The Average Opened/Closed
Ratio of Service Requests

This measurement reflects your IT department’s ability to close incidents and points to your overall ability to provide service to your organization.

If Your Value Equals 1

A value of 1 means that all incidents that were opened during the period were also closed within the same period. In the Worldwide Distribution Chart, you can see that nearly 50% of the SysAiders surveyed have a value of 1 plus or minus 5%. This means that they are resolving all incidents that arrive at their helpdesk every month. In the long run, you should strive to reach a value of 1. When you reach this goal, you can move onto the next step and evaluate how you’re using your resources to make sure that they are being optimized.

If Your Value is Greater than 1

This means that the amount of incidents opened during the period is greater than the number of incidents that were closed during the same period. With a value above 1, your IT department is not providing full service to the business. There are several possible scenarios:

1. Steady value from month to month
   If, over time, your value is steadily higher than 1, you should make a concerted effort to close all open incidents with the ultimate goal of reaching 1. During the time that you’re busy closing open incidents, you may see that your value dips below 1.
2. Increasing value from month to month
   If your value is above 1 and is increasing over time, the gap between the number of opened and closed service requests in your IT department is widening. This means you are failing to provide full service to your business. You should take immediate action to improve your performance: review and improve your existing processes or perhaps hire more administrators.
3. Decreasing value from month to month
   If the value is above 1 but is decreasing over time, you’re still not providing full service to your organization, but you’re moving in the right direction. You’re probably executing the right processes to improve your performance, and with these processes, you can strive to reach the value of 1.
4. If your value is less than 1
   A value below 1 indicates that the number of service requests that were closed is higher than the number of service requests that were opened during a specific period of time. This means that your IT department accomplished more than what your business required at the time. It’s likely that you’re closing historical incidents that are still open. You should analyze the rate at which you’re closing these incidents and decide on how long you’d like to maintain that pace. After you’ve closed this gap, you should strive to reach a value of 1.

Please remember: this measurement should not be interpreted as a stand-alone indicator of your IT performance and the quality of service you’re providing. All the measurements are interrelated, and because the dynamics of your IT department are always changing, they need to be considered as part of a greater whole.

Metrics Description: How This Result Was Calculated

Metric: Service Requests Opened / Closed

Description: This measurement calculates the ratio between the Opened incidents Vs. the Closed Incidents during the period.

Unit: Ratio

Prerequisite for a valid measurement: Please validate that the assumptions below are confirmed in your SysAid installation. If not, use the filter builder to align your local calculation to the measurement assumptions.

Measurement assumptions:

• All service requests represent incidents
• For this measurement, an incident qualifies as an unplanned interruption to an IT service or a reduction in the quality of an IT service.
• Ratio: the first parameter (Opened) divided by the second parameter (Closed)
• Period: the note under the Worldwide Distribution Chart in your local installation will indicate which period of time has been calculated
• Opened: all incidents that were created during the period. The field used for this purpose is “Request Time.”
• Closed: all incidents that have been closed during the period. The field used for this purpose is “Closed Time,” that is populated as soon as the incident moves to a status of the closed class.

For more detailed information, see Settings under Preferences -> Customize -> Customized Lists -> Statuses.

Measurement calculation:

Ratio: Opened / Closed

Sample values :  1 , 1.06 , 0.97 , 0.90

Discuss, Collaborate, and Learn More

Visit the IT Benchmark Forum on the SysAid Community to:

• Learn more about the different measurements
• Get advice and important insights from SysAid experts
• See what other SysAiders have to say about their IT Benchmark results
• Share your own thoughts and interpretations
• Suggest measurements you’d like to see in the future

If you haven’t already gotten started with the IT Benchmark, go to your local installation, find the IT Benchmark, and make sure the measurements are enabled.  Once you click save, the IT Benchmark will calculate the statistics and provide you with updated information. It’s fast, it’s free, and it’s completely unique to SysAid!