# SLA Health: How Old a Deal Is for Its Stage

> SLA Health classifies each open opportunity by total age as HEALTHY, DELAYED or STALLED. The rule, an example, and how it differs from time spent in a stage.

Canonical: https://funneleconomics.ai/resources/glossary/sla-health

SLA Health classifies each open opportunity as HEALTHY, DELAYED or STALLED. SLA Health compares the opportunity's total age in the funnel with the two SLA values the customer sets per stage and opportunity type. The classification feeds into rEFV, the risk-adjusted revenue expectation for the open pipeline.

## How is SLA Health determined?

:::formel
SLA Health = the band of the total age, measured against the two SLA values of the stage

- HEALTHY – the total age is at most the first SLA value of the stage (first threshold on the total age)
- DELAYED – the total age is above the first and at most the second SLA value (second threshold on the total age)
- STALLED – the total age is above the second SLA value
:::

An SLA value here is a limit in days. The customer enters both SLA values, per stage and per [opportunity type, a kind of business in sales](https://funneleconomics.ai/resources/glossary/opportunity-type). The same stage can therefore carry different values in two opportunity types.

The band edges follow the entered values alone. There is no fixed percentage above the SLA.

## What STALLED says and what it does not

SLA Health measures the **total age** of the opportunity: the time since it entered the funnel. That age is compared with the values of the stage the opportunity is in.

STALLED therefore does not mean that a deal is stuck in its stage. An opportunity that spent a long time in early stages and moves on late can be STALLED on arrival in the new stage.

:::example
Illustrative example with invented numbers: for the stage “Proposal” in the opportunity type new business, the first SLA value entered is 47 days and the second SLA value is 83 days. Opportunity A is 39 days old in total and therefore HEALTHY. Opportunity B is 64 days old and therefore DELAYED. Opportunity C is 96 days old and therefore STALLED, although it moved into the stage “Proposal” only 4 days ago.
:::

How long opportunities stay in a single stage is a different quantity. It is covered in the entry on [BPV, the deviation from the SLA per stage](https://funneleconomics.ai/resources/glossary/bpv).

STALLED does not mean “without movement” either. Whether an opportunity changed stage within a period is a separate measurement. An opportunity can be STALLED and have changed stage.

## What is SLA Health used for?

SLA Health feeds into rEFV, the risk-adjusted revenue expectation for the open pipeline. How the bands are weighted there depends on where rEFV is formed.

The dashboards of Funnel Economics Core form rEFV in simplified form, by the opportunity's health status. Funnel Economics Strategist forms rEFV with measured factors per band. bEFV is the same in both. See the entry on [rEFV, the risk-adjusted revenue expectation](https://funneleconomics.ai/resources/glossary/refv).

bEFV is the expectation without that weighting. The difference between bEFV and rEFV is [EVL, the Execution Value Leakage](https://funneleconomics.ai/resources/glossary/evl).

SLA Health describes which band an opportunity is in. It does not say how to steer a deal.

## How SLA Health differs from BPV

| | SLA Health | BPV |
|---|---|---|
| Measures | total age of an opportunity in the funnel | time opportunities spend in a stage |
| Compared with | the two SLA values of the current stage | the SLA of the stage |
| Result | one band per open opportunity | a percentage deviation per stage |

## FAQ

### What do HEALTHY, DELAYED and STALLED mean?

The three bands sort an opportunity by its total age in the funnel. HEALTHY means the total age is at most the first SLA value of the stage the opportunity is in. DELAYED means it is above the first and at most the second SLA value. STALLED means it is above the second SLA value.

### Does STALLED mean the deal is stuck in its stage?

No. The band measures the opportunity’s total age in the funnel, not the time in its current stage. An opportunity that spent a long time in early stages can be STALLED the moment it arrives in a later stage. Time in a single stage is the subject of a different metric: BPV.

### Who sets the SLA values?

The customer. For every stage and every opportunity type, the customer enters two SLA values in days. The first value is the upper edge of the HEALTHY band, the second the upper edge of the DELAYED band. The band edges follow these values alone; there is no fixed percentage above the SLA.

### How does SLA Health feed into rEFV?

rEFV is the risk-adjusted revenue expectation for the open pipeline. The dashboards of Funnel Economics Core form rEFV in simplified form, by the opportunity's health status. Funnel Economics Strategist forms rEFV with measured factors per band. bEFV is the same in both.