Time to first response SLA doesn't stop when agent adds a comment to the ticket
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Summary
Learn why how to fix it when the default Time to first response SLA doesn't finish counting after an agent replies to the customer.
Solution
Time to first response SLA won't stop for customer comments
This SLA will not stop if the agent posting the public comment is also a customer of the request. Any agent of the project who is also listed as a Reporter, Request participant, a member of an Organization the ticket was shared with, or an Approver is considered a customer of the request. If they add a comment to the request, Jira treats it as a customer comment, which won't stop the Time to first response SLA.
Fix the agent's role in the request
To ensure the agent's comment counts toward the SLA cycle, you need to remove the agent as a customer on the request. There are some ways to remove the agent as a customer. You can choose an option based on your use case:
Directly remove the agent from any fields (mentioned above) that would cause Jira to view them as a customer for the request.
If all requests are shared with an organization that includes the agent, consider removing them from this organization. See Remove a customer from an organization.
You can also use an automation rule to remove request participants: How to add/update/remove Request Participants using Automation for Jira.
If your team structure regularly has agents who are also members of customer-facing Organizations (for example, cross-functional teams), check for this role overlap when onboarding new agents or organizations, rather than only discovering it after an SLA breach is reported.
Recalculate the SLA
When the agent is no longer a customer of the request, you can follow the steps in the article below to recalculate the SLA. This will restart the SLA cycle, ensuring that the comment already added by the agent is taken into account:
After removing the agent as a customer and recalculating, check the request's SLA panel to confirm Time to first response now shows as Completed rather than still counting, and only confirm the role change was saved.
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