When you use the new SLA functionality introduced in Dynamics CRM 2013 SP1, it is important to define your success criteria correctly. the success/failure of an SLA is definable per SLA. It can be single field condition or a combination of multiple field values.

A common SLA is time to first response. For example, high priority cases should be responded to within 3 hours. There is a new field called “first response sent” that can be used to record when the first response is logged, but there is nothing magical about this field, and there is nothing that automatically sets this field to “completed.”

If you wish to use this field (or any other field to indicated completion of the first response), a workflow or plugin can be used to automatically set the “First Response Set” to “Completed.” You will need to define what “first response” means to you. Is it the first completed phone call? The first note? You can define any type of event and have it mark the first response sent as “completed.”

A word of caution though, you probably don’t want to make the first email sent regarding the case to set the “First Response Sent” field if you have a workflow process that automatically sends an email to the customer when the case is created.

Thanks to Dana Martens and Shan McArthur for this tip.