Queue time is the median time a ticket spends in a Waiting status.
In this article
Which reports use Queue time?
See Queue time in reports like Metrics overview, Retrospective, and Check-in.
See Queue time for each ticket in Ticket log.
What does Queue time measure?
Queue time measures the time your tickets spend waiting once work has started on them. It helps you understand where process inefficiencies are slowing your teams down. While some waiting—for feedback, QA, or review from team members—is normal, an increased Queue time is an indication that your teams are stuck and need help to move work smoothly from start to finish.
High Queue times are costly to your business and to team morale. They can also result in excess context switching and a loss of flow and momentum on complex work.
While it's not reasonable or advisable to drive this metric to zero, work to reduce it in meaningful ways as you improve your processes and address inefficiencies.
How is Queue time calculated?
Queue time is the total amount of time a ticket spends in a Waiting status throughout its lifecycle.
Waiting statuses are defined by ticket project configurations and are a sub-state of Active statuses. Queue time doesn't decay.
A Queue time of zero hours means the ticket has never been in a Waiting status.
Tip: If you notice that your Queue time seems lower than you'd expect, double-check your ticket project configurations to ensure you've configured your Waiting sub-states correctly and encourage your teams to update their tickets regularly to reflect the correct statuses.
In all reports where Queue time is represented in aggregate, Flow uses a median calculation to represent the Queue time value. There will always be outlier tickets—some that wait longer than normal because of increased need for review, and some that have little wait time because of their review requirements. By using a median calculation, Flow reduces the impact of those outliers so you can gauge the most useful measure of how long it takes for you to complete a normal ticket.
What data is included in Queue time?
Queue time only accrues when a ticket is in a Waiting status. It doesn't accrue in a non-waiting Active status.
Tickets are only included in Queue time if:
- They are moved to their final Done status during the selected time period
- The selected user or member of the selected team was an assignee on the ticket at any point once it moved into an Active status
Tickets aren't included in Queue time if:
- They haven't been moved to a Done status
- They are in a Canceled status
- The selected user or member of the selected team has never been an assignee on the ticket or was only an assignee before the ticket moved into an Active status
- They have never had an assignee
- Their issue type has been excluded as part of ticket type assignment in ticket project configuration
Note: Since Queue time accrues when tickets haven't moved to a Done status, view Queue time for tickets not yet in a Done status as well as those in a Canceled status in Ticket log.