Question
We want to analyze our support team activity more closely, beyond the number of solved tickets. Can we report on agent touches in Insights?
Answer
Yes, it is possible to report on the agent touches, but you'll need to decide which agent activity you want to track. Here are few options to consider.
Ticket comments
Ticket Updates
If you want to track not only the comments posted by agents but other ticket updates too, use the default # Ticket Updates metric. The formula of this metric is: SELECT COUNT(Ticket Updates, Ticket Text Field Change)
. It returns ticket events during which at least one ticket text field value was updated.
What is considered a ticket text field in Insights? The text field is any non-numeric ticket field excluding tags and comments. The most frequently used text fields are status, priority, group, assignee, custom drop-down, and check box.
Ticket comments, tags, and numeric fields are not part of the Ticket Text Field data set, which is why such events aren't counted by the # Ticket Updates metric. For instance, if an agent posts a comment without changing the ticket status or any other ticket properties, this update will not be captured by the metric.
Total Ticket Updates

To create the report
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Click the Reporting icon (
) in the sidebar, go to Insights > GoodData.
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In the top menu, click Reports.
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Then click Create Report button in the top right corner.
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Open the What menu and select one or all of the metrics: # Ticket Updates, # Total Ticket Updates, # Total Comments, # Public Comments and # Private Comments.
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Open the How menu and select Updater and one of the event date attributes.
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Open the Filters menu and click Select from a list of Values.
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Select Updater Role attribute, select Agent and Admin values.
- Open Filters menu and click Select from a list of Values.
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Select a date event attribute and set a floating range.
40 Comments
Trying to run a report of:
Agent/Admin touches
Agent/Admin solved tickets
Broken down by individuals over a previous week basis (or Week of the quarter etc)
Thanks in advance!
@Polly,
You can use one or multiple Agent touches metrics mentioned in this article + # Tickets Solved metric.
Report settings:
WHAT - # Tickets Solved and one/two Agent touches metrics
HOW - Updater, Week (Mon-Sun)/Year (Event)
FILTERS - Updater Role is Agent, Admin
Example report:
Does anyone have best practice for using the above, but limiting the report to only show a select set of agents within the Agent role?
Our agents would be in multiple groups, and tickets are passed from group to group so we're struggling to report filtering on groups. We tried creating a department tag on the user, but this seems to only filter the results if the agent is the ticket requester so not ideal if we're trying to count # tickets touches.
Does anyone have any ideas?
What exactly counts as an "Agent Touch" in Zendesk?
@Kim, you can use the Variables GoodData feature to create specific sets of agents in Insights - https://help.gooddata.com/display/doc/Define+Filtered+Variables
@Tyler, there are multiple default metrics that can be referred to as Agent Touch. So, you need to decide which metric to use in your workflow. Agent touch can be an update on a ticket or a comment or a specific type of comment.
@Eugene if an agent updates multiple fields on a ticket, does that count as multiple touches when they submit the changes or is that counted as one update when they submit it?
Hey Tyler,
It is a good question. These will be counted as one update in Insights. So, each time a ticket is submitted at least with one field change it is counted as an update.
Hi,
Do chat and talk tickets get counted as agent touches? I'm unsure since there isn't a standard comment left in these cases, but they tickets generated to show the transcript of the chat or the recording of the call may in fact count as something. Looking for the best way to simply measure how many single customer service actions an agent is completing (solved tickets isn't helpful for us.)
Thanks,
Christina
Hi
In the example you have above can you explain the difference between # ticket updates and # Total ticket updates - what does the total metric include that the first one does not?
Thank you
Shiri
Hi Christina,
I would personally consider the creation of a Chat/Talk ticket as an agent touch. Based off our documentation, we do not have a definitive description of what an agent touch is. Generally speaking, most users will consider a ticket update or comment to be an agent touch. Sometimes they'll one or the other, but it can also be both.
Since you're looking for the best way to measure how many individual customer service actions an agent is taking, I would consider just using ticket comments as a primary metric to measure agent activity. Ticket updates would include individual ticket updates like adding a tag, changing a ticket's status, and other benign actions that may not be the best indicator of productivity.
Ultimately the metric you use will depend on your workflow and KPI's your team measures, but ticket comments in conjunction with other metrics can usually paint a decent picture of your agents' productivity.
Hi Shiri,
The main difference between # Ticket Updates and Total Ticket Updates is that the former is a metric that's available by default, whereas you would need to create a custom metric to measure the total amount of ticket updates by an agent.
Additionally, Total Ticket Updates would capture every single update an agent has made on a ticket. # Ticket Updates only captures updates when a ticket text field has been updated. Like the article notes, a text field is any non-numeric ticket field excluding tags and comments. The most frequently used text fields are status, priority, group, assignee, custom drop-down, and check box.
To address your question, updates to a ticket like making comments and making any change to the ticket fields would count in Total Ticket Updates whereas the other is a bit more selective.
Hello,
For some reason I am not able to find the # Total Ticket Updates. Maybe I am missing something. Please let me know!
Chris
Hello Christopher,
The # Total Ticket Updates metric is a custom metric. There is a Total Ticket Updates section in this article before the instructions for creating the report that provides detail on creating that metric
Thanks!
Hello,
I am reporting on this concept. However, given that I want is by schedule, that is, I would trade the "month / year (event)" for the hour of event.
The question, how do I get only a few special days, in which case I can not use "date (event)" as a filter?
I'm from Brazil, I'm using Google Translate, sorry for any typos.
Hi,
Does the # Ticket Updates metric count tickets created or solved in a specified time period or just all ticket updates made within that period?
Thanks
Hi Felicity,
# Ticket Update is defined as the number of ticket updates during the selected time period where the ticket status is less than closed.
It is calculated by the counting of ticket updates determined by ticket text field change. To learn more about Insights metric, I encourage you to take a look at: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/206544348-Insights-metrics-reference-Professional-and-Enterprise-#topic_lwv_zcb_x1b
Cheers.
Thank you @Romona Blackwood!
Hey there,
Are we able to slice this report by the hour a specific agent updated a ticket?
I want to see a by hour report of agent touches.
The issue here is that in many cases other agents might hop on a ticket and then the "hour of event" doesn't reflect the right time.
I want to measure a specific person's activity by the hour.
What's the best thing to do there?
Hey Tom,
There are a couple of attributes you can use with your report which I've mentioned below:
Do any of the above attributes get you the results you're looking for? I've also attached our Insights Object Reference article here which will provide a full list of available attributes along with a description of what they do.
Hope this helps!
If I filter for a specific updater and view by "Assignee updated hour" will that show me the hour that this person updated that ticeket.
Again my problem is that I want to follow the work of an individual where many people might mess with a ticket.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the clarification.
Assignee updated hour will give you the hour the ticket assignee updated your ticket. It sounds like what you'll want to use instead is the "Hour Ticket Updated" and then filter by your individual updaters as mentioned by Eugene above.
Hope this helps!
Hi Brett,
So does the Total Ticket Updates metric include all accepted calls that create a ticket, Chat that creates a ticket, Social Media. Plus is it Email tickets or queries that have involved WebForms?
All I want is a total of how many times a customer does a piece of work each day regardless of the time it takes.
Cheers
Hey Tim,
If you're looking to just track the number of updates that occur on a ticket then I would recommend using the # Public Comments metric and filter your report by Updater Role > is > end-user.
Since end-users can only update tickets by posting public comments, that should get you the results you're looking for.
Otherwise, you can use the Total Ticket Updates metric and filter by Updater Role > is > end-user as well.
Hope this helps!
Thanks Brett,
I am using the Ticket updates rather than total ticket updates as it appears a little more realistic. my only problem now is that it also counts updates for tickets of agents who are out of office.
What I really need is the amount of actions an agent performs in a day, it is pretty difficult to get a definitive answer for that. I know I will need to break chat down into an average as one chat may have 10 or so interactions by the agent.
Hi Tim,
Could you clarify how exactly agents out of office are contributing to these updates? I'm not quite sure I understand the issue there so I just want to confirm.
Thanks!
Hi there,
I pulled the report for total updates and average time per update(this one from other article). My data is broken by Ticket id, updater, brand, ticket status, ticket created date, ticket solved date, total ticket update(copied from above), Avg time per update(copied from another article on zendesk support). Now when I checked the calculations, they doesn't seem to work. I figured avg time per update doesn't count if ticket status is changed(open to solve, solve to open, etc) but they are counted in total updates.
So my question is: is this how it is supposed to work or do i need to make any change as I want my report to be consistent.
Thanks
Jitendra
Hi Jitendra,
Can you provide me with a link to the article you're referencing for average time per update?
I'd like to take a look at the metrics you're using to get a better understanding of why these numbers aren't matching up.
Thanks in advance!
Hi Brett,
Thank you for replying. This is the link:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203664236-Time-Tracking-recipe-The-metrics-you-need-to-be-measuring
Thanks
Jitendra
Thanks Jitendra!
I'm going to create a ticket on your behalf as our Customer Advocacy team will most likely need to take a look at the reports you've set up to determine the issue here.
You'll receive a follow-up email shortly stating your ticket has been created.
Cheers!
Thank you!
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