Why do short agent activities display without full ticket details in real time?

Issue symptoms

In Zendesk Workforce management (WFM), short agent activity displays in real time without complete ticket data. These agent activities only last 1 to 30 seconds.

Resolution steps

Agent activities lasting between 1 and 30 seconds may occasionally appear without fully enriched ticket details.

Cause

This issue arises because WFM captures agent activity events, such as ticket updates, almost instantly from the time tracker. However, ticket metadata, including workstream assignment, tags, or status, is captured periodically from Zendesk services, which introduces a short and predictable delay.

When an agent’s action is extremely brief, WFM may record the event before it retrieves the ticket metadata, which results in:

Incomplete enrichment: Some activities temporarily lack full ticket context. For example, a workstream assignment might be missing.

Apparent discrepancies: On-screen reports may show a brief misalignment between activity duration and ticket details, even though no data is lost

WFM records every event thoroughly and later matches it with its ticket details. The result is a complete, accurate dataset, even if very short activities initially display without full enrichment.

Workarounds and recommendations

Zendesk recommends using one of these approaches:

Data recalculation: If you observe discrepancies in activity enrichment, reach out to Zendesk Customer Support to request a recalculation on stored data

Manual updates: For cases where data appears outdated, update tickets manually to ensure workstreams and reports reflect the correct details

For more information, see About the Agent activity page.