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

                                  • Homepage not assignable to group

                                  • MS Teams for daily call operations

                                    Hello all, Our most anticipated and crucial update is finally here! Organizations using Microsoft Teams phone system can now integrate it effectively with Zoho CRM for tasks like dialling numbers and logging calls. We are enhancing our MS Teams functionality
                                  • Automation#22 Track Ticket Duration at Specific Status

                                    Hello Everyone! Welcome back to the Community Learning Series! Today, we explore how Zylker Techfix, a gadget servicing firm, boosted productivity by tracking the time spent at a particular ticket status in Zoho Desk. Zylker Techfix customized Zoho Desk’s
                                  • Automation#23: Automate Guided Conversations in Zoho Desk with Business Hours

                                    Hello Everyone, This week's edition introduces a custom function designed to automate Guided Conversations in Zoho Desk, based on your business hours. With this feature, you can align the bot's behavior with your business schedule, ensuring a smooth and
                                  • Address changes in quote form

                                    When entering a quote, the first piece of information required is the Account, which properly populates the billing and shipping address fields. Then I use the lookup function to select a contact, and when I do, the billing and shipping addresses are
                                  • Automation#24: Auto-Update custom field from Accounts to Tickets

                                    Hello Everyone! Welcome back to the Community Learning Series! This episode dives into how Zylker Techfix streamlines account-related ticket references. Previously, employees had to manually check account details to retrieve specific customer information,
                                  • Automation#31: Automate Splitting Names for New Contact Records

                                    Hello Everyone, This week, we present to you a custom function, which allows you to split the first and last names from the user's email ID based on the separator used in the ID. Having grown into a large firm, Zylker Techfix aims to optimize its processes,
                                  • Kaizen #227 : Client Script Support for List Page (Canvas)

                                    Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. In today's post lets see how Client Script can be used in Canvas List Page to mask sensitive information from specific roles and add colors to Canvas List Page records based on custom criteria.This use
                                  • Implement Date-Time-Based Triggers in Zoho Desk

                                    Dear Zoho Desk Support Team, We are writing to request a new feature that would allow for the creation of workflows triggered by specific date-time conditions. Currently, Zoho Desk does not provide native support for date-time-based triggers, limiting
                                  • Automation#25: Move Tickets to Unassigned When the Owner Is Offline

                                    Hello Everyone, Welcome to this week's Community Series! 'Tis the holiday season—a time when work often takes a brief pause. The holiday spirit is in full swing at Zylker Techfix too, with employees taking some well-deserved time off. During this period,
                                  • Automation#27: Retain Ticket Owner on Moved Tickets

                                    Hello Everyone! This week, we present to you a custom function that retains the ticket owner when a ticket is moved from one department to another. Here’s more to help you understand the custom function: At Zylker Techfix, Alex, the Support Engineer manages
                                  • Automation#28 Notify Agents on Article Expiry

                                    Hello Everyone! This week, we’re bringing you a feature that notifies your team when articles in the Knowledge Base are set to expire to keep your content relevant and helpful for customers. The Zoho Desk's Knowledge Base is an asset for customers to
                                  • Automation#29 Retain ticket status on moved tickets

                                    Hello Everyone, Hear out Zylker Techfix’s Success Story on Smoother Ticket Transitions! Zylker Techfix, a gadget servicing firm committed to quick repairs and timely deliveries, faced a challenge when ticket statuses changed automatically while moving
                                  • Automation#32:Auto Add New Portal Users to the Help Center User Groups

                                    Hello Everyone, Introducing a custom function that automates the process of adding new portal users to Help Center user groups, making user management effortless! By default, Zoho Desk allows you to assign new portal users to groups manually. But with
                                  • Using email "importance" as workflow-criteria

                                    I'd like to set up a workflow that triggers if an incoming email has been flagged as "high importance" but I'm not seeing any way to do that. Hopefully I'm just missing something obvious...?
                                  • Automation#34 : Automate Email threading for Ticket notification

                                    Hello Everyone, It's been a while since we've presented an automation. However, our community has been buzzing with ideas, use cases, and discussions with our community experts and Ask the Experts session. So, here we are again, presenting an automation
                                  • Automation#35 : Auto-Add Comments under the Owner's Name in Tickets via Macros

                                    Hello Everyone, This week's custom function provides simple steps to configure a Macro for adding comments to tickets with the name of the Comment owner. When managing tickets, you can use the Comment feature to communicate internally with your team and
                                  • Automation#36: Auto-create time-entry after performing the Blueprint transition

                                    Hello Everyone, This week’s edition focuses on configuring a custom function within Zoho Desk to streamline time tracking within the Blueprint. In this case, we create a custom field, and request the agent to enter the spending time within the single
                                  • Automation#33: Automate Splitting Names for Existing Contact Records

                                    An organized directory – who doesn't love one? Previously, we explored how to split contact names into First Name and Last Name for new contacts in Zoho Desk. But what about existing contacts already in your database? This week, we bring you a custom
                                  • About Meetings (Events module)

                                    I was working on an automation to cancel appointments in zoho flow , and in our case, we're using the Meetings module (which is called Events in API terms). But while working with it, I'm wondering what information I can display in the image where the
                                  • import data from Apollo.ai into zoho crm via zoho flow

                                    I might be asking this question in the wrong forum. We use Apollo.ai to find potential new leads for our business, there are around 10000 leads that we have initially found. We have an Apollo.ai account but just to do searches, we dont use it as a crm.
                                  • Fix the speed

                                    It takes ages to load on every step even though my dataset is quite small.
                                  • Workqueue

                                    I really like the idea of the Workqueue generally - it will be really useful. What it seems to lack however, is the ability to customise it properly. I want to be able to show a custom view rather than just "My Leads" and "Leads Assigned in Last 3 hours".
                                  • Webform & spam

                                    Hi, We set up 2 webform on our website, fowarding the content to Zoho CRM. Since it has been opened up, we are getting lot of spam message (for now about 20 a day). To lower the amount of false new leads we added the captcha field and new enquieries are
                                  • Zoho CRM Web form page URL

                                    Hi there, I am getting quite a bit of spam through my Zoho CRM Web form and want to restrict the URLs it is submittable from. I can see that I can add Location URLs but I need to be able to just add a domain so can I enter mydomain.com/* to cover all
                                  • Receiving too many Spam Leads. Why?

                                    I am receiving so many junk leads from web forms created by zoho's platform. The junk queries are increasing day by day and are affecting our business. I am continuously following up with zoho team from the past one year but not getting any satisfactory
                                  • Mail Merge is not working properly as far as the AUTOMATE section is concerned

                                    Hi there, I created a Mail Merge template for the Deal module. I would like Deal owners to mail merge their Deal records, download the Mail Merge document as a Word doc and make a few changes before sending it to the customer. Thing is, neither the "Merge
                                  • Canvas Detail View Related List Sorting

                                    Hello, I am having an issue finding a way to sort a related list within a canvas detail view. I have sorted the related list on the page layout associated with the canvas view, but that does not transfer to the canvas view. What am I missing?
                                  • project name field issue- n8n

                                    Hey guys, I have a question. I want to create a new product using the workflow. The problem is with the product name field; I don't know how to fill it in. The workflow starts with retrieving information from the leads table, retrieving links to scrape
                                  • Function #20: Custom calculation in item table of invoices

                                    When you create an invoice in Zoho Books, the 'Amount' of a line item is typically calculated as the product of the "Quantity" and the "Rate" of the item. For instance, if an item has a sales rate of $50 and a quantity of 5 is sold, then the amount would
                                  • How to track repeat customers?

                                    I own a food business and every order is entered into Zoho with: a unique Customer ID total order amount date of order With this information, I want to be able to see a list of my "best" customers. In other words, descending lists arranged according to:
                                  • How to hide or archive a blog post temporarily in Zoho commerce website builder?

                                    I would like to temporarily hide or archive a blog post in zoho commerce website builder so that it doesnt appear on my website till I enable it again. I tried to look for this option but could not find it.  It only allows me to permanently delete a blog
                                  • Zoho Books - Breaking A Working App

                                    We've been using Zoho for many years now. Across all apps, entering phone numbers in standard formats was enabled in all apps. These formats are: xxx.yyy.zzzz xxx-yyy-zzzz (xxx) yyy-zzzz and we were able also to add extension numbers in these formats:
                                  • Automate pushing Zoho CRM backups into Zoho WorkDrive

                                    Through our Zoho One subscription we have both Zoho CRM and Zoho WorkDrive. We have regular backups setup in Zoho CRM. Once the backup is created, we are notified. Since we want to keep these backups for more than 7 days, we manually download them. They
                                  • Build data protection into your support

                                    At Zoho, privacy is our principle. Every Zoho product is built with privacy as the foundation and the finishing touch, guiding every decision we make. Security, privacy, and compliance are woven into the software development lifecycle, starting from how
                                  • Conditional formatting: before/after "today" not available

                                    When setting conditional formatting, it only allows me to set a specific calendar date when choosing "Before" or "After" conditions. Typing "today" returns the error "Value must be of type date". Is there a workaround? Thanks for any help!
                                  • Zoho mail account ownership transfer

                                    We recently took over another company and have assumed responsibility for its Zoho account, including Zoho Mail and all related services. We would like to formally transfer ownership of this account to our organization. Could you please outline the complete
                                  • Display Client Name in Zoho Creator Client Portal Dashboard

                                    Hello Zoho Creator Team, We hope you are doing well. Zoho Creator recently introduced the option to set a client’s display name in the Client Portal settings, which is very helpful for providing a personalized portal experience. However, there is currently
                                  • Customizable UI components in pages | Theme builder

                                    Anyone know when these roadmap items are scheduled for release? They were originally scheduled for Q4 2025. https://www.zoho.com/creator/product-roadmap.html
                                  • Stop the Workarounds: We Need Native Multi-Step Forms

                                    After over 17 years of community requests, I'm hoping the Zoho team can finally address the lack of native multi-page form support in Zoho Creator. This has been one of the longest-standing feature requests in the community, with threads spanning nearly
                                  • Next Page