How To Manage Help Desk with Multi-Team Organizations Across Time Zones
HelpDesk for Multi-Team Organizations Across Time Zones
Introduction
This article explains how to set up and manage HelpDesk in Easy8 when your support operation spans multiple teams working in different time zones. Administrators responsible for global or distributed support setups will learn how SLA calendars work, how to correctly configure working hours for each regional team, and what role time zone settings play in SLA calculation.
Target Audience
Administrator
Understand How SLA Time Is Calculated
Before configuring a multi-region setup, it is important to understand exactly what drives SLA calculation in Easy8 and what only affects how times are displayed.
SLA deadlines are always calculated according to the working hours configured on the HelpDesk project the ticket belongs to with relation to global application time zone. Nothing else — not the user's personal time zone, not the time zone of the ticket's author or assignee — changes the calculation. Those settings only affect how timestamps and deadlines are shown in the interface.
| Setting | Affects SLA calculation | Affects display in UI |
|---|---|---|
| Working hours on HelpDesk project | Yes | Yes |
| Global application time zone | Yes | Yes |
| User personal time zone | No | Yes |
| Author / assignee / operator time zone | No | Yes |
Understand the Role of the Global Application Time Zone
Easy8 has one global time zone, set under Global menu >> Administration >> Settings >> Display.
This global time zone does not calculate SLA directly. Its role is more subtle: it is the reference frame against which all working hours entries in the system are interpreted. In other words, when you type "09:00–17:00" into a project's working hours field, Easy8 reads those numbers as times in the global application time zone.
This has a direct consequence for multi-region setups: if a regional team works in a different time zone than the application's global setting, you must convert their local business hours into the global time zone before entering them.
Calculate the offset
Find the difference in hours between the global application time zone and the region's local time zone, then shift the working hours accordingly.
Example: The application runs on CET (UTC+1 in winter, UTC+2 in summer). The US East Coast team works 09:00–17:00 EST (UTC-5 in winter, UTC-4 in summer as EDT).
The offset between CET and EST in winter is 6 hours (CET is 6 hours ahead of EST). So 09:00 EST = 15:00 CET, and 17:00 EST = 23:00 CET.
Enter 15:00–23:00 as the working hours in the US East Coast HelpDesk project.
When a ticket arrives at 16:00 EST (= 22:00 CET), Easy8 sees it is within the 15:00–23:00 window and starts the SLA timer. When the window closes at 23:00 CET, the timer pauses and resumes the next working day at 15:00 CET.
Important: Remember to revisit working hours entries when daylight saving time changes apply — either in the global time zone or in the region's time zone — as the offset between them may shift by one hour seasonally. CET and US Eastern time both observe daylight saving time, but their transitions happen on different dates, so there are periods each year when the offset temporarily differs from the standard 6 hours.
Fallback: If no global time zone is configured in Easy8, the system falls back to the server's operating system time zone. Confirm the setting is explicitly defined to avoid unexpected SLA behavior.
Set Up a Separate HelpDesk Project per Region or Team
Create one HelpDesk project for each regional team — for example, HelpDesk – Europe and HelpDesk – US East Coast. Each project gets its own working hours, SLA rules, ticket queue, and operators. A single Easy8 instance is sufficient; no separate tenant is needed.
- Go to Global menu >> Administration >> Projects.
- Click New project and enable the HelpDesk module for the project.
- Assign only the operators from the relevant regional team as project members.
- Repeat for each region.
Tip: If all regions handle the same client base and you want tickets visible across teams, use a shared parent project with regional sub-projects. Each sub-project can have its own SLA settings while tickets remain searchable globally.
Configure Working Hours per Regional Project in SLA settings
- Open the HelpDesk project and go to Settings >> HelpDesk.
- Locate the Working hours section in SLA settings.
- Enter the team's local business hours converted to the global application time zone (see the conversion example above).
- Save the settings.
Repeat for each regional project with the appropriate converted hours.
Note 1: SLA Working days serve a different purpose — they are used only to mark public holidays on which SLA time should not count. They do not define the general working schedule. Use Working hours for that.
Once working hours are set, Easy8 pauses SLA timers automatically whenever a ticket is outside the project's active window, regardless of when the ticket was submitted or who is currently looking at it.
Note 2: SLA Working time must be set on each SLA level!
Route Incoming Tickets to the Correct Project
Use separate mailboxes to route tickets automatically to the right regional project.
- Go to Global menu >> Administration >> HelpDesk – Mailboxes.
-
Connect one mailbox per regional team (for example,
support-europe@yourcompany.comandsupport-us@yourcompany.com). - In the mailbox settings, assign each mailbox to the corresponding HelpDesk project.
- Publish each regional address to clients in the relevant region.
Tip: If you prefer a single public email address, use routing rules in your mail server to forward messages to the correct regional mailbox based on sender geography, client domain, or subject keywords.
What Each Operator Sees
Two operators viewing the same ticket — one in Prague (Europe/Prague) and one in New York (America/New_York) — will see the SLA deadline displayed in their own local time. The underlying deadline is identical for both; only its presentation differs based on each user's personal time zone setting.
Operators can set their personal time zone in their account profile. This has no effect on SLA calculation.
Handle Ticket Handoffs Between Regions
When a ticket arrives outside the responsible team's working hours and needs urgent attention, you can temporarily reassign it to an on-duty operator in another region.
- Open the ticket and change the Assigned to field to an operator from the currently active region.
- Add an internal note explaining the handoff context.
- When the original team comes back online, reassign the ticket back or let them pick it up from the queue.
Note: Reassigning a ticket to a different project applies that project's SLA rules from that point forward. Do this only when the new team is taking full ownership of the ticket.
Corner Situations
- SLA breach reported despite ticket being outside working hours: Check that working hours in the project settings have been correctly converted to the global application time zone. If the entry shows 00:00–00:00, the timer runs continuously around the clock. Also verify which global time zone is set under Global menu >> Administration >> Settings >> Display and that it matches your expectations.
- The application has no global time zone set: If the global time zone field is empty, Easy8 falls back to the server's operating system time zone. This can cause SLA working hours to be interpreted differently than intended. Set the global time zone explicitly to avoid this.
- Clients receive no confirmation email after submitting a ticket: Each mailbox requires its own email template configuration. Check Administration >> HelpDesk – Mailboxes >> [your mailbox] >> Email templates and confirm the New ticket confirmation template is active for every regional mailbox.
- Ticket appears in the wrong regional project: The client likely used the wrong regional address, or the mail server routing did not apply correctly. Review the submitted email headers and verify the mailbox-to-project assignment in Easy8 Administration.
Summary
Running HelpDesk across multiple time zones in Easy8 requires one HelpDesk project per regional team. SLA is always calculated against the working hours set on the project — not against the global time zone or any user's personal time zone. Because working hours are interpreted in the global application time zone, you must convert each team's local business hours into that reference frame before entering them. Once configured correctly, Easy8 pauses and resumes SLA timers automatically per project, operators in any location see deadlines in their own local time, and a single Easy8 instance handles all regions without any need for separate tenants.
