Share of conversation volume handled by each Intercom team over the window, as a donut.
At a glance
Workload by Team is a Support Performance metric tracked from your Intercom workspace. It is the staffing-allocation view: of all the conversations flowing through support this week, what slice does each team carry? Read as a donut, it makes imbalance obvious — if Returns owns half the workspace’s volume but has one agent, you can see the mismatch before it becomes a backlog. For Blitz, this card is the bridge between demand (where conversations land) and capacity (where your people are), and it pairs naturally with the speed cards to explain why a team is slow. It carries no sentiment key or alert; it is an allocation picture, not a verdict.
| What it counts | Each team’s share of conversation volume in the window, by team_assignee_id. Rendered as a donut where each slice is one team’s proportion of total handled conversations. |
| Sample type | API-derived from the Intercom Teams and Conversations endpoints, grouping conversations by assigned team. |
| Why it matters | It shows where demand actually lands. Comparing each team’s volume share against its headcount reveals over- and under-staffed queues before they turn into slow response times. |
| Reading the value | Read the slices proportionally. A slice far larger than its team’s headcount share is your capacity risk; a tiny slice may signal a specialty queue or a routing rule that rarely fires. |
| Currency | number |
| Time window | 7D |
| Alert trigger | — |
| Sentiment key | none |
| Roles | owner, operations |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Intercom data. Vortex IQ counts conversations handled in the trailing 7 days, groups them byteam_assignee_id, and renders each team’s count as a slice of the donut. Conversations with no team assignee are grouped into an “unassigned / general” slice so nothing is dropped. There is no threshold on this card — it is built to be read against headcount and against the speed cards rather than alerted on directly.
Worked example
A representative reading for Blitz over 7 days. The donut splits as Orders & Delivery 48%, Sizing & Product 31%, and Returns 21%. On its own that looks reasonable — until you overlay headcount: Orders has 2 agents, Sizing has 1, and Returns has 1. So Sizing’s single agent is carrying nearly a third of all volume, and sure enough First-Response Time by Team shows Sizing as the slowest queue. The donut turns an abstract “we feel busy” into a concrete reallocation: move one agent’s hours toward Sizing, or add a self-serve sizing guide to cut the inflow. Use Vortex Mind to see how each team’s slice trends week over week, and Ask Viq to answer “which team’s share of volume grew most this month?”Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why merchants reach for it |
|---|---|
ic_first_response_by_team | Pairs each team’s volume share with how fast it responds. |
ic_handled_by_agent | Drills the team slice down to individual agent load. |
ic_busiest_hours | Shows when each team’s workload arrives, for shift planning. |
ic_top_tags | Explains what is driving a team’s volume share. |
ic_volume_trend | Tracks whether total volume is rising under the whole donut. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Intercom’s own dashboard: Open Reports → Team performance and read conversations per team, or open each team’s Inbox view to see its assigned volume. Settings → Teammates & teams confirms how teams are defined. Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:| Reason | Direction | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Reassignment. Vortex IQ attributes a conversation to its current team assignee; a conversation that bounced between teams is counted once, where it ended. | Variable | Check conversations that moved teams mid-thread. |
| Unassigned bucket. Vortex IQ folds conversations with no team assignee into a general slice; a vendor view may omit them entirely. | Vortex IQ shows extra slice | Decide whether to include unassigned volume. |
| Window boundary. Vortex IQ uses a rolling 7-day window; the vendor view may use calendar weeks. | Variable | Align the date range. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
Q: How often does Workload by Team update? The card refreshes on the standard data refresh (typically every 30-60 minutes for live integrations). For a real-time read, force a manual refresh from the dashboard. Q: Why does my Intercom report show a different number? The usual causes are reassignment (Vortex IQ attributes to the current team), whether unassigned conversations are shown, and window boundary (rolling vs calendar week). Match these before assuming a real divergence. Q: What is the “unassigned” slice? Conversations with noteam_assignee_id — typically those still in general triage or routed to an individual rather than a team. Investigate if this slice is large; it often means routing rules need tightening.
Q: Why does this card have no alert?
A volume distribution is neutral on its own. The actionable signals appear when you compare it against headcount and against the speed and SLA cards, which carry their own alerts.