SLAs
Put a deadline on an application, by hand or by rule, and get told before it passes.
Overview
An SLA puts a deadline on an application and shows how much time is left.
Use them where a slow reply costs you the candidate: a referral that should get a first response inside 24 hours, a senior role where the hiring manager promised feedback within a week, an agency pipeline you have committed to.
Attia can apply SLAs automatically through rules, and you can always set one by hand on a single application.
Screenshot coming: An application with a medium-risk SLA in the property rail
Turn SLAs on
Go to Settings → Applications → SLAs and switch Enable SLAs on. Until you do, the SLA row stays hidden on applications that do not already have one.
Setting an SLA by hand works on every plan. Automation rules are available on Business and Enterprise.
Read the SLA on an application
The SLA sits in the property rail as a flame that changes colour as the deadline approaches.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Low risk | More than a week left |
| Medium risk | Within a week |
| High risk | Within 24 hours |
| Breached | The deadline has passed |
| Achieved | Decided before the deadline |
| Failed | Decided after the deadline passed |
Once the application reaches a final status — hired, rejected, withdrawn or archived — the clock stops. The SLA stays on the record and shows whether it was achieved or failed, to the minute.
Set an SLA by hand
Open the application and select the SLA row in the property rail. Choose 12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, 1 week, 2 weeks or 4 weeks. Remove SLA clears it.
A hand-set SLA is yours. An automation rule will never overwrite it.
A rule that removes SLAs can still clear one you set by hand, if the application matches it. Check your removal rules before setting an SLA manually.
Automation rules
On Settings → Applications → SLAs, select Add rule.
A rule has two halves. When is a set of filters, and Then is either Add SLA with a duration or Remove SLA.
You can filter on Job, Status, Assignee, Source, Labels and Team. Filters combine, so Status is Screening and Source is Referral matches only applications that are both.
Rules run when an application is created or updated.
Order matters
Only the first matching rule is applied. Drag rules into the order you want them evaluated — put your most specific rules above your general ones, or the general one will win first.
Rules do not apply retroactively
Creating or changing a rule does not touch applications that already exist. A rule takes effect the next time a matching application is created or updated.
This is deliberate: it means editing a rule can never silently re-date work that is already in flight.
An SLA belongs to the rule that set it
If an application keeps matching the same rule, the clock is left alone — editing a label or reassigning does not quietly restart the deadline.
If it starts matching a different rule, the SLA changes to that rule's duration and the clock restarts from that moment.
Removal rules
A rule can remove an SLA as well as add one. These keep your data honest: when an application moves somewhere the deadline no longer makes sense, the SLA goes with it.
Business days
A rule can count in calendar time or in business days. Business days skip the days outside your work week, which you set at the top of the same page — Monday–Friday by default, or Sunday–Thursday.
A 24-hour business-day SLA set on Friday afternoon is due Monday afternoon.
Notifications
Anyone subscribed to an application is notified in their Inbox:
- 24 hours before the deadline — or one business day, for a business-day SLA
- When the deadline passes
Breaches are detected on a schedule, not when somebody happens to open the application, so an SLA that passes overnight is recorded overnight.
Attia sends these to your Inbox. There is no email or Slack delivery today.
Retiring a rule
Rules are retired, not deleted. A retired rule stops matching immediately, and applications it already clocked keep their deadlines.
That is on purpose: the activity feed on every one of those applications still shows which rule set the SLA, and deleting the rule outright would erase that history.