Case timeline
Summarize
Summary of Case timeline
The Case timeline in ServiceNow's Customer Service Management application offers a visual summary of case activities and state changes. Displayed at the top of the Case form for agents and managers, it helps users quickly track the history and current status of a case through intuitive visual markers.
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Key Features
- Visual Indicators: Blue circles depict case state changes, while lines above and below the timeline represent case activities such as comments, information requests, emails, and phone calls.
- Activity Segmentation: Activities by agents appear above the timeline; those by customers appear below, enabling clear distinction of interactions.
- Interactive Tooltips: Hovering over state changes or activities reveals detailed information like who performed the action and the time it occurred. Overlapping states or conversations are shown with thicker borders and grouped tooltips.
- Timeline Header: Displays the case start time and either the last update time or closure time, depending on the case status.
- Time Metric: Positioned next to the timeline, this metric tracks how long a case has been open, breaking down the duration spent with the agent versus the customer based on case states.
Key Outcomes
With the Case timeline, ServiceNow customers can efficiently monitor case progression and interactions at a glance, improving case management transparency and responsiveness. Agents gain insights into the duration spent in various states, facilitating better workload management and customer communication.
The timeline provides a visual display of case activities. The timeline appears at the top of the Case form when viewed by an agent or manager in the Customer Service Management application.
The timeline uses blue circles to represent case state changes and markers to represent case activities. The information included in the timeline is also shown on the Case form in the Activity history.
Header
The timeline header displays the time that the case began. It also displays the time that the case was either last updated or closed.
State changes and case activities
Each state change for a case is represented by a blue circle on the timeline. Pointing to these circles provides more information about the state change in a tooltip. For example, pointing to the first blue circle that represents the New state displays the name of the user who created the case and the approximate time that the case was created.
Activity lines above and below the timeline represent other case activities, including comments, information requests, close notes, email, and phone calls. Activities performed by an agent are shown above the timeline and activities performed by a customer are shown below. Pointing to these activities on the timeline displays additional information.
Overlapping states and conversations are represented by thicker borders and thicker lines. Pointing to overlapped states and conversations results in grouped tooltips.
If a case is ongoing, the end of the timeline shows the last updated activity or state change. If a case is closed, the end of the timeline shows a blue circle that represents the Closed state.
Time metric
The metric to the right of the timeline tracks the amount of time that a case is open. The date and time that the case was opened is used as the start of the time calculation. When a case is ongoing, the current time is used as the end time calculation. When a case is closed, the close time is used as the end time calculation.
The metric breaks down the time by the number of minutes and hours that a case is with the agent or with the customer. A case is considered to be with the agent when it is in the New, Open, or Closed state.
When a case is in the Awaiting Info or Resolved state, it is considered to be with the customer.