Two modules measure elapsed time, and they read the same calendar. Configuring one and not the other is how a workspace ends up with a service desk that breaches targets on Diwali.
The shift#
The Service Desk's turnaround clock accrues only inside the shift, in the workspace's own timezone. Nothing accrues overnight, at weekends, or on a holiday.
That has a consequence people find surprising the first time: "2 working days" is 18 hours on a 09:30–18:30 shift, not 48 hours of wall clock. A ticket that arrives on Friday afternoon is not breaching on Sunday morning, and it should not be.
The timezone is not decoration. Whether an instant falls inside Tuesday's shift depends entirely on which timezone you ask in, and getting it wrong shifts every figure the desk reports.
The calendar#
Holidays live in Leave, and there is exactly one list. The Service Desk reads it; it does not keep its own.
Two rules to know when adding one:
- Mandatory, workspace-wide holidays stop both clocks. A leave request spanning one does not spend a day of somebody's balance, and a ticket does not age.
- Optional holidays stop neither. They are days people may take, not days the organisation is closed — so they reduce nobody's day count and pause no turnaround.
A holiday aimed at particular teams is likewise not a workspace-wide closure, and the desk's clock ignores it.
Which clock is which#
A Service Desk ticket carries two numbers, and they disagree on purpose:
| Figure | Measured in | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Overall TAT | Wall clock, weekends included | The requester really did wait through the weekend |
| Current stage | Working time on the shift | It is what the breach target is measured against |
A dashboard cell turns red on the second one. A customer complaining about the first is not wrong.
Common mistakes#
- Configuring the shift and forgetting the holidays. The clock then runs through every public holiday in the year.
- Adding holidays as optional because it seemed safer. Optional stops nothing.
- Changing the timezone after a quarter of reporting. Every historic figure was computed in the old one; the numbers move.
- Expecting a holiday added today to change a request approved last week. Day counts are computed when a request is made.
- Assuming the desk has its own calendar. It does not. If the desk is wrong about a holiday, fix it in Leave.