SLA reporting in TOPdesk: behind the percentage

SLA compliance comes up in almost every service review, often summed up as a percentage. The percentage looks precise, but it depends on choices that rarely appear on the slide. You choose which date to measure against and how to treat incidents that are On Hold. Which incidents you count also makes a difference. So two reports on the same TOPdesk environment can show different percentages and both be correct.

Target date and SLA deadline are separate fields

TOPdesk describes the target date as the date and time by which the incident must be resolved, and calculates it automatically. It works from the time the incident was registered and the selected duration or priority, taking the service window into account. If the incident falls under an SLA, TOPdesk uses the duration and service window of that SLA.

The word “duration” is easy to misread. In TOPdesk, it is the time an incident is allowed to take. When a report shows a duration, check whether it means the time allowed or the time actually taken.

If you work with SLAs, there is a second date, the SLA deadline. It is the Call Date plus the duration of the SLA service. After the SLA service has been applied, the deadline can no longer be changed. The target date is a separate field, and whether you can still change it yourself afterwards depends on a setting. Depending on where you look, TOPdesk also calls the SLA deadline the SLA date, the service End Date or, in the titles of the standard reports, the SLA target date.

TOPdesk determines whether an SLA was achieved by comparing the SLA deadline with the completion date (or the closure date). A report based on the target date may show a different percentage, for example if someone changed the target date after the SLA was applied and the SLA deadline remained the same. Either report can be defended, provided it is clear which date it uses.

What On Hold does to the target date

On Hold pauses an incident, for example when you are waiting on the caller or a supplier for some time. How TOPdesk handles that time depends on your settings. Reports have two fields for this. The Actual duration includes the time spent On Hold, and the Adjusted duration leaves it out.

Whether the target date and the SLA deadline shift is controlled by the setting “Adjust the Target Date/service End Date for the time a call was resolved or was On Hold”. TOPdesk describes six scenarios with different combinations of settings. In two of them, the dates shift by however long the incident was On Hold. In the others they do not move, or they shift only when a resolved incident is reopened.

Where the dates do shift, they only do so when the incident is taken off On Hold. An incident that waits two weeks for a supplier and passes its target date in the meantime shows as breached in a snapshot taken during that wait, yet when work resumes it may be back within its target date. So a weekly report on open incidents can move up and down even though nothing has changed in the work itself.

Response time is a separate agreement

An incident can get a quick first response and still be resolved too late. For that reason, TOPdesk tracks response time separately, with the Responded functionality and response times linked to priorities. According to the documentation, this requires a Contract Management and SLM licence.

TOPdesk can also automatically mark an incident as responded to when it is set to a particular status. Check whether your environment does this. If it does, your response time depends on when the incident gets that status.

The Report Wizard has a standard report for each of these agreements: “Responded in period and Response target date achieved or breached” and “Resolved in period and SLA target date achieved or breached”.

Which TOPdesk packages include SLA management

According to TOPdesk’s pricing page (accessed 24 September 2026), Contract and SLA Management is included in Engaged and Excellent, not in Essential. Essential includes Incident Management and Dashboard & Reporting, among other things.

Even without the SLA module, an incident has a target date, as long as a duration or priority is set on it.

TOPdesk is also developing its reporting further, and the Reporting Hub will gradually replace the Report Wizard. In September 2026 it was still in beta and, according to the documentation, available only in English. The Compliance tab of the Call dashboard shows what share of resolved incidents stayed within the target date, and can be filtered by priority or operator group. You choose whether to measure against the completion date or the closure date. The SLA module is not required. As of 24 September 2026, the documentation does not say which packages include the Reporting Hub.

Compliance by priority

When all incidents go into one percentage, the high-volume priorities dominate, and those are often the low ones. Say 390 of 400 priority 3 and 4 incidents were resolved on time, and 12 of 20 priority 1 incidents. Combined, that is 402 out of 420, or just over 95%. The combined figure does not show that priority 1 is at 60%.

So break compliance down by priority (see also TOPdesk reporting), and by operator group when the discussion is about teams. A few other things can also distort the figure.

• Which incidents count. A report on incidents resolved in the period leaves out the open incidents that are already past their target date, and those are the most difficult cases. Report them alongside the percentage.
• Incidents without a target date. There is nothing to measure them against. Count how many there are, so you know how much of the work the percentage actually covers.
• On Hold. State how many incidents were On Hold and which scenario your environment uses. Otherwise someone will end up explaining a swing caused only by the settings.

What will breach today

Compliance shows how the past period went. For day-to-day management, three other questions matter more. Which open incidents will breach within the hour, which will breach later today, and which have already breached and are still open? A team lead who knows the answers in the morning can reassign work before it shows up in the monthly figure. Check how current the data is, because “within the hour” only means something if your source refreshes often enough.

List On Hold incidents separately. Their target date only shifts when work resumes, and only if your environment is set up that way. So they can look breached while the team is waiting on the caller or a supplier.

A target and a target line

Without an agreed standard, the discussion gets stuck on the figure itself. Agree on a target percentage and draw it as a line on the trend chart, so you can see at a glance whether compliance is above or below it. Also record which date counts and how On Hold is treated, or next quarter someone will measure something slightly different.

SLA compliance in AureaDesk

In AureaDesk, SLA compliance is one of the key figures on the Overview. AureaDesk measures against the target date that TOPdesk sets on the incident, not against the SLA deadline. A closed incident is measured at the moment it is closed. The percentage may therefore differ from an SLA report in TOPdesk.

• What counts. The SLA compliance card counts open and closed incidents. If you select Active or Closed in the status choice above the Overview sections, it counts only the active or only the closed ones. The SLA compliance over time chart and the scheduled report count only closed incidents. In the percentage, an incident that is On Hold and past its target date counts as breached, and an incident without a target date counts as on time.
• Compliance by priority. Filtering by priority or operator group shows compliance for that selection, in every package. In the cross-tab, you can choose SLA compliance as the value, for example priority by category.
• SLA horizon. In every package, Incident Management shows open incidents by time remaining until the target date: what breaches within the hour, what still breaches today and what has already breached. The horizon covers all open incidents, independent of the period filter; On Hold is listed separately.
• Email signals. Every package has an email signal on SLA risk, and in every package you can set email signals on key figures of Incident Management. Pro and Enterprise add signals with more conditions, also outside Incident Management, and signals in Microsoft Teams or Slack.
• KPI targets. In Pro, you set a target for SLA compliance. The tiles show whether the target is met, and the SLA compliance over time chart draws your target line.

The Pricing page shows what is included in each package. You can see the screens themselves under Incident Management.

Five questions for your next SLA report

1. Does the report measure against the target date or the SLA deadline?
2. Which On Hold scenario does your environment use, and do the dates shift when work resumes?
3. Do you count only resolved incidents, or also open incidents that are already past their target date?
4. Does the report show compliance by priority, and how many incidents have no target date?
5. Has a target been agreed, and is it drawn as a line on the chart?

Put the answers in a line or two below the percentage on the slide. Then nobody in the meeting has to guess how the figure was calculated.