Issues Dashboard. Such Wow!

After much too long on the back-burner, we'd like to excitedly (and yet humbly, with a touch of embarrassment) let you know that the Issues dashboard is online. You can find the link via the Issues menu in the top navigation.

The dashboard has taken on a similar style to the newly updated project dashboard, but we've tweaked the content to be especially relevant to service delivery requirements. Read on for an overview of each section:

Issues at risk

This section aims to highlight sets of issues that are in need of special attention. What’s also handy is that the information is also click-able so you can jump straight through to view those issues and follow-up as required.

Stale Issues:
Tallies up all (submitted/open) issues that have had no status change or activities recorded for over 1 week and up to 3 weeks. The Very Stale issues are as above but after 3 weeks.

Critical Issues:
Any (submitted/open) issues that have the highest priority setting in your system. High Priority: As before, but 2nd priority level.

Unassigned Issues:
Any (submitted/open) issues without a manager. Issues without response: Any (submitted/open) issues that lack an email/call/meeting activity.

Overdue Issues:
Any (submitted/open) issues which are overdue (according to their due date being set). Issues due this week: Any (submitted/open) issues due in the next 7 days.

Unallocated work:
Means issues resolved/closed with billable time that hasn't been allocated to an invoice/retainer or marked as free. Issues with unbilled budget: Any resolved/closed issues with a $ budget > 0 and no related invoice/retainer.

Quick Reports

This table looks at issues created in the selected period (30, 90 or 180 days) and summarizes based on the category selected.

So, when viewing issues by the Type category, you can quickly see several handy pieces of info:

• Count shows the number of issues created in that period
• Frequency shows the average number of issues created each week
• Avg. Age (sometimes referred to as Time to Resolve) shows the average number of days and hours between the issue submitted and issue resolved timestamps.
• Avg. Time Spent looks at the average (billable and non-billable) hours logged against those issues.

The ability to toggle across categories such as Class and Priority give manager real insights into the nature of issues being submitted over a time period.

Issue Volume

This graph provides a quick visual overview of the number of issues coming in each month.

The graph above is real data from our system. I immediately noticed the spike in February and, thinking about it, this could be attributed to our upgrade to Amazon and the new Projects module!

You can also toggle the graph to track how many issues were moved to the Open status over the last 9 months.

If you happen to set Due dates for your issues, the graph will slide forward to let you look 4 months into the future, too! 

Performance

The Performance table is about comparing staff members who are managing issues in Accelo, however, you can also toggle the table to analyze by company/client - great for quickly seeing which clients are sapping up most of your teams energy (or paying the bills!)

• Open - this column includes all issues that were submitted/opened in the selected period.
• Resolved - this column looks at issues that were resolved/closed in the selected period. The Rate then compares resolved against the number open.
• Avg. Age - as per the Quick Reports, except this only includes resolved/closed issues.
• Avg. Time Spent - as per the Quick Reports, except this only includes resolved/closed issues.
• Total Billed - the total amount invoiced for resolved/closed issues (excluding issues invoiced via a contract)

Finally the Pie chart just gives a visual representation of the performance info in the table. If the Staff/Client option is toggled, the pie chart refreshes along with the table.