1. It enables admins to analyze agent productivity by tracking the time spent from when a ticket is opened, through analysis, to resolution. This visibility also helps in balancing workloads, identifying bottlenecks in a ticket journey, and setting realistic expectations.
   
2. It ensures accurate and transparent billing to generate invoices for the cost of service delivery.
   
3. The built-in dashboards offer insights for making data-driven decisions in forecasting, budgeting, and to optimize support operations.
   

How is time calculated? 

Note:

1. Timer displays accumulated time in the HH:MM:SS format, starting at the one-second mark.
   
2. You can run timers on multiple tickets at the same time.
   

Time tracking in tickets

Manual time tracking

1. Working on tickets that have dependencies with other teams or customer inputs and the agent has to pause and resume the work at several stages.
   
2. Switching between multiple tickets.
   

Automatic time tracking

Note: Automatic time tracking does not apply for replies and updates done via workflow automation and AI Agents. If required, agents can manually select the time and price for billing purposes.

Other configurations under automatic time tracking

1. Pause the timer when agents stay idle for 30 seconds

When the agent is idle for 30 seconds, the timer pauses. When the agent resumes the work, the timer starts automatically. This option allows the admin to capture the accurate active time the agent spends on resolving the ticket. Keeping a fair metric while maintaining transparency in billing.

For example, if an agent is working on a ticket but gets pulled into a meeting and forgets to close the tab, the time spent in the meeting gets inaccurately recorded as ticket resolution time.

2. Hide the timer for agents

This option hides the timer from the ticket detail page so that the agents cannot view it while it continues to track their time in the background. 

Hiding the timer can minimize distractions and reduce the pressure agents might feel watching it run. It ensures time is logged seamlessly while allowing agents to focus. Even though the timer is hidden, agents can still view time logs under the Time Entry tab, allowing transparency.

3. Agents can edit their time spent on the ticket

When agents complete predefined actions, like replying or adding a comment to a ticket, time is auto-logged. Enabling this setting gives them a 10-second window to review and submit or ignore the time tracked.

This option adds a layer of accuracy and control for agents to validate or adjust entries before the time is recorded. It’s especially helpful in cases where the timer might have over- or under-recorded the timing due to multitasking. The review window will be displayed to the agents only if the edit your time spent on tickets is enabled.

Note:

1. By default, the manual time tracking mode is enabled.
2. While switching from manual to automatic tracking, admins must either add or discard the active timers run by the agents on their tickets.
   

To access time tracking modes

1. Navigate to Setup > Customization > Time Tracking.

To enable automatic time tracking mode

1. Navigate to Setup > Customization > Time Tracking.
2. On the Time Tracking page, select the department from the drop-down.
3. Select Automatic to automatically run the timer for tickets.
4. When you select Automatic, edit the additional settings as described above.
5. Select the following options as needed:
1. Pause the timer when agents stay idle for 30 seconds.
2. Hide the timer for agents
3. Agents can edit their time spent on a ticket

To disable time tracking

1. Navigate to Setup > Customization > Time Tracking.
2. On the Time Tracking page, select the department from the drop-down.
3. Toggle Disable Time Tracking.
   

Time tracking in Activities

Tracking time for activities is similar to tickets. However, the admins can restrict users from running the timer on multiple activities at a time. In which case, there appears a pop-up in the upper right area of the screen that prompts you to submit the time spent on the current task, event, or call before starting the timer on the new one. 

For example in the image above, clicking YES will submit the accumulated time for the current task (displayed inside the pop-up) and start the timer on the new task.

Tracking active timers in activities

Timer can be run on multiple tickets and activities, however to accurately track the time spent users must stop the timer and submit it. The Active Timers, lists down all the running or active timers in the department.

To view active timers

1. Click the Pending Activities icon (  ) on the bottom toolbar.
   A new window slides open on the right side of the screen.
2. Click the My Active Timers icon (  ) at the top of the window.
   Your active timers along with their accumulated time are listed here. You can pause, stop or reset the timer corresponding to a ticket or an activity from here.