Lifecycle Reports

Lifecycle Reports

From data to decisions: A deep dive into ticketing system reports


lifecycle report captures and visualises the sequential states that a ticket undergoes across its lifespan. 

For instance, when a customer submits a support ticket for a faulty product, it is initially marked as Open. It transitions to In Progress when an agent begins addressing it, may be placed on On Hold while awaiting confirmation from the warehouse, and ultimately concludes as Completed once the replacement is dispatched. It is then moved to Closed status after the issue is resolved.

The lifecycle report provides details on the duration of each phase, the person responsible for managing it, and the date it advanced to the next stage. It tracks when and how long each ticket stays in a specific status. It can also consider other factors, like the person assigned or the ticket category. Most ticketing systems offer detailed filtering. This lets organizations look at lifecycle metrics by agent and team.

What does it track?

  1. Request ID: Zoho Desk identifies and distinguishes tickets using a unique reference number called a ticket ID.
  2. Event start time: The time when the ticket status begins.
  3. Event end time: The end time of the ticket status
  4. Status updated from: The initial status of the ticket.
  5. Status updated to: The current ticket status.
  6. Duration: The duration between the transition.
  7. Duration (Business Hours): The duration between the transition in business hours.
  8. Modified by: The agent who modified the request.

What are ticket-based reports? 

Ticket-based reports are summaries created from the data collected in a help desk ticketing system. These reports focus on different aspects of ticket management and give insights into how customer support requests are handled and resolved. They usually include metrics like ticket volume trends, response times, resolution times, ticket statuses, agent and team performance, and customer satisfaction scores.

Types of lifecycle reports

Status transition: A simple solution to reduce delays 

In a streaming service company, the status lifecycle report identifies tickets that remain in the Pending Verification status for an excessive amount of time, which can negatively impact user satisfaction. For instance, a user reporting an issue with their subscription may be stuck in Pending Verification while awaiting a response from the billing team. 
 
By analyzing the lifecycle report, the company discovers that the delay arises from inefficient communication between the support and billing departments. To address this, they can implement automated notifications or escalation measures to alert the support team if a ticket remains in the Pending Verification status for an extended period. This approach will expedite resolution times and lead to enhanced user satisfaction.

Agent transition: Enhancing agents' accountability

In a travel agency, tickets concerning flight changes often require collaboration among different agents, such as those handling customer service and ticketing. By using the agent lifecycle report, managers can assess how long each agent spends on flight-related tickets. 
 
For example, if an agent consistently takes longer to resolve these tickets than their colleagues, this data helps identify potential weaknesses in their process. The manager can then provide focused training through an internal knowledge base or redistribute tickets more evenly using assignment algorithms. By optimizing the distribution of work and offering targeted support, agents can improve their ticket handling efficiency, reduce delays, and resolve requests more swiftly.

Team transition: Supporting cross-team collaboration

A food delivery service frequently encounters tickets transitioning between the Customer Support and Delivery teams, especially for order-related inquiries. By analyzing the team lifecycle report, they can identify how long tickets linger with each team and determine whether delays stem from the Delivery team. 
 
To address this, the company can implement time-based automation protocols that activate when tickets move to the Delivery team. This will facilitate quicker acknowledgement and necessary actions, minimize resolution times, and significantly improve the customer experience.

Department transition: Simplifying complex issues

A university admissions office handles support tickets that involve multiple departments, including Admissions, Financial Aid, and Academic Advising. By utilizing the department lifecycle report, they find that tickets regarding financial aid often take longer than anticipated during the transition from Admissions to Financial Aid. 
 
The report uncovers that inefficient handoffs between these departments are contributing to the delays. To enhance this process, the university can establish automation protocols that streamline information transfer between departments, thus minimizing bottlenecks and ensuring that all essential details are passed along seamlessly.

Components

Status transitions

This tracks the movement of tasks, tickets, or items through various defined states, such as New, In Progress, On Hold, and Resolved. Watching these status changes helps managers understand the process flow, identify where delays occur, and confirm that each phase is being handled appropriately.

Time spent per status

This measures how long an item stays in each status before moving on. Calculating the time spent reveals bottlenecks, identifies inefficient stages, and guides efforts to shorten cycle times and accelerate overall resolution or delivery.

Agent and team analysis

This component breaks down performance metrics for individual agents and teams. It provides insights into productivity, workload distribution, and effectiveness. It helps with targeted training, balanced workload allocation, and recognizing top performers within the lifecycle.

Work schedule adjustments

Using lifecycle data, this part checks if current staffing and schedules match workload patterns. It helps optimize shifts and resource availability. This helps avoid both over-staffing and under-staffing, ensuring demand is met and wait times are reduced.

Report and visualization

This presents the collected data through detailed reports and graphs, such as charts and dashboards. This makes complex lifecycle information easy to understand and share. Visuals help identify trends, issues, and opportunities for improvement quickly and effectively.

Benefits

Identify workflow bottlenecks

Lifecycle reports reveal the stages or processes where delays or inefficiencies occur. By pinpointing these bottlenecks, organizations can investigate causes and implement targeted improvements to keep work flowing smoothly and avoid stagnation.

Measure team performance

These reports provide precise data on how teams or individuals are performing against defined metrics such as ticket resolution, project progress, or task completion rates. They enable team leads to assess productivity objectively, identify high performers, and address performance gaps with evidence-based insights.

Improve resolution time

Tracking the lifecycle of tasks or tickets highlights opportunities to shorten turnaround times, such as by automating repetitive steps, reallocating workload, or streamlining approval chains. Accelerating resolution improves customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Support continuous improvement

Lifecycle reporting creates a feedback loop where ongoing data collection drives iterative refinement. Organizations use insights from past performance to refine processes, adopt best practices, and innovate workflows that adapt to changing demands and evolving goals.

Optimize resource allocation

With clear visibility into workload distribution, resource utilization, and process timing, lifecycle reports enable managers to assign the right people, apply the right technology, and allocate their budget where those resources are needed most. 

Takeaway

Using a lifecycle report in a help desk ticketing system is essential for operational success. It offers a clear, data-driven view of each stage in the ticket process, from issue intake to resolution. This enables teams to identify delays and reduce resolution times. 

The insights from the report support better resource allocation and enable help desks to provide faster and more consistent support experiences. This leads to higher customer satisfaction and boosts productivity and efficiency in a scalable way.

 

Stay tuned for more articles in our Desk Reports series.

 

Regards,

 

Kavya Rao

The Zoho Desk Team



InfoManaging a help desk involves complex responsibilities, such as identifying bottlenecks, minimising errors, and evaluating team performance for seamless service delivery. To do this effectively, access to comprehensive analytics and real-time insights is crucial. Zoho Desk streamlines these tasks by also providing detailed analytics and live reports through the Radar app, allowing managers to make informed decisions anytime, anywhere. Download now!

      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • Sticky Posts

          • Zoho Desk Partners with Microsoft's M365 Copilot for seamless customer service experiences

            Hello Zoho Desk users, We are happy to announce that Zoho Desk has partnered with Microsoft's M365 to empower customer service teams with enhanced capabilities and seamless experiences for agents. Microsoft announced their partnership during their keynote
          • WhatsApp pricing changes: Pay per message starting July 1, 2025

            Starting July 1, 2025, WhatsApp is shifting from conversation-based pricing to per-message billing. That means every business-initiated message you send will count. Not just the first one in a 24-hour window. Pricing updates on the WhatsApp Business Platform
          • Live Webinar - Work smarter with Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace integration

            Hello customers! Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace are coming together for a webinar on 14th May, 2024. Zoho Workplace is a suite of productivity apps for email, chat, docs, calls, and more at one single place. Zoho Desk is closely integrated with a few tools
          • Apple iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 updates for Zoho Desk users

            Hello Zoho Desk users! Apple recently announced the release of iOS 17 and iPad OS 17. These latest OS updates will help you stay productive and efficient, through interactive and seamless user experiences. Zoho Desk has incorporated the updates to help
          • Zoho Desk Cheat Sheet For The Year-End

            Check out these Zoho Desk best practices to end this year on a high and have a great one ahead! #1 Set Business (Holiday) Hours - If you have limited working hours, please make sure you restrict your business hours or set them as holidays for the coming days. Let your customers know when you will, and won't, be available. #2 Update the Annual Holiday List - Check the holidays for the new year and update the holiday schedule. Usually, holidays from the current year will be carried over for the next

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ



                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • Weekly Sales Summary

                                    Is it possible to generate a weekly report in Zoho Books to show -$$ amount of estimates generated -# of estimates generated by Salesperson -$$ amount of Sales Orders created -$$ amount of Invoices generated
                                  • OpenAPI Specs are just plain wrong

                                    The provided yml files for generating the OpenAPI specs are absolutely riddled with errors and inconsistencies. From missing fields on the objects, to just incorrectly named resource objects. I'm having to go through and manually changing the spec to
                                  • Add Account column to Invoice screen

                                    Please show the account column on Invoice creation screen. It is an unnecessary step to have to click add additional info and then select the account for line item. Example : on the bill creation screen when entering description we can easily code it against an account. On the invoice screen it requires additional click. Adding the column on the Invoice screen will make it faster to enter transactions. We currently have 5-6 different accounts that we code line items against, You can imagine the extra
                                  • Custom Footer – Zoho Writer Document

                                    Hello everyone, I’m having an issue adding a custom footer in a Zoho Writer document. I would like to insert my company information (including a logo + address) in the footer. The problem is that when I add these elements, the main content of my pages
                                  • Report grouping

                                    I have added a grouping in a report but it is not working how i had expected. I wanted to group a summary on a field named Size but when i add the grouping the report is still showing me each record and making a summary at the bottom of the report. What
                                  • Social Media Simplified with Zoho Social: Preview your Instagram grid before posting

                                    For a platform like Instagram that relies on visual appeal, it's important that you plan your image and video content in a way that holds your audience's attention. Planning your grid ahead of time gives you the benefit of understanding how your posts
                                  • Error code 1000

                                    Can you please tell me why the following, occasionally causes this error via the api, not every time ?... zoho.books.updateRecord("salesorders",organizationID,salesorderID,{"template_id":"#################069","custom_fields":[{"label":"DelDate","value":"Tuesday,
                                  • Spreadsheet View click & focus issue in Arabic (RTL) localization

                                    Hello Zoho Support Team, I am facing an issue in Zoho Creator Spreadsheet View when using Arabic localization (RTL). Scenario: My app supports English (LTR) and Arabic (RTL). I created a Spreadsheet View for a form. In English, everything works correctly.
                                  • VAT rates - exempt and out of scope

                                    Good Evening, UK based company here. I am a bit confused in respect of setting up VAT rates for exempt goods and services; at present I am simply leaving the VAT rate blank in the transactions in order to prevent any VAT appearing in the VAT return. When
                                  • How to loop through Multiple Upload and Display Actual File Name

                                    I have been reading the help on the File Upload Control and reviewed the Deluge help on files and I can not figure out how to loop through the uploaded files and do anything but get the automatically created file names. The code below will run but each
                                  • abou arattai

                                    I want to use the Arattai app for business purposes, so please convert my account to a business account.I have my own invoice app, and I want to link it with the Arattai app for direct messaging.
                                  • vendors / customers with 2 different address and gst no

                                    Why can't we have option for more than one address and depending on the state option for more than 1 GST no. ? We have customers / vendors PAN india with different addresses and GST no. for different states.
                                  • Configurable Zoho Cliq Notifications for Zoho People Alerts

                                    Hello Zoho People Product Team, Greetings and hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to Zoho People notifications, enabling a native delivery via Zoho Cliq with admin-level control, similar to the notification settings available
                                  • Overlapping Reports in Dashboards

                                    It's rare, but occasionally it would be a good feature if I were able to overlap reports, either fully or partially in the Dashboards. Also, then having the ability to move objects to the front or rear, or make them transparent/translucent would be good
                                  • Looking back at Zoho Calendar in 2025

                                    Hello Zoho Calendar Community, As we step into a brand-new year, we’d like to take a moment to thank you for being an active and valued part of the Zoho Calendar community. Your trust, feedback, and continued engagement motivate us to keep evolving and
                                  • There was an error while connecting to GSTN

                                    I am trying to file GSTR1. Everything flows smoothly until I reach the final step of filing the return. After I enter the PAN and OTP for filing it raises the error "There was an error while connecting to GSTN"
                                  • Zoho Books Extension: What Happens If Custom Fields Already Exist?

                                    When developing Zoho Books extensions, what happens if the target Zoho Books organization already has a custom field with the same API name as one defined in the extension? I’m asking because we originally created an on-Books version of this functionality,
                                  • Internal Server Error (500) When Attempting to View Banking Transactions

                                    I am experiencing an Internal Server Error (500) when attempting to view transactions across all of my banking accounts. Despite multiple attempts to resolve this, I have received little more than runaround from support, and the issue remains unresolved.
                                  • How do I add a blank line to the Organisation Address Format?

                                    I'd like to have my VAT number, for example, shown prominently by having a clear gap between it and the address block above, but any blank lines in the address format get ignored in PDF outputs.
                                  • Automatic Invoice Number generation for createRecord

                                    Hello, while testing some custom Buttons in my Zoho Books application, I noticed that I get an error that previously did not occur. After some further digging I found that the automatic transaction numbering of invoices no longer work in my organization.
                                  • Adding number of days to an estimate.

                                    I need both QTY of item and "number of days hire" in my estimates at the line item level. Any clues as to how this is done would be greatly appreciated. It needs to calculate. Thanks J
                                  • Books Api: listing expenses created after certain dates

                                    Is there any parameter I can add to the List Expenses endpoint that will let me look up expenses by when they were created?
                                  • Why can't we change the Account type from an Expense to an Asset?

                                    Like the question. Why in QuickBooks for example if I mistakenly created an account as an expenses and I already captured information in those accounts, I can just change the account type from expense to asset
                                  • Is it possible to do validation for the Actions added to Reports?

                                    We have an all-around On Validate function that checks all the possibilities before the Created/Edited form submissions. We want to have a button in the report view, so we can change records without entering. We are able to add this button, and it does
                                  • Ability to Edit Ticket Subject when Splitting a Ticket

                                    Often someone will make an additional or new request within an existing ticket that requires we split the ticket. The annoying part is that the new ticket maintains the subject of the original ticket after the split so when the new ticket email notification
                                  • Function #11: Apply unused credits automatically to invoices

                                    Today, we bring you a custom function that automatically applies unused credits from excess payments, credit notes, and retainer payments to an invoice when it is created. Prerequisites: Create a Connection named "zbooks" to successfully execute the function.
                                  • [Free Webinar] Environments in Zoho Creator - Creator Tech Connect

                                    Hello Everyone, We’re delighted to kick off the 2026 edition of the Zoho Creator Tech Connect Series and are excited to continue this learning journey with you. The Creator Tech Connect series is a free monthly webinar featuring deep-dive technical sessions
                                  • Zoho Voice API SMS

                                    I made a post request in Zapier to try to send an SMS. Authentication appears to be configured correctly. I followed the documentation and I'm getting a 400 Error "Internal Server Error". Not helpful at all. Anyways, I could not find any information on
                                  • How do I change (error) display messages

                                    Hi! I would like to edit display messages like "invalid entries" and "enter a value for Nome" and so on into Italian language messages. How can I do that? Already tried on Validate on form submit. Where I am failing? Thanks in advance.
                                  • Record Overseas Transactions Along with CC charges

                                    Hi All, We receive payments via stripe in multiple currencies and stripe takes around 2.5% fees. The amount is settled in INR into our local bank. What should be the currency of the income account used for Stripe payments? Here is a sample flow that we
                                  • Easier onboarding for new users with stage descriptions

                                    Greetings, I hope all of you are doing well. We're happy to announce a recent enhancement we've made to Bigin. You can now add descriptions to the stages in your pipeline. Previously, when creating a pipeline, you could only add stages. With this update,
                                  • Pieds de page personnalisé - Document Zoho Writer

                                    Bonjour à tous, Je rencontre un souci avec l’ajout d’un pied de page personnalisé dans un document Zoho Writer. Je souhaite insérer les informations de mon entreprise (notamment un logo + adresse) dans le pied de page. Le problème, c’est que lorsque j’ajoute
                                  • Credit card transactions are backwards after importing statements

                                    I am new to Zoho Books so I'm importing my firm's bank and credit card statements in. My credit card statements have a single column with negative numbers so that is the option I chose. But when I went to categorize the credit card transactions, I can
                                  • Permissions on Views

                                    Having the option of any agent creating custom views is firing back and got a situation where there are a hundred different views across the team and tickets are not being dealt in the most efficient of ways. Tickets seems to be missed by some agents,
                                  • Function #8: Add additional charges to invoices

                                    Here goes one of the highly sought-after custom functions in Zoho Books. If you find yourself needing to apply additional charges to customers on their invoices (say credit card surcharges, or fuel charges applicable to customers from a certain region,
                                  • Knowledgebase SEO

                                    We have a custom-domain mapped help center that is not restricted via login. I have some questions: a) will a robots.txt file still allow us to control indexing? b) do we have the ability to edit the sitemap? c) do category URLs get indexed by search
                                  • VIsual maindmaps in Zoho notebook Ai

                                    Can I create and export VIsual maindmaps in Zoho notebook Ai
                                  • 1stDibs Integration to Zoho Inventory

                                    Hello is it possible to integrate my Zoho inventory and 1stDibs?
                                  • Community Question: Renewal vs Invoicing

                                    This is a question for the community. Does anyone else consider there to be a difference between a subscription renewal event and sending out a recurring invoice for a subscription? For example, let's say customer XYZ purchases a 1-year subscription to
                                  • cloud console support for music websites

                                    Hi Friends, I am not from a very technical background.. So need support from the Zoho family. I want to build a e-commerce website which is in Musical Niche. It will help people learn music & play instruments of all types. There are a few players in the market like Chordify , Guitaa, Guitar Dashboard, ChordU & few others. But I all these websites allow only a few instruments  to play. So I want to build a better  website than the one I mentioned. So wnated to know what UI & AI should I use so that
                                  • Next Page