A lot of the workday happens in Zoom calls, Slack huddles, Teams, and Meet. Much of it never lands on a calendar, so it's hard to see how much time communication really takes.
There's no single “right” amount of communication. For some teams, a communication-heavy day is the job itself - sales, for example, lives in customer meetings - while for others, like engineering, the same load can quietly steal away at time meant for focused work. That's exactly the insight this report gives leaders: the visibility to tell one situation from the other, team by team.
You'll find it in the Reports section of the app. It's available on all plans, for admins and managers. Admins can look across the whole organization, where managers across the teams they manage. Admins can also show or hide the report for their organization via a dedicated feature permission, so it can be rolled out selectively. Below is an overview of the report: the filters, each of its widgets, and how it changes depending on whether a calendar integration is connected.
See the Communication Report in action
Watch the video below for a quick walkthrough of the Communication Report.
Finding and filtering the report
Open Reports → Communication Report. Every view starts with the standard report toolbar:
Date range - pick a period using the calendar presets, with a related comparison period. All the % changes in the report are measured against it.
Filters - narrow the view down to specific employees, teams, or org groups (org groups appear only if your organization uses them).
Download - export the complete view as a PDF to share it onward.
Inside the report
1. KPIs - the at-a-glance pulse
A customizable key-metrics panel. Click Edit KPIs to pick from 2 to 4 metrics, each shown as a Total or a Daily Average. Every tile shows the value plus its % change against the comparison period, color-coded by direction, and hovering the “?” gives you a plain-language explanation of how the metric is calculated.
Preferences are saved per user, so each person keeps their own view.
The metrics you can choose from:
Scheduled Meeting Time — time in meetings that appear on a connected calendar. *
Ad-hoc Call Time — time in unscheduled calls and huddles that never made it onto a calendar. *
Call Time — total time in meetings and calls, scheduled or not.
Async Communication — time spent in messaging and email apps & websites.
Meeting % of Work Time — the share of total work time spent in meetings and calls.
Focus Time — potential productive time outside meetings and communication.
* Requires an active calendar integration.
2. Communication Load — where the workday goes
Splits the average day into Communication Time, Focus Time, and Unproductive & idle time — showing whether communication is crowding out space for real, heads-down work. Communication time covers both meetings and calls and asynchronous messaging. Each slice can be read as a share of the daily average or of total work time.
3. Communication over Time — spot trends and spikes
Daily communication volume across the selected period, split into scheduled meetings, ad-hoc calls, messaging, and email. Paired with the comparison period it shows week-over-week movement, and makes trends and anomalies easy to catch — say, meetings appearing on meetingless Fridays, or which channel dominates for a team or the whole organization.
4. App Breakdown — which tools drive the culture
Communication broken down by the specific apps helps understand what a team's communication culture actually looks like: email-heavy, Slack-only, or something in between. Time spent in apps that aren't recognized as communication tools now counts as potential Focus Time and shows in green, instead of being grouped under gray “Other” — keeping the breakdown focused on actual communication versus focused work. The All Apps / Meeting Apps / Async toggle narrows the split to the channel you're interested in.
5. Scheduled Meeting Details — how meetings are planned
Scheduled meetings through three lenses:
Type — internal, or external.
Size — 1:1, small, or large.
Frequency — one off, or recurring.
This widget requires an active calendar integration.
6. Messaging Details — how the team messages
A closer look at async messaging habits. The Type / Time of Day toggle switches between the two views — helpful for spotting overload patterns like heavy after-hours messaging.
7. Employee Breakdown — the person-by-person view
A per-employee table with all the communication metrics in one place — useful for identifying who's overloaded with meetings, under-communicating, or short on focus time. Search, column selection, and download let you tailor the view and share it onward.
With and without a calendar integration
The report works either way, but more of it unlocks when your organization has an active calendar integration; that's what lets Insightful match call time to calendar events and split it into scheduled and ad-hoc.
With a calendar connected:
All metrics are available, including Scheduled Meeting Time and Ad-hoc Call Time.
All widgets are available, including Scheduled Meeting Details.
Without a calendar:
The Scheduled Meeting Time and Ad-hoc Call Time metrics are unavailable, you'll see combined Call Time instead.
The Scheduled Meeting Details widget is hidden.
Admins see a prompt in the report to connect a calendar integration; managers see a prompt to ask their admin to connect one.
Tip: Calendar integrations (Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook Calendar) import your employees' meetings into Insightful — connecting one is what unlocks the report's full value.
If you have any questions about the Communication Report, reach out to our support team. We're happy to help!