Live Time in Queue for Talk and Messaging
These dashboard widgets show how long calls and chats have been waiting in your Zendesk omnichannel queues right now, across every queue on the channel. Click any number to see each waiting conversation, how long it has waited, and a link to open it in Zendesk.
Each channel has four numbers:
Avg Time in Talk Queues / Avg Time in Messaging Queues: the average wait so far.
Median Time: the middle wait, so one very long wait doesn't skew it.
Longest Time: the conversation that has waited longest.
Total Time: every wait added together, so you can see how much waiting has piled up.
Our other queue articles cover queue collections and how much work enters and leaves a queue. This one is about how long the work in the queue has been waiting.
Before you start
Your account needs Zendesk omnichannel routing queues enabled and syncing into Qvasa. If you can't find the widgets below, that's the reason: contact us and we'll switch it on.
Anyone who can edit a dashboard can add the widgets, and anyone who can view it can inspect them.
Step 1: Add the widgets
Open a dashboard and click Edit.
Add a widget, pick Quick stat, and search for Time in Talk Queues or Time in Messaging Queues. You'll also find them under Call Metrics (Talk) and Chat Metrics (Messaging).
Add the ones you want. A row of all four per channel makes a good live board.
Turn on Auto Refresh so the numbers stay current on a screen nobody touches.
Step 2: Read the numbers
Every queue on the channel counts. A call counts on Talk and a chat on Messaging, according to the channel it was queued through, whichever queue it sits in.
A wait runs from when the conversation entered its queue until now. A conversation sitting in two queues at once counts once in each.
Calls still ringing count. Zendesk only creates a call's ticket when the call is answered, but the call is already waiting, so it's included. The same goes for a chat whose ticket Qvasa hasn't synced yet.
Avg and Total tell different stories. Ten calls waiting two minutes and two calls waiting ten minutes both total 20 minutes, but their averages are 2 and 10 minutes. Read Total next to Outstanding Talk Tickets in All Queues (or Messaging): one says how much waiting has piled up, the other how many tickets are waiting.
Step 3: Inspect the waiting conversations
Click the Inspect Data magnifying glass on any of the eight widgets. The table opens on the Queue Events tab: one row for every waiting conversation, with its queue, its channel and a live Time In Queue. On Longest Time, the longest waits come first.
View in Zendesk opens the conversation's ticket in Zendesk. It works as soon as Zendesk has a ticket, even before Qvasa has synced it.
View in Qvasa opens the ticket in Qvasa once it has synced.
No ticket yet means there's no ticket to open, usually a call that's still ringing.
The Tickets tab lists the tickets behind the waits. It only has rows for conversations that already have a ticket in Qvasa, so it can have fewer rows than Queue Events.
The two link columns aren't in the table's default columns. Add them with Columns, or save the layout as a column set so every Queue Events table on the dashboard opens with them, as in the screenshot above.
Looking back at a past moment
These widgets also work for the past. Pick a past date range and each number shows the waits as they stood at the end of that range, including conversations that have left their queue since. The date range also sets how far back to look: a conversation counts only if it entered its queue within twice the selected range before that moment.
Good to know
The widgets aren't in the picker: omnichannel queues aren't switched on for your account. Contact us.
Queue Events and Tickets show different counts: conversations with no ticket yet appear only under Queue Events.
Total is higher than Outstanding … Tickets in All Queues suggests: the Outstanding widgets count only waits that already have a ticket, while these four include ringing calls and not-yet-synced chats.
A ticket filter changes the numbers: filters on tags, agents or ticket fields apply through the ticket, so waits with no ticket yet drop out while such a filter is on.
To narrow other widgets to queued work, use the Ticket is currently in any omnichannel queue filter (or its Talk, Messaging and email versions) under Ticket Characteristics.