Explore recipe: Calculating estimated cost of service

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<div id="docs-wmp-link"><a href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5411234991258-plan" rel="noopener" target="_blank">What's my plan?</a></div>
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<td>Professional, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus</td>
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<strong>Support with</strong>
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<td>Explore Professional or Enterprise</td>
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<p class="p">How much does it cost your support team to tackle questions about various issue types or how much time do you spend on various customers?</p>
<p class="p">In this report, you'll use data collected by the Zendesk <a class="xref" href="https://www.zendesk.com/marketplace/apps/support/35111/time-tracking/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Time Tracking app</a> to create a cost of service metric you can use in your reports.</p>
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<span class="importanttitle">Important:</span> Values produced by this calculation are estimated and are intended only to give you an indication of support charges. This article is provided for instructional purposes only. Please post any issues you have in the comments section below.</div>
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<p class="p">This article contains the following topics:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="Explore_recipe_service_cost__ul_dbl_j5h_zgb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_sz3_zmk_xgb">What you'll need</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_bfd_1nk_xgb">Creating the cost of service metric</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_ww1_qby_23b">Using the cost of service metric</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_mym_2nk_xgb">Next steps</a></li>
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<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">What you'll need</h2>
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<p class="p" dir="ltr">Skill level: <em class="ph i">Medium</em></p>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">Time required: <em class="ph i">20 minutes</em></p>
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<li class="li" dir="ltr">Zendesk Explore Professional or Enterprise</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Editor or Admin permissions (see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408836002970-Adding-users-to-Explore" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Giving agents access to Explore</a>)</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Ticket data in Zendesk Support</li>
<li class="li">The Zendesk <a class="xref" href="https://www.zendesk.com/marketplace/apps/support/35111/time-tracking/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Time Tracking app</a> must be installed, and must have collected data
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<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> The time tracking app stores data in custom numeric fields that are synchronized with Explore. If you have installed the Time Tracking app recently, the data required to build necessary calculated metrics might not yet be synced with Explore. This sync occurs once an hour.</div>
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<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Creating the cost of service metric</h2>
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<p class="p" dir="ltr">The time tracking app tracks how long agents spend working on various tickets. The app reports this in seconds, but for this recipe, you’ll convert the value into hours by creating a new calculated metric.</p>
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<li class="li">In Explore, click the reports ( <img alt="" class="image" height="16" id="topic_bfd_1nk_xgb__image_q2c_34k_xgb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/Explore_query_icon.png" width="16">) icon.</li>
<li class="li">In the Reports library, click <strong class="ph b">New report</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">On the <strong>Select a </strong><strong class="ph b">dataset</strong> page, click <strong>Support</strong> &gt; <strong>Support - Tickets</strong> dataset. This dataset is where the historic custom field data from the Time Tracking app is stored.</li>
<li class="li">In the report builder, open the calculations menu (<img alt="" class="image" height="16" id="topic_bfd_1nk_xgb__image_r2c_34k_xgb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/Explore_calculations.png" width="16">), then click <strong class="ph b">Standard calculated metric</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">Name the new metric <strong class="ph b">Cost of service metric</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">In the formula window, enter the following formula:
<pre class="p" dir="ltr">VALUE(Total time spent (sec))/3600*<em class="ph i">(your hourly rate)</em></pre>
<div class="note tip">
<span class="tiptitle">Tip:</span> If you're working in a language other than English, <a href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408820266906" target="_self">read this article</a> to help you enter Explore formulas in your language.</div>
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<li class="li">For example, if your hourly rate is $15.99, enter
<pre> VALUE(Total time spent (sec))/3600*<em class="ph i">15.99</em></pre>
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<li class="li">When you are finished, click <strong class="ph b">Save</strong>.</li>
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<p class="p"><img alt="" class="image img-screenshot" id="topic_bfd_1nk_xgb__image_hqk_z4h_zgb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/Explore_recipe_cost_1.png"></p>
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<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">Using the cost of service metric</h2>
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<p class="p">Now you've created the metric, you can use it in any of your reports that use the <strong class="ph b">Support: Tickets</strong> dataset.</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">To use the cost of service metric in a report</strong></p>
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<li class="li">In Explore, open a new report using the <strong class="ph b">Support: Tickets</strong> dataset.</li>
<li class="li">In the <strong class="ph b">Metrics</strong> panel, click <strong class="ph b">Add</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">From the list of metrics, choose <strong class="ph b">Calculated metrics</strong> &gt; <strong class="ph b">Cost of service metric</strong>, then click <strong class="ph b">Apply</strong>. Explore displays the total cost of service for all tracked time spent on tickets.</li>
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<p class="p">Now, you can add attributes to the <strong class="ph b">Columns</strong> or <strong class="ph b">Rows</strong> panel to slice this cost data to your needs. For example, add the <strong class="ph b">Ticket ID</strong> attribute to see the cost for each ticket, or the <strong class="ph b">Assignee name</strong> attribute to see the cost for each assignee.</p>
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<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">Next steps</h2>
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<p class="p">You can change the display format of this metric to dollar amounts from the display format page of the chart configuration menu ( <img alt="" class="image" height="16" id="topic_mym_2nk_xgb__image_nzv_hsh_zgb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/Explore_chart_configuration.png" width="16">) . By slicing this metric by various attributes, you can produce detailed cost estimates for different parts of your organization.</p>
<p class="p">For more help, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821589530-Creating-queries" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Creating reports</a>.</p>
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