Note: Adjusted Average Handling Time (AAHT) is currently in closed beta. Please contact our Support team if you'd like this feature to be enabled on your workspace.
Average handling time (AHT) measures how long it takes to handle a conversation from assignment to closure. However, traditional AHT includes idle time when teammates aren’t actively working, which can make productivity appear lower than it really is.
Adjusted Average Handling Time (AAHT) is an improved metric that automatically detects when a teammate resumes working on a conversation and excludes idle time from the calculation. This gives your team a more accurate and fair view of workload and efficiency.
Key benefits
Eliminates idle time from handling time calculations, providing a truer measure of productivity.
Accurately reflects active work time when teammates are engaged with conversations.
Supports reporting and API access, enabling more precise analysis and automation.
Works seamlessly with existing reporting features such as filtering, segmentation, and exporting.
How Adjusted Average Handling Time (AAHT) works
AAHT automatically tracks when a teammate is handling a conversation after it’s been assigned and opened, unsnoozed, or reopened. The system identifies when the conversation becomes “ready” and when it’s actually handled by the teammate, then removes the idle period between these two points.
Example:
If a conversation is assigned at 8:00 AM but the teammate doesn’t view it until 8:40 AM, those 40 minutes are excluded from the AAHT. If the teammate snoozes the conversation at 9:00 AM and unsnoozes it at 9:10 AM, those 10 minutes are excluded from the AAHT.
At the teammate level, AAHT is calculated individually for each teammate assigned to a conversation. If no idle time is detected (for example, when the teammate is already viewing the conversation upon assignment), the adjusted time equals the regular handling time.
Resumption events
AAHT uses resumption events to detect when a teammate starts working on a conversation again.
A resumption event is created the first time the assigned teammate views a conversation after it becomes "ready" — through assign and unsnooze or reopen (including hybrid variants such as assign + unsnooze).
This means:
A resumption event can happen multiple times per conversation, once for each time it becomes ready.
It is not created just because a teammate switches tabs or returns to the same conversation they already had open.
When the conversation meets these conditions and the teammate views it for at least 15 seconds, a resumption event is created.
Important:
If a teammate views the conversation within 2 minutes of it becoming ready, no resumption event is created.
If a teammate navigates away from the conversation (for example, by opening a new tab) without closing or snoozing, the handling timer continues to run. To prevent idle time from inflating handling duration, teammates should snooze or close the conversation whenever stepping away.
Resumption events appear in the teammate’s conversation events and are available in the Conversation API. These events are only visible to teammates in the Inbox (not customer-facing).
Reporting and API access
Reporting metrics
AAHT appears as new metrics in custom reports, alongside the standard handling time metrics:
Adjusted conversation handling time — for conversation-level analysis.
Adjusted teammate handling time — for individual teammate performance.
These metrics are available in:
AAHT metrics are also pre-suggested when creating new dashboards and charts, and they support all standard reporting operations including filtering, segmentation, and exporting.
API access
AAHT is available via the Conversation API for custom integrations or automated reporting.
The adjusted_handling_time field appears in the retrieve conversation endpoint, alongside handling_time.
It returns the duration in seconds as an integer.
If no idle time is detected, the adjusted and regular handling times are identical.
Each resumption event is also returned as a conversation part in the API response, containing teammate metadata, timestamps, and conversation state — allowing for advanced, custom idle time calculations.
FAQs
Why wasn’t a resumption event created when I opened a conversation?
Check the eligibility: the conversation must be open, assigned to you, and recently made "ready" (assigned, unsnoozed, or reopened and viewed for at least 15 seconds).
Do resumption events affect workflows or notifications?
No. They’re passive background events and do not trigger any workflows or notifications.
Where can I view resumption events?
They appear in the conversation events in the Inbox and are also accessible via the Conversation API.
Can I use Adjusted Average Handling Time (AAHT) in reports and dashboards?
Yes. AAHT supports all standard reporting operations — including filtering, segmentation, exports, charts, and dashboards — and appears alongside regular AHT in the metric picker.
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