Explore recipe: Finding the first assignee for a ticket

What's my plan?

In this Explore recipe, you'll learn how to use the Updates history dataset to find the first agent a ticket was assigned to. You'll also create a filter that can be used to exclude results where the first assignee is the same as the current assignee.

You can also modify this report to find the first assigned group instead of agent.

This recipe contains the following topics:

• What you'll need
• Creating the report
• Modifying the report to find the first assigned group

What you'll need

Skill level: Intermediate

Time required: 20 minutes

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

Creating the report

This report returns the first assignee for each ticket in your instance.

To create the report

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 - Updates history, then click Start report.
4. In the Calculations menu (), click Standard calculated attribute.
5. On the Standard calculated attribute page, give your attribute a name like First assignee name.
6. In the Formula field, enter or paste the following formula:

   IF ([Changes - Field name]="assignee_id" AND [Changes - Previous value]=NULL 
   AND [Changes - New value]!="0" AND [Changes - New value]!=NULL)
   THEN [Update ticket assignee]
   ENDIF

   Tip: If you're working in a language other than English, read this article to help you enter Explore formulas in your language.
7. From the Computed from dropdown list, choose Ticket ID.
8. When you are finished, click Save.
9. Repeat steps 4 to 8 to create a second calculated attribute named Current assignee filter and the following formula:

   IF [Update ticket assignee] = [Assignee name] THEN "true"
   ELSE "false"
   ENDIF

10. Now, you'll construct the report. In the Metrics panel, click Add.
11. From the list of metrics, choose Tickets > Tickets updated, then click Apply.
12. In the Rows panel, click Add.
13. From the list of attributes, choose Calculated attributes > First assignee name, then click Apply.
14. In the Filters panel, click Add.
15. From the list of attributes, choose Calculated attributes > Current assignee filter, then click Apply.
16. Click the Current assignee filter you just added. On the Exclude tab, exclude one of the following values:
    • True: If you want to exclude tickets where the current ticket assignee is the same as the first tickets assignee.
    • False: If you want to exclude tickets where the current ticket assignee is NOT the same as the first tickets assignee.

Explore displays the finished table showing agents who were both the first and the current assignee for each ticket and the number of tickets for which that was the case. If you want to see the individual ticket IDs for these, add Tickets > Ticket ID to the Rows panel.

Tip: The Updates history dataset contains a large amount of information related to your tickets. If your report is taking too long to process, consider adding another filter to narrow the results. For example, you could add the Ticket created - Date filter to narrow the date range being reported.

Modifying the report to find the first assigned group

To find the first assigned group on a ticket, rather than the first assigned agent, follow the steps above but substitute the following formulas:

• In step 6, use this formula instead:

  IF ([Changes - Field name]="group_id" AND [Changes - Previous value]=NULL 
  AND [Changes - New value]!="0" AND [Changes - New value]!=NULL)
  THEN [Update ticket group]
  ENDIF

• In step 9, use this formula instead:

  IF [Update ticket group] = [Ticket group] THEN "true"
  ELSE "false"
  ENDIF