If you're using Support Professional or Enterprise, you can use the Time Tracking app to monitor how much time agents spend on tickets. Once you've set up the Time Tracking app, you'll find instructions for using it at Using the Time Tracking app.
If you're looking for help using Zendesk Explore to generate reports about your time tracking, see Time Tracking app: metrics you need to be measuring.
Note: If you originally installed the private Time Tracking app from Zendesk Labs, installing the public version of the app from the Marketplace will reset your time tracking data, and you'll lose any data previously collected.
Installing and configuring the Time Tracking app
You can download and install the Time Tracking app from the Zendesk Marketplace.
To install the Time Tracking app
- Click the Admin (
) icon in the sidebar, then select Apps > Marketplace.
- Find the Time Tracking app, then click the title.
- On the app details page, click Install.
- From the drop-down, choose the account you want to install the app to, then click Install.
- On the app settings page, configure any settings you want as described below. You can return to this settings page at any time by clicking Apps > Manage > Time Tracking:
- Title: Displays the name of the app. You can edit this to be any name you want.
- Display timelogs to agents: Determines if agents can see a log of time spent on that ticket so far, including the agent and status for each time interval.
- Hide the app from agents: Only displays the app to agents with the admin role. If the app is hidden, agents without the admin role cannot see or edit the timer.
- Auto pause: Automatically pauses the timer when the agent navigates away from the ticket, such as by switching to another tab. The timer resumes automatically when the agent navigates back to the ticket.
- Display timer controls: Determines whether agents see the play and pause buttons next to the timer, allowing them to manually control when the timer starts and stops.
- Reset current time: Determines whether agents can see the refresh button next to the timer, allowing them to start the timer over.
- Resume on changes: When changes are made to any fields, the agent will be asked if the timer should be resumed.
- Edit time submission: When you enable this setting, the window below appears when an agent submits a ticket. Agents can review and edit their time spent on a ticket if, for example, they spent significant time discussing the issue with a colleague outside of Zendesk. Note that this window does not appear for light agents.
With this feature enabled, agents are required to confirm their time in order to submit the ticket. They have 15 seconds from when the window opens to cancel.
- Simplified time submission: Enables agents to be able to edit and submit their time spent in minutes, rather than in hours, minutes, and seconds. For example, with this setting enabled, an agent could enter "5" for five minutes. Without this setting enabled, the agent would have to enter it in the format "00:05:00". This setting only applies if you've also enabled the Edit time submission setting.
- Enable role restrictions: Select which roles can use the Time Tracking app. The app will not appear and will not track time for roles you don't select if you have this setting enabled.
Note: If you enable role restrictions, roles without access to the app will see the custom fields the app creates in their tickets. By design, roles with access to the app won't see the custom fields. For details, see Understanding Time Tracking custom ticket fields.
- Enable group restrictions: Enables you to select which groups have access to the app.
When you've finished configuring settings, click Update.
- (Professional Add-on and Enterprise) If you're using ticket forms, you'll need to update all of your forms to include to include two new custom ticket fields created by Time Tracking. For details, see the section below.
Understanding Time Tracking custom ticket fields
When you install Time Tracking, it automatically creates two custom ticket fields, Time spent since last update and Total time spent. You can view the fields by clicking the Admin () icon in the sidebar, then selecting Manage > Ticket Fields.
By design, agents with access to the app won't see the custom fields on their tickets. If you enable role restrictions, roles that don't have access to the app will see the custom fields on their tickets.
If you're on Enterprise or have the Productivity Pack Professional Add-on and are using ticket forms, you'll need to manually move the new fields to all of your ticket forms. If you don't add the new fields to all of your ticket forms, you will receive an error message (see Time Tracking app error message in Support tech notes).
To add the custom fields to your ticket forms (Professional Add-on and Enterprise)
- Click Admin (
), then select Manage > Ticket Forms.
- Click the name of a ticket form to open it.
- Drag the Time spent since last update and Total time spent fields from the list on the right onto your ticket form.
For more information, see Creating ticket forms to support multiple request types.
63 Comments
Hi Michel,
I'm quite certain that setting had an explanation once, but that is not there anymore. It is to exclude a tracked time if it is excessively and unrealistically high - like 1 week.
As the explanation is gone though I can't tell you anymore where the cut off was exactly.
Hello Michel,
We have found that the Time Tracking app breaks down if the system time and browser time get out of sync during an update. This shouldn't happen on newer browsers. Older browsers or unusual system configurations could cause trouble, though.
Our engineers have added the debugging mode to the Time Tracking app in order to help with this issue. It blocks ticket updates that have a handle time of two weeks or more, then outputs additional error details to the browser console.
If you and your agents are using newer/updated versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc, you shouldn't need to worry and can enable/disable this setting at your leisure.
Sincerely,
Patrick Bosmans | Zendesk Customer Advocate
I'm also wondering about "debug_prevent_huge_times". So it allows time up to two weeks? Yikes.
A new agent added 30 hours instead of 30 minutes. Now the report shows the ridiculously high time spent on the ticket and from what I'm reading here, there isn't any way to change it.
Zendesk needs to allow an admin to edit this time field.
Update: We can add negative minutes to the ticket if we set this to Simplified time submission in the app.
Thank you for the feedback, Jon, and welcome to the Community!
So this is not working for us. We installed it and it the two fields that were created were added to all of our forms and it should work. This however does not work. All we see is ..
Did you follow the installation instructions for this app and configure both required ticket fields to appear on every ticket form?
The answer is yes and I have checked every form we have including the inactive ones just in case. I have uninstalled it and reinstalled it with no success.
Hi Massimo,
Thanks for letting me know. I'm going to create a new ticket for this one so we can investigate this further from there for you. I'll see you in the new ticket. :)
Best,
Amie
Was that last issue reported by Massimo ever fixed? I just installed it on ours too and I'm having the exact same result as Massimo.
I am also having the same issue as Massimo. Any estimates on when this will be resolved?
Hi Jonathan and Nicholas,
We never heard back from Massimo after we reached out so we can only assume he was able to resolve this issue.
I will create a new ticket for you each so I can take a further look in your account at the setup of this and we can troubleshoot with you from there.
See you in the new ticket. :)
Best,
Amie
Is there any way to implement this for the use of only 1 team or group? It seems like all the documented options here involve either implementing it for everyone, or restricting it by role/group (Not sure on group behavior since it is absent from the documentation here...) and asking everyone to accept 2 extraneous fields in their tickets.
I am also having the same issue as Massimo. What is the solution?
Hello Farhan,
Could you go into detail exactly what is impacting you and what you have done thus far to try and troubleshoot it?
Hi
Time tracking is working, but we need to have the same Timer to have it grouped by the agent group, so we would know for the current group is working on the ticket. This or have the time log grouped by the group.
Is there any way possible to add other Ticket fields or just display this kind of custom timer?
My best regards
Hello! Occasionally our agents get the error message below. Can you let us know what this means?
Devan - Community Manager For extra context, our agents see the error occasionally when submitting a ticket that was generated by a Talk phone call or Chat.
Hello Erica Rey,
Would you mind sharing a bit more information with us on when you are receiving these error messages? Is there a specific task that your agents are doing when this comes up?
Best regards.
Hello,
Is it possible to use the Time Tracking app when updating a ticket using the Slack integration?
Hey Leo,
The Time Tracking app will only work when the agent opens the ticket through the agent interface. I'm afraid at this time it wouldn't track responses sent using the Slack integration.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
Could I get a bit of clarification on the auto-pause feature:
"..., such as by switching to another tab. The timer resumes automatically when the agent navigates back to the ticket."
Can someone please confirm if the term "tab" is referencing a browser tab? --
or a Zendesk ticket tab? --
My hope is that the time is only affected by the Zendesk ticket tab and not the browser tab. This way our staff can navigate to other tools in different web browser tabs to help resolve an issue, while still registering that they are working on the active ticket tab in the non-active Zendesk browser tab.
Does that make sense?
Hi Jesse -
Totally makes sense. I'm trying to confirm but I'm pretty sure it just tracks the Zendesk tab and not the browser tab. I'll let you know once I hear back.
Hey Jesse,
The Time Tracking app will pause when you navigate to a different Zendesk ticket tab. If you were to navigate to a different browser tab, that ticket would still be open and the clock would continue.
Let me know if that doesn't make sense!
Hello! I'm setting this up and the role/group restrictions language is unclear. When you select which role/group should have access to the app, does that mean that they are the users being tracked (e.g., the agents) or the ones that can see the new fields with the time metrics (e.g., admins)?
Hey Duggan,
When you select the restriction checkbox, the roles you select should have access to the Time Tracking app but won't see the new/custom fields the app created, and yes, they are also the users being tracked. The app will not appear and will not track time for roles you don't select, but they will see the new/custom fields the app creates in their tickets. At the moment, this is how the app is designed.
I hope was able to lead you in the right direction. If you have any questions, please let me know! :)
Please could someone offer advice when using the pause function on the Time Tracking app? Our users are reporting when they start typing in the paused ticket the 'Would you like to resume the timer?' message box helpfully appears, however even though they are selecting Yes, the message box re-appears numerous times before it will allow them to continue;
Is anyone else getting this issue? Happy to try out any possible solutions.
Thank you in advance.
Rob Mullins Do you happen to know if the user is typing just one character and getting the dialog box multiple times or typing multiple characters? My guess is that it's popping the dialog box for each character they type. Obviously, not great behavior! I'll file a bug report to get that addressed - thanks!
Thank you for the response Tiffany, it does indeed seem to occur when they type multiple characters. Thank you for filing a bug report to get this addressed.
Is there a way to change this reporting from seconds to minutes?
Robert DelFave There is a setting that allows the agent to type in minutes instead of seconds. If the setting for agents to edit their ticket time is enabled, then the simplified setting can be enabled to let them enter that time in minutes.
Someone else asked this but I didn't see an answer - we have multiple groups in Zendesk, I only want to track time for two of them, and I don't want the rest to be tracked or see the time tracking fields in their tickets (as it's not relevant for them). How can we do this?
Hi Mark -
In the app settings screen, you can restrict an app to specific groups. So, anyone not in those groups won't see the app. Here's some articles that provide a little more info and screenshots:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203662486-Managing-your-installed-apps#topic_xyf_wmw_qfb
You can ignore the pricing info on this one, but the way that group permissions work still applies:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360034074974-When-I-buy-a-Zendesk-app-that-has-a-price-per-agent-month-how-many-agents-will-I-be-charged-for-
Hi Tiffany,
That prevents those people from seeing the app, but it looks like you still would need to add the fields to every ticket form. How can I ensure those fields aren't visible to teams that don't use time tracking?
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