Whether you're a manager at an MSP or inside an IT department, your team's productivity directly impacts how the people you support feel about your services.

Therefore, Syncro provides metrics to help you understand how you're doing and where there's room for improvement. 

This document tells you everything you need to know about how we calculate two important metrics: Average First Response Time and Average Resolution Time. It also shows you where in Syncro you can expect to see them.

Note: If you want to better understand individual ticket metrics that roll up into these averages, you can set up either the Tickets page or one of The Report Builders to include those individual ticket values. 

Average First Response Time

Because it's an average, the First Response Time of individual tickets drives this calculation. First Response Time for an individual ticket is the difference between the date/time that a ticket is Created and the first public response for that ticket.

Average First Response Time is the sum of Response Times for individual tickets, divided by the number of tickets with response times. A Public (or customer-facing) Response is a Public Note, Email, or SMS communication from the Ticket's Communications Section. (Private Notes are NOT included in this metric.) Syncro considers the first Public Response as the first response for a given ticket. 

Note: If a ticket is Resolved without a public response, then the Response Time is same as the Resolution Time. In other words, Syncro considers a resolved ticket as responded to---otherwise any ticket resolved without a public response would not count toward this calculation.

Average Resolution Time

Because it's an average, the Resolution Time of individual tickets drives this calculation. Resolution Time for an individual ticket is the difference between the date/time that a ticket is Created and the date/time that ticket is Resolved. 

Average Resolution Time is the sum of Resolution Times for individual tickets, divided by the number of Resolved tickets. 

Note: If a ticket is reopened and resolved again, then the Resolution Time is the difference between the created date/time and the LAST date/time the ticket is resolved. While a re-opened ticket is unresolved, the ticket does not contribute to the Average Resolution Time. See also Ticket Lifecycles: Reopening, Merging, or Splitting.

Settings That Impact These Metrics

A number of settings can impact individual tickets' First Response and Resolution Times, and therefore, the metrics reported in these averages. These settings include: Your Display, Ticket Lifecycles, Specified Business Hours, and Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

Your Display

Both Average First Response Time and the Average Resolution Time metrics display in many locations, including:

• In the Ticket Metrics panel on the Tickets tab/page (as “Avg Response/Avg Resolution”)
• On the Ticket Views Health Metrics report/page (as “Avg First Response Time/Avg Resolution Time)
• On the MSP Dashboard (as “Average First Response Time/Average Time to Resolution”)
• In the Internal Report Builder and the Executive Summary Report Builder. (See The Report Builders.)
• In the Resolution Time Summary report.

If you've set filters (e.g., in the Tickets table) or specified date ranges (e.g., for reports), Syncro updates the Average First Response Time and Average Resolution Time metrics to reflect your choices. In other words, your display/view of the page or report also changes the values of both metrics.

Ticket Lifecycles: Reopening, Merging, or Splitting

If a ticket is Resolved but then re-opened, the initial First Response Time remains unchanged. However, Syncro waits until the ticket is Resolved again before calculating its new Resolution Time. The new Resolution Time will include the period when the ticket was originally marked as closed to capture the full duration between the ticket creation and the final ticket resolution.

If a ticket is merged with another ticket, Syncro clears the First Response Time and Resolution time for the source ticket; existing metrics are transferred to the destination ticket.

If a ticket is split into multiple tickets, the original ticket retains its metrics. Once resolved, the newly-created ticket gets a new Resolution Time, which is the time between the creation of the split ticket and the final resolution of the split ticket.

The First Response time for the new ticket is adopted from the original if the original ticket had a Public Response. If the original ticket hadn't been responded to yet, then each ticket from the split will have its own first response.

For example:

• Ticket 1 has a Resolution Time of 3 hours, and Ticket 2 has a Resolution time of 5 hours. Ticket 1 is merged with Ticket 2. Ticket 2's Resolution Time is still 5 hours. Ticket 1's Resolution Time is 0.
• Ticket 1 has a Resolution Time of 4 hours, and you split it. Ticket 1's Resolution Time is 4 hours and Ticket 2's Resolution Time is a newly-calculated one.
• Ticket 1 is not marked Resolved before you split it. Ticket 1's Resolution Time is the amount of time between the original ticket creation and the resolution of Ticket 1. Ticket 2's Resolution Time is the amount of time between the split date and the resolution of Ticket 2. 

See also: How Ticket Statuses Change and About the Ticket Details Page.

Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

If a ticket has an associated SLA, Syncro calculates its metrics based on that SLA. 

For both the First Response and Resolution Time metrics, if a ticket is associated with a Service Level Agreement (SLA), Syncro doesn't count any time outside your specified SLA schedule, or the time during which the SLA is paused.

For example, you might pause an SLA is when a ticket is in a "Waiting for Customer" status. 

If the SLA pauses outside of business hours, then the hours outside of business hours won't count towards either metric. If the SLA timer continues outside of business hours, then hours outside of business hours will count towards both metrics. 

Note: Updates to your SLAs do not affect tickets that have already been marked as Resolved.

Specified Business Hours

This section is applicable to tickets not assigned to any Service Level Agreement (SLA).

For both the First Response and Resolution Time metrics, Syncro doesn't count any time outside your specified Business Hours. (Business Hours include days of the week, times of the day, holidays, etc.) 

If a ticket is both created and resolved during non-business hours, the Resolution Time will be 0.

If a ticket is Resolved outside of business hours, then its Resolution Time is the timestamp just before your business closed. 

For example, if your business hours are Monday - Friday from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.: 

• A ticket submitted at 4:45 p.m. on Friday and marked Resolved at 8:45 a.m. the following Monday has a Resolution Time of 1 hour.
• If one your Techs started working on a ticket created at 2 p.m. Friday but doesn't mark it Resolved until 1 p.m. Saturday, the Resolution Time for this ticket is 3 hours (2:00 - 5:00 p.m. Friday), even though the elapsed time was 23 hours.

Note: Updates to your Business Hours do not affect tickets that have already been marked as Resolved.