The cost of communication is invisible
A recurring status call outlives the project it was built for. Nobody notices. A teammate's messages pile up every night after nine, for weeks, until a resignation letter explains why. Most of a distributed team's day never touches a calendar: it's a Zoom call, a Slack thread, an ad-hoc Teams ping, gone the moment it ends. Communication Report is a standalone report inside Workforce Analytics that splits a team's day into Communication Time and Focus Time, then breaks the communication side down by meeting, call, message, and app.
Availability and access
Status | General Availability |
Release date | August 18, 2026 |
Who is it for | Team leads and Operators on distributed teams; admins rolling out Workforce Analytics |
Where to find it | Reports → Communication Report |
Who can access it | Admins and managers with report access |
Plan availability | Every plan. No upgrade required. |
See Communication Report in action
Inside the report
Seven widgets share the same date range, comparison period, and employee, team, or org-group filters, and the whole report downloads as a PDF.
KPIs surface 2 to 4 metrics a manager picks themselves, each with a percent change against the comparison period.
Communication Load splits the day into Communication Time, Focus Time, and idle or unproductive time.
Communication over Time plots that split daily across the date range, which is what makes a spike, like meetings piling onto an otherwise meeting-light Friday, visible instead of buried in a full calendar.
App Breakdown shows which tool actually carries the day: heavy on email, all-in on Slack, or something else.
Scheduled Meeting Details, once a calendar is connected, breaks meetings down by type, size, and how often each one repeats.
Messaging Details does the same for async habits, split by message type or time of day, which is what surfaces after-hours overload.
Employee Breakdown puts every metric in a searchable, exportable, per-person table.
One clarification worth stating: it counts time and pattern, not content. It totals the time a thread ran or the number of messages that landed after 9 p.m. It doesn't read what was written.
Why it matters
Communication Load turns "meetings are eating the week" from a feeling into a number.
Example: a team logging 115 hours 20 minutes of total work time splits 37% to communication (42h10m), 47% to focus time (54h10m), and 16% to unproductive or idle time.
Once a calendar is connected, Scheduled Meeting Details breaks that down further by type, size, and frequency, so a recurring sync that stopped earning its slot becomes a line item to cancel instead of a guess. For a delivery lead answering to a client SLA, that's the difference between defending a schedule change with a hunch and defending it with a number.
Who it's for
Team leads and Operators on distributed teams deciding whether a meeting is worth keeping, without a number to back the call.
Delivery leads answering to a client SLA who need a schedule change backed by evidence instead of a hunch.
Admins rolling out Workforce Analytics who want the calendar integration adopted, since that's what unlocks the full widget set.
With and without a calendar connection
Connect Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook Calendar from Settings → Integrations, and every metric becomes available, including Scheduled Meeting Time and Ad-hoc Call Time, with all seven widgets visible.
Skip that step, and two things disappear: Scheduled Meeting Time and Ad-hoc Call Time as separate metrics, and the Scheduled Meeting Details widget entirely. A manager sees a prompt to ask their admin. An admin sees a direct call to action to connect one.
How to access it
Open
Reportsin the left navigation.Select
Communication Report.Set a date range, and a comparison period if you want to see week-over-week movement; filter by employee, team, or org group as needed.
To unlock Scheduled Meeting Details and the scheduled-versus-ad-hoc split, connect a calendar from
Settings → Calendar.
Frequently asked questions:
What does Communication Report do?
It splits a team's day into Communication Time and Focus Time, then breaks the communication side down by meeting, call, message, and app across seven widgets.
Does it require a calendar connection?
No. It works before one is connected. Connecting Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook Calendar adds the Scheduled Meeting Details widget and splits scheduled meetings from ad-hoc calls.
Is it included in my plan?
Yes, on every plan, with no upgrade or add-on fee.
Does it read the message content?
No. It counts time and pattern: how long a thread ran, how many messages arrived after hours. It doesn't read what was written.
Which calendars can I connect?
Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook Calendar, both from Settings → Calendar.
Related Resources
Productivity Trends: the companion report for how a team's output is moving.
Calendar integration setup guide: steps for connecting Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook Calendar.