| Suite | Professional, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus |
| Support with | Explore Professional or Enterprise |
The Zendesk Time Tracking app helps support managers gain visibility into the actual time spent across all your customer service interactions within a ticket. The app tracks the time spent on each ticket update and stores this with the ticket.
This time spent can be measured per ticket or per update. Time spent per ticket is called ticket handling time. Time spent per update is called update handling time. With Explore, you can create calculated metrics for these different handling times and create time tracking reports in Explore.
This article describes the difference between ticket handling time and update handling time. It also links to Explore recipes that show you how to create custom time tracking metrics and reports.
Ticket handling time vs. Update handling time
As with any other Support ticket data, there are two approaches for analyzing time tracking app data:
- Ticket handling time
- Update handling time
Ticket handling time
The first approach is to look at the handling time per ticket. You can use this information to report on individual agent performance, or to report on complex workflows where the same ticket is handled by multiple agents.
If you choose to go with this approach, the best place to create your reports is the Support: Tickets dataset. To do so, you can create a standard calculated metric based on the Total time spent (sec) metric (which is available in Explore only after you install the Time Tracking app) and use it to report on the handling time per ticket.
To learn how to create a custom Ticket handling time metric and use it to produce two example time tracking reports, see Explore recipe: Time Tracking app - Measuring ticket handling time.
Update handling time
The second approach is to look at the handling time per update. You can use this information to report on individual agent performance, or to report on complex workflows where the same ticket is handled by multiple agents.
For this approach, the calculated metric and reports should be created in the Support: Updates history dataset based on the data stored in the Changes - Previous value and Changes - New value attributes.
To learn how to create a custom Update handling time metric and use it to produce an example time tracking report, see Explore recipe: Time Tracking app - Measuring update handling time.
123 comments
Victor Carneiro
Once the app is installed, can we see the metric “time spent on tickets” in any Explore standard dashboard or do I have to create a personal dash to see it? I mean, using the Growth Plan, is it possible to have this information?
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Alex Zheng
There was a recent issue with the formula that caused some of the numbers for the update handling time to be shown incorrectly. This has since been resolved and the numbers should now be accurate again. If you do have any issues please feel free to reach out to Support to investigate further.
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Cam Santos
Hello David,
It seems that the steps you have indicated above regarding getting average handle time of an agent are incoherent with this article on Update Handling Time.
I have tried both ways and data inconsistent with the tickets updated by the agent. Here's a sample report. You'd see that update handling time data is not present on all tickets updated by the agent. If handling time is being recorded by the time tracking app, total time spent (min) is not accurate; I have done manual cross-checking of sample tickets and somehow the total time spent are ballooned in the report.
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David
To capture the total time spent by each agent on a ticket and average this time across tickets they've handled, you'll want to use a combo of Explore and Time Tracking
Here's a quick example/steps starting from the beginning.
Step 1: Ensure Proper Time Tracking Setup
- Ensure the Time Tracking app is correctly installed and configured in your Zendesk instance. Agents should be trained to accurately log time spent on each ticket update.
Step 2: Access Time Tracking Data in Zendesk Explore
- The Time Tracking app stores data in custom ticket fields, typically named something like "_Time Spent (sec)".
- Navigate to Zendesk Explore and select the dataset that includes your tickets (usually "Support: Tickets").
Step 3: Create a New Report
- Start a new report in Zendesk Explore.
- Add the metrics and attributes relevant to your analysis.
Step 4: Add Metrics for Time Tracking
- Metrics: You'll want to use the custom field(s) created by the Time Tracking app. This might involve adding a custom metric if the field isn't directly available as a predefined metric.
- To create a custom metric for the total time spent, you can sum the time logged in the time tracking field.
- Example formula for a custom metric: `SUM(Time Spent field)`
Step 5: Add Attributes to Your Report
- Attributes: Include "Assignee" or "Updater" to break down the time tracking data by agent. This will allow you to attribute the time spent to each agent who worked on the ticket.
- Optionally, include other attributes such as "Ticket ID", "Status", or "Group" to further segment your data.
Step 6: Calculate Average Time Per Agent
- To calculate the average time spent per agent, you might need to create another custom metric that divides the total time spent by the number of tickets handled by each agent.
- Example formula for average time per agent: `SUM(Time Spent field) / COUNT(Tickets)`
- This calculation gives you the average handling time per ticket, per agent.
Step 7: Apply Filters and Aggregations
- Apply any necessary filters to your report, such as time frame, ticket status (e.g., solved tickets), or specific groups/agents.
- Ensure your report aggregates data by agent to accurately reflect the average time spent per agent across their handled tickets.
Step 8: Visualize and Share Your Findings
- Choose a visualization that best represents your data, such as a bar chart or table.
- Share your report with stakeholders or use it internally to make informed decisions about staffing, training, or process improvements.
Considerations:
- Accuracy depends on agents consistently logging time for each ticket update.
- Time tracking for internal notes versus public comments might need to be distinguished, depending on your specific requirements.
- Ensure you're compliant with any privacy and data handling policies when tracking and reporting on employee activities.
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Gerald J
Following the Update Handling Time, it captures each update done a ticket (public comment, internal note, etc). Averaging this would return a lower number.
We need to capture the total time spent by each agent in a ticket and average them. I want to attribute to each agent/actor the time they spent on tickets they handled.
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Noly Maron Unson
Hi Cam,
Messaging conversation is not tracked by the Time Tracking app. This means that when an agent is sending messages to users on Messaging tickets the app doesn't see those messages as ticket updates.
It will only work if the agent were to compose a public reply (email) in the composer and then submit that ticket update then the Time tracking app would record the time spent data.
Hope this helps.
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Cam Santos
Is time tracking app not working with tickets from Messaging channel? How do we get update handling time of agents in messaging tickets?
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Phoebe Morin
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Mark Nino Valencia
It looks like the Time tracking app does not apply to Child tickets. Is this a limitation of this App?
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Aaron Peace
HELP:
We need to be able to report on agent time activity across any/all Tickets per day/week/month but the metrics don't seem to work unless a Ticket has been closed. Can you provide a report recipe for this?
example:
Rows= Days of the week (mon, Tues, Weds, Thurs, Fri) (alternatively day/week/month)
Columns= Agents
Data= accumulated total time logged across any/all tickets per day whether the ticket is still open or closed
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UPDATE: I have managed to work out how to report on day/week but the data shown is still incorrect. Is this because some tickets are still open? How can I report on time logged on open Tickets too?
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