This blog is part 2 of the series of blogs which detail the case time tracking functionality – available options, limitations and our no-code approach using dynamics 365 for Customer Service CRM. For more information on my earlier blogs , refer below links:

In this blog, I will explain the solution that we implemented for one of our customers for tracking billable and non-billable times for support cases:

To track the time-spent, create a new custom entity: Case Time-Tracker.
=> Add N..1 relationship with Case entity. (Case entity is set as parent entity to Case Time-Tracker entity).
=> Add fields:

  • Support User (lookup for User)
  • Category (option-set with values: Std. Support, Consulting, Chat Support)
  • Date
  • Time Spent (whole number)
  • Billable (2-option set)
  • Description (multi-line text)

Below shows the screenshot for Case Time Tracking form:

Points to note regarding Case Time-Tracking entity:

  1. Case field should be made mandatory in time-tracking form (if case field is not mandatory then time-tracking form will not open up, when clicking on “+” button above time-tracking sub-grid on case form)
  2. Create field mappings for “Support User” field, so that it is automatically populated by Case owner when new time-entry is being added from case form.
  3. Time spent field has data-type “Whole number”. Here time-spent is stored in minutes.

Next, we would like to automatically add the time-spent values in the related time-tracking records and rollup the total value to the parent Case record.
For this, we can add 3 new rollup-fields to Case record:

  • Total time spent (minutes)
  • Total billable time spent (minutes)
  • Total non-billable time spent (minutes)

Next, add the case time-tracking subgrid as well as the 3 rollup-fields to case form, as shown in screenshot below:

Few important points to note regarding the present approach:

  1. User needs to be informed that the billable time field shown on the case resolution form (which opens up when “Resolve Case” button is clicked) needs to be ignored.
  2. The total billable time (Rollup field which we created) in Case form will not auto-decrement hours from the entitlement terms on case resolution.

Advantages of this approach:

  • Can track billable as well as non-billable times across cases
  • Can track time spent on case on per agent basis
  • Can easily generate reports to do further analysis of time being spent on cases

Some of the reports / KPI’s that would help are:

Report 1: Time spent by support agents on Cases in last week / month

Report 2: Total time spent on support cases by Customer: Which Customers does my support team spent the most time supporting?

Report 3: Which cases cost my support team the most time last week?

Report 4: Billing report: Building a monthly report for Customer with total time spent on Case (with breakup of each update on the case)?

For questions, comments or feedback email support@zapobjects.com !