Timeline Widget: See What Every Agent Was Doing, Minute by Minute
The Timeline widget draws one row per agent across your dashboard's date range, showing what each agent was doing at every moment: calls, chats, ticket assignments, replies, scheduled activities and statuses, side by side on one time axis. Columns on the left total each row up, so you can sort the team by who handled the most and then look at exactly how their day went.
Use it to answer questions a single number can't: what was everyone doing at 2pm when the queue spiked?, who sat in wrap-up after every call?, or did the team follow the schedule?
Before you start
The Timeline widget must be turned on for your account. An admin turns on Timeline dashboard widget in Settings. If you don't see that setting, contact Qvasa support to have it made available.
Each metric needs its own data. A timeline only offers the metrics your account collects. For example, Work item statuses (calls, chats) needs Zendesk Talk queue metrics, and Scheduled activities needs Workforce Management schedules. A metric your account doesn't collect simply isn't listed.
You need permission to edit the dashboard to add a timeline or change its metrics and columns. Anyone who can view the dashboard can read, sort and explore it.
Step 1: Add a Timeline widget
Open a dashboard and click Edit.
Click Add Widget in a row. The Select Reporting Widget window opens.
Under Widget Types, choose Timeline.
Under Select timeline metrics, tick the metrics to draw, up to 5. Each one becomes a lane on every agent's row. Use Search or Selected only to find them quickly.
On the right, set:
Group data by: Agent (one row per agent) or Organization (one row per Zendesk organization). Each grouping has its own metrics, so changing it clears your selection.
Granularity: Minutes draws every single item. Hours, Days, Weeks and Months draw summary bars instead, so any date range works (see How it works below).
Chart Size: Large gives the time axis the most room.
Click Add Widget.
A new timeline shows the agent names and the timeline itself. Add columns next (Step 2) so you have something to sort by.
The metrics you can draw
Metric | What it draws |
Work item statuses (calls, chats) by agent | Ranges for ringing, inbound and outbound calls, call wrap-up, messaging offered and active messaging sessions |
Ticket assignments and status changes by agent | A band for each ticket assigned to the agent, with a tick for every status change and every solve while they held it |
Zendesk replies and internal notes by agent | A tick for each public reply and each internal note |
Messaging chats by agent | A range for each messaging chat, from start to end |
Messaging messages sent by agent | A tick for each messaging message the agent sent |
Scheduled activities by agent | The agent's Workforce Management schedule, one colour per activity category (productive work, breaks, meetings, time off, …) |
Unified agent statuses by agent | The agent's Zendesk unified (custom) statuses, in the colour picked for each status |
Default Zendesk statuses by agent and channel | Online, away and offline time per channel (Messaging, Talk, Email) |
Tickets created by organization | A tick for each ticket the organization created (Organization grouping) |
Customer emails and agent replies by organization | A tick for each customer email and each agent reply on the organization's tickets (Organization grouping) |
Step 2: Configure columns, lanes and colours
With the dashboard in edit mode, click the Configure timeline icon in the widget's top bar (or the + after the last column header). The window has three panels:
Add metrics (left): every metric this timeline can draw. Click Add to put one on the timeline.
Metrics on this timeline (middle): one card per metric. Drag a card by its grip to reorder the lanes. Under Columns, click a total to add it as a column (a tick means it is already on). Under Colours, pick a colour for any bar type. This only changes this widget, and the reset button goes back to the default. Remove takes the metric off.
Columns (right): the columns fixed on the left of the timeline, in order. Drag to reorder, click × to remove, or search to add one.
Nothing changes until you click Save. The footer tells you what saving will do: changing metrics reloads the whole timeline, while reordering or changing columns is quick.
Columns are totals for each row over the date range. Besides each metric's own totals there is Total items, which counts every range and moment drawn on the row across all its metrics. A timeline holds up to 30 columns. To rename a column or change its width, use the column header while the dashboard is in edit mode: the pencil renames it, and dragging its edge resizes it.
Metric | Columns you can add |
Work item statuses | Calls, Time on calls, Time in call wrap-up, Messaging sessions, Time in messaging sessions, Time on hold |
Ticket assignments and status changes | Ticket assignments, Time with a ticket assigned, Most tickets assigned at once, Ticket status changes, Tickets solved |
Zendesk replies and internal notes | Public replies, Internal notes |
Messaging chats | Messaging chats, Time in messaging chats, Most chats at once, Agent messages in chats |
Messaging messages sent | Messaging messages sent |
Scheduled activities | Activities starting, Time scheduled (not time off), Time off, Time on scheduled breaks |
Unified agent statuses | Statuses started, Time in any status, and time in each availability state (for example Time online, Time away, Time offline) |
Default Zendesk statuses | Time online (any channel), Time online in Messaging, Time online in Talk, Time online in Email |
Organization metrics | Tickets created; Customer emails, Agent public replies |
Time columns count wall-clock time inside the date range, and overlapping items count once. Two chats running side by side for 10 minutes add 10 minutes to Time in messaging chats, not 20, so a time total never exceeds the length of the range.
Step 3: Read the timeline
Each row is one agent. On the right, the row's timeline summarises every metric at once: a pale band shows long-running context such as a ticket assignment, coloured segments show the activity running at each moment (a call takes priority over a chat), and small ticks along the top mark moments such as replies and status changes. When too many ticks land in one spot they fold into a +N pill. A red Now line marks the current time when it falls inside the date range.
Sort: click a column header to sort by it. Click again to flip between highest first and lowest first (A to Z and Z to A for names). The chip above the table names the current sort, and it is saved with the widget for everyone when you have edit access.
Expand a row: click the arrow next to a name, or anywhere on the row's timeline, to open one lane per metric. Overlapping items stack within a lane, so you can see an agent juggling three chats at once.
Zoom: use − and + in the toolbar to widen or narrow the time axis, and scroll sideways to move along it. Zoom is your own view and isn't saved.
Click any bar or tick for its details: what it was, when it started and ended, how long it lasted, the ticket and channel, and the metric it came from. View in Zendesk and View in Qvasa open the ticket.
How it works
The date range comes from the dashboard's date filter, and the dashboard's agent filters decide which agents get a row. Every agent the filters allow gets a row, even one with no activity, so you can see who was idle. An item that overlaps the range at all is included and drawn with its true start and end, including one that is still open.
Minutes granularity draws every item and works for ranges up to 7 days. Hours, Days, Weeks and Months draw a summary bar per period. If the range is too long for the chosen unit (more than 31 days by the hour, 93 days by the day, or 371 days by the week), the timeline uses the next coarser unit and says so in the toolbar. Click a summary bar to zoom into that period at the next finer unit, and ← Back to the full range to return.
Summary first, detail as you scroll. The rows and their column totals load first, each with a light preview of its timeline. Full detail then loads for the rows on screen as you scroll, so even a team of thousands of agents opens quickly.
Refresh: the timeline reloads with the dashboard's refresh and auto-refresh, and with the widget's own refresh button.
Export: if your role can download data, the widget's CSV button downloads the table as shown: names, Total items and your columns, in the current sort.
Limits: up to 5 metrics and 30 columns per timeline, and up to 10,000 rows. Filter the dashboard to fewer agents if you have more.
Troubleshooting
Timeline isn't listed under Widget Types. The Timeline dashboard widget isn't turned on for your account. Ask an admin to turn it on in Settings, or contact Qvasa support.
A metric you expected isn't listed. Your account doesn't collect the data it draws (for example Talk work items or Workforce Management schedules), or it belongs to the other grouping (Agent vs Organization).
"Nothing in this date range." No agent the filters allow had any of the timeline's metrics in the range. Widen the date range or check the dashboard's agent filters.
"Filter the dashboard to at most 10,000 agents." A timeline shows up to 10,000 rows. Narrow the dashboard's agent filters (for example to one team or group).
"No longer available: …" A metric on the widget is no longer collected on your account. Open Configure timeline and remove it.
A column shows "—" with "Not available in a summary". Most … at once and some sum columns can only be worked out from every single item, so they show only at Minutes granularity.