When you migrate from Chat to messaging, you can use real-time monitoring dashboards, the Explore Messaging dashboard, or both to monitor ticket volume, agent activity, and customer experience. There’s no automated way to migrate your Chat analytics setup, so you need to recreate your reporting manually in the messaging tools you plan to use. This article explains the available reporting options, how to prepare for the transition, and how common Chat analytics metrics map to messaging reporting.
This article includes the following topics:
- About the messaging reporting options
- Preparing to migrate
- Setting up real-time monitoring
- Setting up the Explore Messaging dashboard
- Comparing Chat analytics and messaging reporting
- Understanding common reporting changes after migration
For more information on messaging reporting and analysis, see the following articles:
About the messaging reporting options
You can use one or both of Zendesk's reporting options for messaging:
- Real-time monitoring dashboards, which provide live, operational, omnichannel visibility and recent historical data for up to 30 days.
- The Explore Messaging dashboard, which provides historical reporting for messaging tickets and performance trends. It doesn’t include live performance data.
These options offer different views into how, and how well, your messaging configuration is working, and you can use them in tandem. Use real-time monitoring to manage current and recent workload and agent activity. Use the Explore Messaging dashboard to analyze historical performance and trends.
Real-time monitoring
Real-time monitoring:
- Organizes reporting by workflow instead of by channel, which can make it easier to monitor day-to-day support operations.
- Shows live data that helps you make immediate staffing and queue management decisions.
- Includes recent historical data for many reports, so you can review trends over the past 30 days.
By default, real-time monitoring includes these dashboards:
- Incoming tickets (requires omnichannel routing)
- Ticket progress
- Agent productivity
For more information, see About real-time monitoring dashboards.
The Explore Messaging dashboard
The Explore Messaging dashboard:
- Provides historical reporting for messaging tickets and agent performance.
- Includes reports for metrics such as first reply time, agent activity, and messaging goal conversions.
- Shows historical data from the date Explore was enabled for the account, as far back as August 2021.
For more information, see Overview of the Zendesk Messaging dashboard.
Preparing to migrate
Currently, reporting settings from Chat analytics are not included as part of the automated migration tool. You need to recreate your reporting setup manually in real-time monitoring and the Explore Messaging dashboard.
To prepare for the transition from Chat analytics to messaging reporting
- Review the reports you use today. Identify which reports are still useful, which metrics matter most, and which dashboards you don’t need to recreate.
- Learn how messaging reporting differs from Chat analytics. Review the metric comparison section in this article. Some Chat metrics don’t have direct messaging equivalents, so you may need to adjust how you measure performance.
- Review the available reporting tools. Familiarize yourself with real-time monitoring and the Explore Messaging dashboard, including the filters, dashboards, and reports available in each.
- Make a reporting plan. List the queues, teams, filters, and key metrics you want to monitor in each tool.
- Review how messaging changes performance metrics. See Metrics that matter: Measuring success when migrating from live chat to messaging to understand how messaging workflows can affect the way you evaluate team performance.
Setting up real-time monitoring
Use real-time monitoring if you need live visibility into queue backlog, in-progress work, and agent activity.
To set up real-time monitoring
- Access the real-time monitoring dashboards. See Accessing the real-time monitoring dashboards.
- Review the available dashboards:
- If you want to use the full set of real-time messaging dashboards, make sure omnichannel routing is configured where required.
- Apply filters and drill into the dashboards to focus on the brands, groups, channels, and agents you want to monitor.
You can’t create custom reports in real-time monitoring. However, you can use filters and drill-ins to review ticket and agent activity in more detail.
Setting up the Explore Messaging dashboard
Use the Explore Messaging dashboard if you need historical reporting for messaging performance and trends.
To set up the Explore Messaging dashboard
- Open the Zendesk Messaging dashboard in Explore.
- Review the prebuilt reports available in the dashboard.
- Identify the reports that match the metrics you tracked in Chat analytics.
- If needed, create custom reports in Explore to support your reporting requirements.
- Validate your filters, date ranges, and datasets so your reports reflect the messaging activity you want to measure.
For more information, see Analyzing your messaging tickets.
Comparing Chat analytics and messaging reporting
Many Chat analytics metrics have equivalent or near-equivalent metrics in messaging reporting. In some cases, there isn’t a direct match because messaging workflows differ from chat workflows.
Use the following tables to identify where common Chat analytics metrics appear in real-time monitoring or the Explore Messaging dashboard.
Monitoring data
| Chat metric | Real-time monitoring | Explore messaging reporting | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chat Analytics or Chat engagements dataset | N/A | Messaging dataset and Messaging engagement dataset | Messaging reporting may require a different dataset than the one you used for Chat. |
| Monitor or Live data dashboard in Explore | Real-time monitoring dashboards | N/A | Use real-time monitoring for live operational visibility. |
| Visitor list for monitoring agents | Agent productivity real-time dashboard | Agent productivity reporting | |
| Visitor list for monitoring queues | Incoming tickets and In-progress tickets | Incoming tickets reporting |
Metrics for ticket volume
| Chat metric | Real-time monitoring | Explore messaging reporting | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chats | Active conversations in queue | Messaging tickets | Messaging tickets count tickets created from messaging channels, not chat sessions |
| Completed chats | Solved tickets | Solved tickets | |
| Missed inbound chats | Missed conversations | Missed conversations (workflow-dependent) | |
| Dropped chats | N/A | No direct equivalent | Messaging conversations are persistent, so dropped chats don’t map directly. |
| Transferred chats | Reassigned messaging tickets | Reassigned messaging tickets | |
| Offline messages | Messaging tickets created outside of business hours | Messaging tickets created outside of business hours |
Metrics for customer experience
| Chat metric | Real-time monitoring | Explore messaging reporting | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| % Chat satisfaction score | Satisfaction (overall) | Good satisfaction tickets | The calculation method may differ between tools. |
| Chat duration (sec) | Chat duration | Full resolution time (min) | These metrics are related, but they don’t measure exactly the same behavior. |
| Chat wait time (sec) | Wait time | First reply time (sec) | |
| Chat first reply time (sec) | Response time | First reply time (sec) | In messaging, first reply time doesn’t include bot replies in the same way Chat can. |
| Chat average reply time (sec) | Response time | Requester wait time average (sec) | |
| Chat agent messages | N/A | Agent messages | |
| Chat visitor messages | N/A | Requester messages | |
| Assignments | N/A | Assignee stations, Assignee changes, or assignment-related metrics |
Metrics for agent and queue monitoring
| Chat metric | Real-time monitoring | Explore messaging reporting | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chat wait time | N/A | Assignment to first reply (sec) | |
| Engagement duration (min) | Average and longest handle time | Handle time (min) | |
| % Assignment acceptance rate | Agent productivity metrics | Acceptance rate | |
| Time spent online/away/invisible | Agent availability views | Agent time in state | |
| Average concurrency | Capacity in use | Agent average used capacity |
Monitoring queues and agents in real time
If you used Chat Monitor, Live data dashboard, or Visitor List in Chat, the following real-time monitoring dashboards are the closest messaging equivalents:
| Chat metric | Real-time monitoring equivalent |
|---|---|
| Queue | Incoming tickets |
| Wait time | Incoming tickets and Ticket progress |
| Response time | Ticket progress |
| Chat duration | Ticket progress |
| Currently served chats | Agent productivity |
| Chats per agent | Agent productivity |
| Drill down into agents | Agent productivity |
| Drill down into queues | Incoming tickets |
Understanding common reporting changes after migration
After you migrate from Chat to messaging, you may notice changes in reported volume, wait time, first reply time, and handle time. These changes are often caused by differences between chat and messaging workflows rather than by a reporting error.
This section includes the following reporting changes:
Increase in first reply time for messaging tickets vs chat tickets
Issue: You notice an increase in first reply time after moving to messaging.
Possible causes include:
-
Account uses custom bot in Chat
- In Chat, first reply time can include the AI agent’s first response.
- In messaging, first reply time measures the time from handoff to the first human agent reply.
-
Messaging ticket volume has increased
- More tickets in queue can increase first reply time.
-
Wait time in queue has increased
- Reopened or unassigned messaging tickets can affect response times.
-
Agent handle time has increased
- If agents hold capacity longer or tickets are reassigned frequently, first reply time can increase.
For a more accurate comparison, compare Chat engagement-based first reply metrics with messaging assignment-to-first-reply metrics where appropriate.
Recommended actions:
- Create reports with the following KPIs for messaging and Chat:
- Messaging ticket volume.
- First assignment or queue wait time.
- Reassignment volume.
- Agent acceptance rate.
- Agent handle time.
Increase in ticket volume after migration
Issue: You notice more messaging tickets than you previously saw in Chat reporting.
Possible cause: Messaging reporting can include conversations that were handled differently in Chat, including tickets created outside business hours and conversations that remain active across a longer lifecycle.
Recommended actions:
- Review how your reporting handles:
- Tickets created outside business hours.
- Reopened conversations.
- Workflow-driven conversation handling.
- Use business-hours-based metrics where appropriate to exclude time spent waiting outside scheduled support hours.
- Review your routing and workflow configuration if you want messaging behavior to more closely match your previous Chat workflows.
Increase in wait time due to agent capacity
Issue: Agents aren’t releasing capacity quickly enough.
Recommended actions:
- Turn on automatic capacity release.
- Adjust the inactivity timeout to match your support workflow.
- Review whether agents are setting ticket status appropriately when work is complete or waiting on the customer.
Issue: Tickets are being reassigned frequently.
Recommended actions:
- Review agent acceptance rate.
- Turn on automatic conversation acceptance if it fits your workflow.
- Review your skills and capacity rules.
Issue: Reopened messaging tickets are holding agent capacity.
Recommended actions:
- Turn on omnichannel routing if you haven’t already.
- Configure omnichannel routing to reassign reopened messaging tickets to available agents.
Increase in resolution time
Issue: Resolution time increases after migration.
Possible causes include:
- The same ticket stays open longer and is reused for multiple customer interactions.
- Your account uses a returning-user conversational style, which can extend the lifecycle of a messaging ticket.
Recommended actions:
- Review your ticket lifecycle and solve workflow.
- Make sure agents solve tickets when the issue is resolved.
- Adjust your reporting expectations to account for the longer-lived nature of messaging conversations.
Increase in agent handle time
Issue: Agent handle time increases after migration.
Recommended actions:
- Review whether agents are releasing capacity promptly.
- Turn on automatic capacity release.
- Review whether agents are moving tickets to Pending, On-hold, or Solved when appropriate.