a short schedule rather than the instant the clock ticks over, so there can be a small delay of a few minutes between the technical breach and the alert arriving.
Settings and options
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| First-response SLA toggle (Settings, then Inbox) | Turns SLA tracking and badges on or off organisation-wide | Off |
| Target preset | 5, 15, 30, 60, 120 or 240 minutes; the maximum time before a conversation counts as breached | Not set until enabled |
| SLA badge (amber) | Shows on a conversation that has crossed 75 percent of the target with no first reply | Automatic once enabled |
| SLA badge (red) | Shows on a conversation that has crossed the full target with no first reply | Automatic once enabled |
| Breach alert | Organisation-wide notification naming the customer and wait time, with a link to the conversation | Automatic once enabled |
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| No SLA badges appear anywhere in the inbox | The First-response SLA toggle is off in Settings, then Inbox | Turn it on and pick a target |
| A conversation shows breached even though an agent replied quickly | The reply may have come from the AI chatbot rather than a human agent, or the reply was sent from outside VGraple CRM | Confirm the first reply was sent as an agent message from the inbox composer or a template send |
| Breach alerts are not arriving by email or push | Email or push alert channels are not configured for your organisation, separate from the SLA target itself | Check your organisation's alert and notification settings |
| A resolved conversation still shows as breached | The breach stamp is permanent once set and does not clear on resolution, by design, so it stays visible in conversation history | This is expected; it reflects that the target was missed at the time, regardless of later status |
| The breach alert arrived several minutes after the target passed | The SLA sweep runs on a schedule rather than checking continuously in real time | This is expected; badges in the inbox list update closer to real time than the alert itself |
Related reading
Pair SLA targets with assigning conversations so unanswered conversations are not also sitting unassigned, and with CSAT surveys to see whether a faster first response actually improves customer satisfaction scores.