Explore recipe: Tracking length of service of your agents

What's my plan?

Sometimes, it might be useful to track the length of service (or tenure) of the agents in your support organization. This can help you evaluate the career path of your agents and help to identify which agents might need more mentoring.

Although Explore does not have a specific metric for length of service, you can report on when the agent's Support account was first set up. Remember though that if, for any reason, you remove the account and set it up again, the length of service will begin from when you recreate the account. In this recipe, you'll learn about a few options to report on the length of service of your agents.

This recipe contains the following examples:

• Recipe 1: Using agent length of service as a metric
• Recipe 2: Using agent length of service as an attribute

What you'll need

Skill level: Easy

Time required: 20 minutes

• Zendesk Explore Professional or Enterprise
• Editor or Admin permissions (see Giving agents access to Explore)
• Ticket and agent data in Zendesk Support

Recipe 1: Using agent length of service as a metric

In this recipe, you'll create a table that shows your top ten agents by length of service. Along the way, you'll learn a few ways to pull some really useful data from this metric.

To create the report

1. In Zendesk 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. Next, you'll create a standard calculated metric that calculates the number of days since the requester was created. Click the calculations icon () on the right sidebar and then click Standard calculated metric.
5. On the Standard calculated metric panel, enter a Name for the metric (for example Agent length of service in days).
6. In the Formula field, enter or paste the following formula:
   

   DATE_DIFF(TODAY(),[Requester created - Date],"nb_of_days")

7. When you're finished, click Save.
8. Now construct your report. In the Metrics panel, click Add.
9. From the list of metrics, choose Calculated metrics > Agent length of service in days (the metric you just created), then click Apply.
10. Now, you'll add a filter to narrow down your results to show only agents. In the Filters panel, click Add.
11. From the list of filters, choose Requester/user > Requester role, then click Apply.
12. In the Filters panel, click the filter you just added. On the Requester role panel, make sure that only Agent is selected, then click Apply. Explore now displays the total number of days of service for all agents.
13. Try changing the aggregator for your metric. For example, choose AVG to display the average length of service, or MAX, to display the maximum length of service in days (then give that person a medal). When you're done, set the metric aggregator back to SUM.
14. Now you have this metric, there are a whole number of ways in which you can slice it to get useful information. Try adding the attribute Requester name to see all of your agents and their tenure in days. Sort the table to see who your most experienced agents are.
    

Recipe 2: Using agent length of service as an attribute

In this recipe, you'll learn how to create a report that shows length of service brackets for each of your agents. In this example, agents who've served less than 100 days will be termed "Junior agents", agents who've served between 100 and 300 days will be termed "Agents", and finally, agents who've served more than 300 days will be termed "Senior agents".

To create the report

1. In Zendesk 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. Next, you'll create a standard calculated attribute. This will return "Junior agents", "Agents", or "Senior agents" depending on the time since their account was created. Click the calculations icon () on the right sidebar and then click Standard calculated attribute.
5. On the Standard calculated attribute panel, enter a Name for the attribute (for example Agent length of service brackets).
6. In the Formula field, enter or paste the following formula:

   IF DATE_DIFF(TODAY(),[Requester created - Date],"nb_of_days") <=100
   THEN "Junior agent"
   ELIF DATE_DIFF(TODAY(),[Requester created - Date],"nb_of_days") >100 
   AND DATE_DIFF(TODAY(),[Requester created - Date],"nb_of_days") <=300
   THEN "Agent" 
   ELIF DATE_DIFF(TODAY(),[Requester created - Date],"nb_of_days") >300 
   THEN "Senior agent"
   ENDIF

7. When you are finished, click Save.
8. Now, you'll create a report using the calculated attribute you just created. In the Metrics panel, click Add.
9. From the list of metrics, choose, Users and organizations > Requesters, then click Apply. Ensure that the metric aggregator is set to D_COUNT to count each requester only once. Explore displays the total number of ticket requesters in your account.
10. Now, you'll add a filter to narrow down your results to show only agents. In the Filters panel, click Add.
11. From the list of filters, choose Requester/user > Requester role, then click Apply.
12. In the Filters panel, click the filter you just added. On the Requester role panel, make sure that only Agent is selected, then click Apply. Explore now shows only the number of requesters who are agents.
13. Next, add the standard calculated attribute you created earlier. In the Rows panel, click Add.
14. From the list of attributes, choose Calculated attributes > Agent length of service brackets, then click Apply.
    Explore displays a table showing the number of agents, senior agents, and junior agents in your account. If you want to see the name of each agent and their service, add the Requester name attribute to the Rows panel.
    
15. Give your report a name like "Agent length of service", then click Save.