Aging Tickets – Part of the Report Series: Mastering the Art of Reporting: Your Essential Guide to Data-Driven Storytelling
A report of open tickets, often ordered from oldest to newest, displayed from left to right. This can be run for a specific team, category, or the entire organization.
What Story Does This Report Tell?
This report can help convey the story of a few things, consistently displaying tickets in order from oldest to most current.
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If you run the Aging Report on a specific team, you can observe the age for that specific group. Then, add a grouping, or Group By, to explore which category/subcategory or even what location or department is involved in these tickets.
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Running the Aging Report on specific categories allows you to see the age for those specific types of tickets. Add a grouping, or Group By, to identify who is assigned the work or determine which location or department has the oldest tickets for those categories.
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If you run the Aging Report on all tickets in the organization, you can have several iterations of this report to showcase different insights. Add a grouping, or Group By, to identify who is assigned the oldest work, determine what type of work is the oldest, or see which department or location is waiting the longest for resolution.
When initially running an Aging Report, you may discover that your oldest ticket(s) are much older than anticipated. Starting this view by observing the volumes represented in columns “By Month,” you’ll notice that your oldest ticket could be six months or older. The goal and benefit here are not just to know “What is oldest?” but to empower you to take action!
Continuing to review and analyze this report involves tackling the oldest tickets to ensure they have the appropriate visibility. If, initially, your report showed 9 months of tickets, meaning your oldest ticket was 9 months old, your goal should be to see the number of columns in that report shrink. From 9 columns (months) down to 6. From 6 down to 3. And if you can get it within two months, change the time the columns represent to weeks. Then, you’re in a fine-tuning phase as you bring all work to current!
There are various filters you can leverage in an Aging Report to help you tell a compelling story about the age of the tickets. There is no hard or fast rule about when to review and take action based on this type of report, but I recommend reviewing it at least monthly. This is an excellent starting point for reporting in an organization, ensuring that no tickets have fallen through the cracks and are now left without attention.
I hope this review of Aging Tickets reports was helpful. Remember, this is a discussion post, so I encourage you to share your thoughts, collaborate, and discuss!