Best practices and tips for tracking agent activity in WFM


Use tracking in Zendesk Workforce Management (WFM) to monitor agent activity across Zendesk, external websites, and other tools. This article provides best practices and tips for tracking agent activity so you can understand how agents spend time, improve reporting accuracy, and support schedule adherence.


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Workforce Management (WFM) or Workforce Engagement Management (WEM)







Summary: ◀▼
Track one activity at a time to monitor agent time across Zendesk and external sites using a browser extension. Adjust tracking settings, disable autotracking for managers, and use task lock carefully. Ensure schedule adherence by matching activities to tasks. Use automations for forgotten clock-outs and keep Zendesk tabs in one window. Map URLs precisely for accurate tracking with the browser extension.




Use tracking in Zendesk Workforce Management (WFM) to monitor agent activity across Zendesk,
external websites, and other tools. This article provides best practices and tips for tracking
agent activity so you can understand how agents spend time, improve reporting accuracy, and
support schedule adherence.
This article covers the following topics

Best practices for tracking agent activity
in WFM
Tips for tracking using the browser
extension in WFM

Related articles:

Starting and ending your day in the Zendesk WFM time tracker
Tracking agent time spent outside of Zendesk



Best practices for tracking agent activity in WFM

Keep these best practices in mind when tracking agent activity in WFM:


Track one activity at a time. WFM activity tracking is linear and sequential. At
any point in time, an agent can be in only one activity. See About the Agent activity page.

Use the browser extension for external websites. You can track activity in
Zendesk and use the browser extension to track activity on external websites. Unmapped
websites aren’t tracked, which helps maintain agent privacy. See Tracking agent time spent outside of Zendesk.

Use the WFM tracking settings to configure how agent activity is captured in your
organization. Autotracking is on by default and you can adjust the setting one by one or
in bulk. See Activating and deactivating auto-tracking and task
lock.

Turn off autotracking for managers and team leads. You can deactivate
autotracking for individual agents or in bulk from the Team members page. It's recommended
to deactivate autotracking for managers and team leads so their activity doesn’t skew team
metrics. See Editing WFM team member tracking settings.

Use task lock carefully. Task lock can be overridden by WFM automations or
browser extension activity tracking. This gives managers and admins more control over
tracking.

Be aware that schedule adherence depends on activity. Agent adherence to schedule
is defined by the agent’s activity. The activity is compared with the scheduled task for
that period. To stay in adherence, agents should work on the scheduled task.

Use an automation for forgotten clock-outs. Sometimes agents forget to clock out
and end their day, which causes their last activity to continue for hours, or even days,
until they return to work. To maintain accurate reports, implement a WFM automation that
runs when an agent is clocked into a task for more than three hours and automatically
performs these actions: Clock out user, Delete Timesheet, and End day. Three hours on one
activity is typically the most effective threshold for triggering this automation. See
Creating WFM automations to manage agent activity.

Keep Zendesk tabs in one browser window. For the most accurate results, keep
Zendesk tabs in one browser window. WFM can identify which tab is active in that window,
but it can’t identify a specific active tab across multiple browser windows.

Use unified agent statuses to track agent activity. When you use unified agent
status synchronization, task lock isn't required. Instead, when an agent isn’t actively
working on a ticket, their tracked activity is represented by their unified agent status.
The status remains active unless the agent changes it manually or starts working on a
ticket. See About unified agent statuses.




Tips for tracking using the browser extension in WFM

Use these tips to track activity more accurately with the browser extension:


Keep in mind that the browser extension tracks mapped websites. You can map
either an entire domain or a specific URL within a domain. Each mapped domain or URL is
tracked separately.

Note that WFM adds a wildcard to mapped URLs. When you map a URL to unified agent
status or a general task, WFM always adds a wildcard to the end of the URL. For example,
if you define www.zendesk.com, it’s stored as www.zendesk.com/\* and every
page in that domain is tracked.

Be aware that the longest matching URL is used. If multiple mapped URLs match the
open page, the system uses the longest matching URL to log the activity and provide the
most precise tracking information.



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