Alloy Software/October 1, 2025/inBlog/tags:Alloy products, ITSM

Help Desk Reporting in 2025: Tips & Tricks

Do you create reports yourself or rely on others to provide them? Regardless of your role at the IT support desk, reports play a crucial role. They help teams monitor performance, identify trends, and improve service quality. Let’s take a look at the reports you’ll need in 2025.

High-tech analyst monitoring multiple data charts on a computer with graphs and analytics dashboards, representing workforce management, project tracking, and productivity analytics.

What is help desk reporting?

Help desk reporting is the process of collecting and analyzing ticket and request data to monitor performance, identify trends, and improve your Help Desk service.

Every day, tickets arrive, urgent issues pop up, and tasks compete for attention. Reporting turns this chaos into clarity, highlighting frequent issues, slow-to-resolve requests, and areas where your team performs best. Insights from reports help you prioritize work, plan staffing, track SLA compliance, and refine processes.

All help desk tools include reporting, though features vary. Pick a tool that fits your team’s workflow. Reports should be easy to access, flexible, and scalable, providing clear insights to help you allocate resources and improve service.

Ticket volume category chart showing IT support, software, hardware, network, email, and internet ticket trends over time.

Benefits of help desk reporting

Help desk reporting goes beyond numbers. It gives a clear view of your team’s performance and the overall health of support operations. By analyzing ticket trends, resolution times, and SLA compliance, you can identify recurring issues before they escalate, allocate resources effectively, and ensure high-priority requests are handled promptly. Reporting also demonstrates the value of your support function to management and supports continuous improvement, better decision-making, and higher service quality for users and customers.

Monitor and improve service quality

Customer satisfaction: Analyze feedback from tickets and surveys to identify areas for improvement.
Resolution times: Track average resolution times to find bottlenecks and optimize workflows.
First contact resolution: Measure how many issues are solved on the first attempt to guide training and knowledge base updates.

Boost agent efficiency and motivation

Workload balance: Monitor ticket volume per agent to optimize staffing and reduce burnout.
Performance tracking: Evaluate resolution times and completed tickets to recognize top performers and address skill gaps.

Identify process issues

Recurring problems: Detect frequently reported issues to address gaps in processes or resources.
Ticket trends: Track ticket types and volume over time to identify areas needing process improvements or additional training.

Discover best practices

Successful resolutions: Identify consistent solutions to standardize efficient practices across the team.
Benchmarking: Compare metrics with past performance or industry standards to highlight strengths and improvement opportunities.

Help desk reporting with Alloy Navigator

Alloy Navigator, a leading ITSM and ITAM solution, provides a complete set of reporting tools for clear insights into IT operations and team performance.

Interactive Analytics
Over 40 ready-to-use charts allow teams to track key metrics like Resolution Time, Customer Satisfaction, and others. Users can quickly create custom charts with a simple interface, apply filters, and share or export results.
Printable Reports
140+ ready-to-use reports cover all key IT support areas. Users can brand, customize, and schedule reports to deliver results automatically to stakeholders.
Dashboards
Customizable dashboards let users arrange widgets, focus on relevant metrics, drill down into data, and share insights with colleagues.
Data Views
Tabular views can easily be filtered, sorted, and summarized. Users can adjust them to highlight the most relevant data and share with the team.

These tools give IT teams a clear, actionable view of operations, trends, and resource allocation.

Interactive Analytics in Alloy Navigator
Dashboards in Alloy Navigator
Printable reports in Alloy Navigator
Data views in Alloy Navigator

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Help Desk metrics vs. Help Desk reports

Metrics and reports play complementary roles in understanding your help desk performance.

Metrics are the building blocks for reports. They are individual data points that measure specific aspects of work, such as average first response time, number of open tickets, or customer satisfaction (CSAT).
Reports combine these metrics to provide context and reveal patterns over time. For example, a Monthly SLA Report shows average response and resolution times alongside SLA compliance, while a Ticket Volume by Category Report highlights which issues occur most frequently and tracks trends.

In short, metrics tell you what is happening on a day-to-day basis, while reports use those building blocks to explain why it matters. Regularly reviewing reports allows you to monitor trends and spot bottlenecks. It also supports informed decision-making, helping you allocate resources effectively and improve service before small issues escalate.

Customer satisfaction chart by category showing ratings distribution for network, hardware, internet, and software.

Top Help Desk reports in 2025

With so many metrics available, it’s easy to get lost in the numbers. Reports turn those metrics into actionable insights by focusing on what matters most. Here are some of the most valuable help desk reports in 2025.

Ticket Volume Trends Report
Tracks tickets created, resolved, reopened, or left open over time. Helps spot peak periods, seasonal trends, and the impact of system updates or process changes.
Example: A spike in tickets after a software rollout signals the need for extra support or user guidance.
SLA Compliance Report
Shows how well your team meets service level agreements (SLAs), highlighting breaches and at-risk tickets. Supports prioritization and ensures commitments are met.
Example: Tickets nearing SLA deadlines can be flagged for immediate attention to prevent breaches.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Report
Collects user feedback linked to ticket handling. Reveals strengths, areas for improvement, and the effect of process changes.
Example: Low satisfaction on password reset tickets may indicate unclear instructions or missing documentation.
First Contact Resolution (FCR) Report
Measures the percentage of issues resolved during the first interaction. High FCR rates indicate efficient agents and effective knowledge base resources, while low rates highlight areas for improvement. This report helps target agent training, update self-service articles, and optimize workflows to reduce repeat tickets and speed up resolution.
Example: A drop in FCR for a specific issue type highlights a training need.
Agent Performance Report
Tracks resolved tickets, average resolution time, and workload per agent. Supports recognition, coaching, and workload balancing.
Example: Identifying top performers and redistributing tickets from overloaded agents.
Recurring Issues / Problem Report
Highlights frequently reported problems to identify gaps in knowledge base, processes, or underlying systems.
Example: Repeated login failures might indicate a system bug or missing documentation.
Ticket Aging / Resolution Time Report
Shows tickets that take the longest to resolve. Helps prioritize overdue tickets and address workflow bottlenecks.
Example: Tickets open longer than 48 hours can trigger process review or escalation.
Change / Impact Analysis Report
Tracks how new tools, updates, or process changes affect ticket volume and resolution times.
Example: A new software feature increases password reset tickets, indicating a need for additional guidance.
Knowledge Base Usage Report
Measures which articles or resources are used most and contribute to faster resolution. Helps optimize self-service content.
Example: Low usage of certain articles may indicate that content is hard to find or unclear.
Service Request / Incident Trends by Category
Breaks down tickets by type or category and tracks trends over time. Supports resource planning and proactive improvements.
Example: Increasing hardware requests in one department may indicate a recurring issue or aging equipment.

SLA Violations weekly report (dark)
SLA Violations weekly report (light)

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Help Desk reporting and AI

In 2025, AI is increasingly integrated into help desk operations, transforming how teams handle tickets and use reporting. AI agents assist with categorizing and resolving issues in real time and feed data into reports, highlighting trends, recurring problems, and potential SLA risks.

combination of AI-driven insights and traditional reporting allows teams to make smarter decisions, optimize workflows, and continuously improve service quality for users and customers.

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Best practices for help desk reporting

Effective reporting is essential for a high-performing help desk. Follow these seven best practices to turn your data into actionable insights:

Define the goal:
Be clear about what the report should achieve, whether tracking CSAT, ticket trends, or agent performance.
Tip: Start each report by writing a one-sentence goal statement.
Focus on relevant metrics:
Include only the data that supports your goal to keep the report focused and actionable.
Tip: Limit metrics to 3–5 key indicators per report.
Handle outliers wisely:
Investigate unusual data points and decide whether to explain, separate, or exclude them.
Tip: Mark outliers clearly so stakeholders understand their impact.
Share reports broadly:
Give stakeholders access so insights can be acted upon across teams.
Tip: Use automated report sharing or role-based dashboards to keep everyone informed.
Keep executive reports concise:
Highlight trends and key takeaways using visuals, avoiding unnecessary detail.
Tip: Focus on top-level insights, not every data point.
Set a practical schedule:
Choose a report frequency that balances timeliness with workload, and automate generation when possible.
Tip: Stick to a consistent schedule so teams know when to expect updates.
Include qualitative insights:
Combine metrics with feedback, agent notes, or call recordings to add context.
Tip: Summarize key observations in a short narrative alongside the numbers.

Donut chart showing workload distribution per support agent with equal shares for most agents.

Key takeaways

Reports matter: Help desk reporting is essential for understanding performance, spotting issues, and improving service.
Metrics vs. Reports: Metrics measure individual indicators; reports combine them to reveal trends and team performance.
Top reports in 2025: Ticket Volume Trends, SLA Compliance, CSAT, and First Contact Resolution provide insights on workload, service quality, and agent efficiency.
Best practices: Focus on report objectives, relevant metrics, regular review, qualitative data, and transparency.
AI integration: AI accelerates ticket handling, uncovers trends, and enhances reporting accuracy.
Alloy Navigator tools: 40+ interactive analytics charts, 140+ printable reports, 10 customizable dashboards, and 100+ data views enable flexible visualization and team collaboration.
Actionable insights: The ultimate goal of reporting is to inform decisions, optimize processes, and improve service delivery.