English (US)
  1. Zendesk help
  2. Explore
  3. Using Explore for reporting and analytics
  4. Explore recipes

Explore recipe: Comparing today's ticket volume to yesterday's

Rob Stack
  • Edited
Zendesk Documentation Team

What's my plan?

Suite Professional, Enterprise, and Enterprise PlusExplore Professional only

With thanks to Taylor Bowser from Zendesk customer advocates.

A common request from Explore admins is to compare the volume of tickets (or any other metric) between two date ranges. In this Explore recipe, you'll find out how to use date range calculated metrics to create a report showing the percentage variation in tickets created between yesterday and today. You can modify this report to suit your own business needs.

This article contains the following sections:

What you'll need

Skill level: Easy

Time required: 10 minutes

Creating the first metric

In this first procedure, you'll create a date range calculated metric that displays the number of tickets that were created today.

To create the metric

  1. In Explore, click the reports () icon.
  2. In the Reports library, click New report.
  3. On the Select a dataset page, click Support > Support - Tickets, then click Start report. The report builder opens.
  4. In the Calculations menu (), click Date range calculated metric.
  5. On the Date range calculated metric page, configure the following options:
    • Name: Tickets created today
    • Original metric: Tickets
    • Defined on: Ticket created
    • Date range: Simple > Today
  6. When you are finished, click Save.

Creating the second metric

In this procedure, you'll create a date range calculated metric that displays the number of tickets that were created yesterday.

To create the metric

  1. In Explore, click the reports () icon.
  2. In the Reports library, click New report.
  3. On the Select a dataset page, click Support > Support - Tickets, then click Start report. The report builder opens.
  4. In the Calculations menu (), click Date range calculated metric.
  5. On the Date range calculated metric page, configure the following options:
    • Name: Tickets created yesterday
    • Original metric: Tickets
    • Defined on: Ticket created
    • Date range: Simple > Yesterday
    Tip: You can use these metrics as the basis for your own reports. For example, you could report on Talk or Chat volume changes, or solved tickets instead of created tickets. For help with the available metrics and attributes, see the building reports section of the Explore documentation.
  6. When you are finished, click Save.

Creating the report

In this final procedure, you'll add the two date range calculated metrics you created and format them to create the final report.

To create the report

  1. In the Metrics panel of the report builder, click Add.
  2. From the list of metrics, expand Calculated metrics and choose the two date range calculated metrics you created, Tickets created today and Tickets created yesterday. When you are finished, click Apply.
  3. Ensure that the Tickets created today metric appears first in the Metrics panel. If it doesn't, you can drag and drop it into the correct position.
  4. Click each metric you just added and change the aggregator to COUNT.

    Your report will look like the following screenshot:

  5. In the visualization type menu (), click KPI.
  6. In the chart configuration menu (), click Chart.
  7. On the Chart page, configure the following settings:
    • Label: Enter Tickets created today (and change since yesterday)
    • Hide label: Uncheck this setting
    • Show variation: Enable this setting
    • Variation type: Set to Percentage

The report is now complete and will look similar to the screenshot below:

Return to top

20 Comments

  • Eric Haley

    Hi, I did this, but when I add it to my dashboard and select the brand filter and the date range, the top number turns to 0 and the bottom percentage is 100%, regardless of which brand or month I choose. What am I doing wrong here?

    1
  • Taylor Bowser
    Zendesk Customer Care

    Hi @..., 

    Thanks for reaching out! Sorry to hear you're running into issues when adding this query to a dashboard. I'm going to pull your request into a ticket so we can get a bit more information about your dashboard set up. 

    Best, 

    0
  • Shanaaz Banks

    Hi, is there any chance that you can compare against a custom target? E.g. yesterday, our CSAT was 92%, and I want to compare it against our company KPI of 95%.

    1
  • Shanaaz Banks

    Any workarounds or additional information about the above? 

    Hi, is there any chance that you can compare against a custom target? E.g. yesterday, our CSAT was 92%, and I want to compare it against our company KPI of 95%.

    0
  • Eric Gao
    Zendesk Customer Care

    Hi Shanaaz,

    You can compare against a custom target by creating a Fixed Calculated Metric (https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022366973-Adding-fixed-calculated-metrics#topic_xdd_441_hy), which would essentially act as a constant and can be used in a comparison with the other metrics.

    Warm Regards,

    Eric G. Gao | Technical Support Architect | Zendesk

    0
  • CiiRUS Plus Administration

    Hello,

    I am trying to find a way to show the variation (Percentage) on %Reopened Tickets Current Week VS Previous Week. I have not been able to get the results. Any help will be appreciated. Thank you.

    0
  • David W.

    Hello Zendesk Team,

    In looking over this article, it seems that listed under Original Metric, Tickets is no longer a valid option. Using Tickets Created as the Original Metric and Ticket Created as Defined On seems to work.

    However, if you wanted to create the same metric for Solved tickets instead of Created tickets, does not seem to work. If you put in Tickets Solved for Original Metric and Ticket Solved for Defined On seems to cause the query to time out, provide no data, or throw an error saying that it exceeded the SQL limits.

    If anyone has suggestions for how to create the same type of queries for Solved tickets, like the above created tickets, please let me know. 

    0
  • Dane
    Zendesk Engineering
    @David,
     
    I have tried the directions on this article and it worked for me without any issue. Please refer to the values I have used and the resulting query.
     

     

     
    If you encountered any issue feel free to contact our Support through Messaging. 
    0
  • Oliver Jackson

    Hi folks, I'm in need of some help if possible please :) 

    I would like to create a table which provides with insight on Tickets Solved (by tag) for the last week, and the previous week respectively.

    Below is where I have got to so far, but it's not really what I'm looking for:


    What I would like is for the first column to display how many tickets tagged in a certain way were Solved Last week (which I think I have achieved), and the second column to display how many tickets (tagged in the same way) were Solved the Previous week (i.e. the week before last). For now, I have simply used another metric. I know that I can create this manually via the date picker, but I was hoping there would be something less manual and more automated to achieve this.

    Also, a VERY welcome bonus would be to also have a third column which illustrates the percentage increase/decrease between the second column and the first.

    Any help would be enormously appreciated! :) 

    Thanks in advance.

    0
  • Erin O'Callaghan
    Zendesk Documentation Team

    Hi Oliver Jackson, you should be able to do this by creating two date range calculated metrics, one called Tickets solved last week and one called Tickets solved week before last. For both, set the Original metric field to Solved tickets and the Defined on field to Ticket solved. When it comes time to choose the date range for each one, go to the Advanced tab and:

    • Set the first metric to From the beginning of 1 week in the past and To the end of 1 week in the past
    • Set the second metric to From the beginning of 2 weeks in the past and To the end of 2 weeks in the past

    Add the two metrics you just created in the Metrics panel (make sure you change the aggregator to D_COUNT).

    Then, add the Ticket tags attribute in the Rows panel. If you want to see only certain tags in your report, you can filter on this attribute.

    And finally, to get the percentage change column, go to the Result manipulation menu and select Result metric calculation. In the Formula field, insert your Tickets solved last week metric divided by your Tickets solved week before last metric. Click Add. (For more on result metric calculations, see this article.)

    When you click out of the result metric calculation window, you should see your new column. You can change its formatting by going to the Chart configuration menu and selecting Display format. Next to your % change metric, select Custom and add a Suffix of %. 

    When you're all done, you should see a report similar to this: 

    3
  • Oliver Jackson

    Erin O'Callaghan 

    Hey Erin! I can't thank you enough for the explanation - so clear and effective. Really appreciate it.

    I have one last hurdle however before the finish line: the data doesn't show me a percentage increase/decrease, but instead it appears to show the difference between the two values:


    If we look at the example above, tech__reinstall_vcplusplus shows 100%, because it's an exact match, but in reality, I would like to display 0.0%.

    With tickets tagged tech__reinstall_or_repair_dotnet, it's showing 94%, when in reality it should show -6%, and the same with auth_issue which should actually say -50% rather than 50%.

    Does that make sense? Hope you can help me with this final brainteaser! :) 

    Thanks again.

    0
  • Erin O'Callaghan
    Zendesk Documentation Team

    Oliver Jackson Ah, good point! To get the percent increase or decrease, you can use this formula in your result metric calculation instead of the one I described above (just make sure to change the names of the metrics if you named them something different in your environment): 

    (D_COUNT(Tickets solved last week)-D_COUNT(Tickets solved week before last))/D_COUNT(Tickets solved week before last)*100

    You can even go to Chart configuration > Columns and select the Arrow checkbox next to the last column to add a visual indicator of whether the number of solved tickets has increased (green arrow) or decreased (red arrow). 

    3
  • Oliver Jackson

    Erin O'Callaghan Thank you so much for this - all fixed up now! :) 

    Sorry for my delayed response - caught Covid and was off for several days.

    Cheers!

    0
  • Timo Boezeman

    Is it possible to make a comparison of data YTD (e.g. tickets created) that you compare to the same period last year? The only examples I come across are line graphs showing the line from this year and last year. But no KPI's (for example) that show the data up to today compared to the value for that same period a year earlier. 

    0
  • Elaine
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hi Timo,
     
    Could this be the report you're trying to create from your end?
     

     
    If yes, you can simply use the Explore recipe: Solved tickets this year compared to last year as your guide but with some tweaks for your use-case.
     
    • Instead of using the Ticked solved date attribute, use the Ticket created date attribute (to pull the number of tickets created);
    • Instead of adding the date attribute either on the Columns or Rows panel, add the date attribute on the Explosions panel;
    • Lastly, instead of choosing a Line chart as your Visualization type, choose KPI
     
    Kindly see below how I configured the test report above:
     
        
     
    Hope this helps! Stay safe!
    0
  • Timo Boezeman

    Hi Elaine,

    Thank you for your comprehensive comment. It is not completely what I am looking for. Or it doesn't do what I would expect: show me the tickets for this year (YTD), show me the tickets for the same period last year (YTD) and show the difference between them in %. Your example gives me this year (YTD of course), the whole of last year and no % (when I choose KPI).

    What I've done myself is a variation on the example in this article. I've made two date range metrics (one for tickets created this year YTD) and one for one year in the past (last year YTD). I set them as D_COUNT and they give me the values I expect. So far so good. But when I try to calculate with them through a standard calculated metric (show me the difference in %), I get either 100% or a blank field. And I don't know what I'm doing wrong, because with other reports this method works perfectly. Do you know what I need to change to show the difference in %?

     

    Screenshot of This year YTD

     

    Screenshot of Last year YTD

     

    Screenshot of my calculation for the difference in %

     

    The result I get (using D_COUNT for the tickets and SUM for the calculated metric)

     

    0
  • Elaine
    Zendesk Customer Care

    Hi Timo,

    As your third custom metric is using the first two custom metrics in its formula, it should be created from the Result manipulation > Result metric calculation instead of from the Calculations > Metrics > Standard calculated metric in this report.

    The difference between the two methods is described in the article Using result manipulations and calculations.

    Also, the formula to get the difference in % between two values (using your first two custom metrics) should be as follows:

    (D_COUNT(Dit jaar YTD)-D_COUNT(Vorig jaar YTD))/(D_COUNT(Vorig jaar YTD))

    Lastly, for you to show this metric in percentage, you need to go to Chart configuration > Display format, look for the name of this metric, and set the dropdown from Standard to %.

    Here's an Explore recipe (check out steps 10-13) that will better explain and guide you on how to create the third custom metric.

    I hope this clarifies it, Timo! Cheers!

    0
  • Timo Boezeman

    Hi Elaine,

    That was the trick! Thank you so much.

    0
  • shelley
    • Edited

    I used Erin O'Callaghan example in the comments to compare last 7 days with previous 7 days it works perfectly, provided you dont want to use the Date filter in your dashboard.

    So for example, if I do not select a date range I get the desired result.

     

    However, as soon as I use the date filter to check a previous week the result is '0'.

    Is there a way to adjust the calculation that the week selected in the date range is automatically compared to the previous period?

    0
  • Gab Guinto
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hi Shelley,

    I'm afraid this is not possible. Rolling date range calculated metrics like your "Previous 7 days" report won't dynamically adjust based on the selected date/s in the filter. And this is why your date range calculated metric shows zero when you select a date/date range from the past. You may have to modify your reports so that the data is sliced or aggregated per week so that you will still be able to display values if you change the selected time frame in dashboard filters.
    0

Please sign in to leave a comment.

Related articles

Powered by Zendesk