What does "last activity" on a ticket mean?

Just wondering - I have a 10 day old ticket, it got "last activity" on it about a day after I raised it, and last activity was updated to a few hours ago, but there's nothing happening as far as I can see. Last activity updated when I added detail to the ticket (obviously), but what does it mean when there's activity, but nothing obvious is happening?Is this support looking at it? Reassigning it? Throwing it in the trash?Does anyone actually know what's happening on ANet side when this updates?

Thanks

I would like to know too. Had the same "problem" with my last ticket.

It may mean it was sent off to the appropriate CS Team that attends to those issues.

@"hailtonothing.5283" said:Just wondering - I have a 10 day old ticket, it got "last activity" on it about a day after I raised it, and last activity was updated to a few hours ago, but there's nothing happening as far as I can see. Last activity updated when I added detail to the ticket (obviously), but what does it mean when there's activity, but nothing obvious is happening?

"Last Activity" is the timestamp of the last time the ticket tracking software noticed something happen to the ticket. Basically, "the last time someone replied to the thread" is a good approximation of what that means.

This is very different from "the last time something happened", in the sense that it does not, for example, notice the GMs investigating problems or whatever. It just notices the last time something was written on the ticket or whatevs. All the actual work happens without updating that timestamp.

@"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

"Last Activity" is the timestamp of the last time the ticket tracking software noticed something happen to the ticket. Basically, "the last time someone replied to the thread" is a good approximation of what that means.

This is very different from "the last time something happened", in the sense that it does not, for example, notice the GMs investigating problems or whatever. It just notices the last time something was written on the ticket or whatevs. All the actual work happens without updating that timestamp.

Yeah but it must all be happening in the background right, because there are no updates on my ticket apart from the ones I have made.

@hailtonothing.5283 said:

@"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:

"Last Activity" is the timestamp of the last time

the ticket tracking software

noticed something happen to the ticket. Basically, "the last time someone replied to the thread" is a good approximation of what that means.

This is very different from "the last time something happened", in the sense that it does not, for example, notice the GMs investigating problems or whatever. It just notices the last time something was written on the ticket or whatevs. All the actual

work

happens without updating that timestamp.

Yup. :)

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:Yup. :)

Would be SO GOOD to have more visibility into that so I could see that something was actually happening...

@hailtonothing.5283 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:Yup. :)

I wonder how much time it would take for each person to stop and write down something like read the ticket checking X every time they did something. IT's like if I had to repair a computer and give continual status reports to customers who's computer I'm repairing. All it does is slow down the process. So now you know specifically what is happening,. and it will take longer for everyone. Not sure how that's better.

Knowing what's going on at any given time isn't really helpful in my opinion. People going through procedures are doing just that. When there's something to say they'll say it.

@"Vayne.8563" said:I wonder how much time it would take for each person to stop and write down something like read the ticket checking X every time they did something. IT's like if I had to repair a computer and give continual status reports to customers who's computer I'm repairing. All it does is slow down the process. So now you know specifically what is happening,. and it will take longer for everyone. Not sure how that's better.

Knowing what's going on at any given time isn't really helpful in my opinion. People going through procedures are doing just that. When there's something to say they'll say it.

That's not really what I'm talking about. Most systems have intrinsic status/logs for change. If these were exposed on some level, we could see progress without support having to do anything about it. e.g. the system I have at my current work when I raise a ticket shows reassignment. I can click on my ticket ID and see it's been reassigned, how long it's sat with one person, and comments left by users as they assign it around.

Secondly, yes, knowing where it's at doesn't intrinsically change anything - it's still going to go through whatever process it has to go through, but you are wrong that it doesn't "help". This is the whole reason progress bars exist. How would you feel if the GW2 patcher didn't show download/install progress, and you just had to sit there and wait, not knowing how long that would be? You can't do anything about it, the patch still has to download and install, and you don't really know what that install is doing in detail, but you can see that it's doing something and there's a clear end state. You can tell when it's doing something, and when it's stopped moving for a long time. Having this info would at the very least reduce the instances of "what is going on with my support ticket" type posts, stop people creating duplicates, or stop them unnecessarily asking for updates.

@hailtonothing.5283 said:

@"Vayne.8563" said:I wonder how much time it would take for each person to stop and write down something like read the ticket checking X every time they did something. IT's like if I had to repair a computer and give continual status reports to customers who's computer I'm repairing. All it does is slow down the process. So now you know specifically what is happening,. and it will take longer for everyone. Not sure how that's better.

Knowing what's going on at any given time isn't really helpful in my opinion. People going through procedures are doing just that. When there's something to say they'll say it.

@"Vayne.8563" said:You can't really compare this to a status bar, though. That gives you an idea of how long it will take. Knowing it's been passed along doesn't tell you any such thing. It just shows progress, but not percentage done. At any rate, depending on how complex the system is, there may not be enough things in it to really give you accurate information. You really would need to know more about how Anet stuff is arranged. How your stuff happens is not indicative of how Anet handles it.

The principal for wanting some kind of status update is the same - it's basic user-experience type stuff, people get annoyed and restless when they perceive nothing happening, provide some information and the issue is mitigated ( though not necessarily gone entirely). You've seen those circular "thinking" type animations right? Mac's beach ball, Windows' rotating circle, any number of web interfaces that use endlessly rotating icons? They have no "end" like a progress bar does, but they exist to pacify users who can see "something is happening" and they know not to worry, or that they can give it more leeway before thinking it's broken.

Maybe there's nothing to expose to the user, but I'm betting Zendesk logs all kinds of stuff that could potentially give visibility. Anywho, it's just wishful thinking brought on by extreme annoyance at staring at a blank wall of a support ticket for 11 days. It's not like I think this would actually get implemented. And I also just got a reply, so here's hoping the rest get's solved faster!

@hailtonothing.5283 said:

@"Vayne.8563" said:You can't really compare this to a status bar, though. That gives you an idea of how long it will take. Knowing it's been passed along doesn't tell you any such thing. It just shows progress, but not percentage done. At any rate, depending on how complex the system is, there may not be enough things in it to really give you accurate information. You really would need to know more about how Anet stuff is arranged. How your stuff happens is not indicative of how Anet handles it.

But if you see that something is happening, something is happening. Knowing specifically what is happening is no different to me. What you're saying isn't that you see nothing is happening and there's a problem. The system is telling you SOMETHING is happening. With no point of reference, that's all you know. Action of SOME KIND has been taken. Would it matter really what that action is.

Ticket info is telling you there is activity on your ticket. You want more than that You want specifics. So instead of being happy knowing that your ticket has been looked at worked on, you want a comment ticket moved to different dude. It changes nothing because it doesn't tell you anything other than your ticket has been passed on. Something has been done as opposed to nothing. You don't know it's being transferred to the right guy. You don't know that it's actually being worked on. The system is saying there IS activity and you want detail that will give you no actual answer.

Sorry but I don't think that's a necessary thing. That is, if the existing system isn't providing you enough detail there could well be a reason for it. And altering that system, just so you can get a message saying ticket moved to guy responsible for handling the weirder stuff isn't really going to do anything. We just don't know enough about the existing system to require changes to it in any specific fashion.

@"Vayne.8563" said:

But if you see that something is happening, something is happening. Knowing specifically what is happening is no different to me. What you're saying isn't that you see nothing is happening and there's a problem. The system is telling you SOMETHING is happening. With no point of reference, that's all you know. Action of SOME KIND has been taken. Would it matter really what that action is.

Ticket info is telling you there is activity on your ticket. You want more than that You want specifics. So instead of being happy knowing that your ticket has been looked at worked on, you want a comment ticket moved to different dude. It changes nothing because it doesn't tell you anything other than your ticket has been passed on. Something has been done as opposed to nothing. You don't know it's being transferred to the right guy. You don't know that it's actually being worked on. The system is saying there IS activity and you want detail that will give you no actual answer.

Sorry but I don't think that's a necessary thing. That is, if the existing system isn't providing you enough detail there could well be a reason for it. And altering that system, just so you can get a message saying ticket moved to guy responsible for handling the weirder stuff isn't really going to do anything. We just don't know enough about the existing system to require changes to it in any specific fashion.

Okay look, I acknowledge you don't think it's necessary. You've made that very clear. But we aren't talking about you, we're talking about me (and possibly a few other people I've spoken to here over the last 12 days who have similar frustrations). This isn't a logic puzzle you're solving, or something you can rationalise away. You're talking about an emotional response (feeling better about a languishing ticket) for an individual (me), and in this, I am uniquely positioned (because I'm me, and you aren't) to tell you that seeing a deeper transaction trail would be helpful to me. I honestly don't understand why you're arguing about this. Literally every response you've given is conjecture about how a system you're unfamiliar with might work, with possible reasons not to do something I mused about in a single line of text. I'm curious - if I was thirsty and said, "hey @"Vayne.8563" I'm feeling pretty thirsty, it would be SO GOOD if I could have some water", would you be all: "Well you already know water exists and that you should get some later, plus, I'm not thirsty, so I don't think it's necessary for you to have some water"?

The great thing about implementing a system like this is that for people like me, it's cool because I get the info I want. And for people like you, it's also cool, because you can just ignore the updates because you don't care about them at all and they are so meaningless to you. It wouldn't affect you in any way, and you're here complaining about it like someone has asked you to do the work to implement it. I don't get it.

Anyway, if you're reading, ANet it would be cool if there was more detail in the ticket status updates, it would really help folks whose tickets are taking a while and they feel like nothing is happening. I don't really have anything else to say about this. Thanks!

@hailtonothing.5283 said:

@"Vayne.8563" said:

But if you see that something is happening, something is happening. Knowing specifically what is happening is no different to me. What you're saying isn't that you see nothing is happening and there's a problem. The system is telling you SOMETHING is happening. With no point of reference, that's all you know. Action of SOME KIND has been taken. Would it matter really what that action is.

Ticket info is telling you there is activity on your ticket. You want more than that You want specifics. So instead of being happy knowing that your ticket has been looked at worked on, you want a comment ticket moved to different dude. It changes nothing because it doesn't tell you anything other than your ticket has been passed on. Something has been done as opposed to nothing. You don't know it's being transferred to the right guy. You don't know that it's actually being worked on. The system is saying there IS activity and you want detail that will give you no actual answer.

Sorry but I don't think that's a necessary thing. That is, if the existing system isn't providing you enough detail there could well be a reason for it. And altering that system, just so you can get a message saying ticket moved to guy responsible for handling the weirder stuff isn't really going to do anything. We just don't know enough about the existing system to require changes to it in any specific fashion.

Yes, you're talking about an emotional response. The question then becomes how many people have that emotional response and how much time, energy and money would be required to fix it so that segment of the population is satisfied? What if they fix it and people STILL aren't satisfied? How much information is enough? Will people then start asking for an ETA, since they inevitably won't know what the entry means anyway with regard to time it will take?

Everything would be cool to have. The difference is the money/time/energy/effot it would take to make it happen. I get that you personally (and people who feel like you) want more info on the ticket.

I just don't think it will change anything at all, including the feeling of most people.

shrug

There are multiple threads here, from multiple people, all asking for info/status/updates (e.g. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/39093/ticket-response-times#latest) on seemingly static tickets. Seems like people care more than you give credit for.

They definitely know how to take their time. I'm on my 9th day waiting for something that should've taken only 30min if that to accomplish. Their 'customer service' is very poor, so don't expect too much.