New vs Closed, Intercom

Conversations created versus conversations closed per day over 30 days — whether your team is keeping pace with demand. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it.

Metrics type: Supporting Metrics • Category: Conversation Intelligence

Two lines on one chart: conversations opened versus conversations closed each day. When closed falls behind new, your backlog is growing.

At a glance

New vs Closed is a Conversation Intelligence metric tracked from Intercom data. It overlays daily created volume and daily closed volume on a dual-axis chart so the support lead at Blitz can see, at a glance, whether the team is clearing work as fast as it arrives. When the closed line sits at or above the new line, you are holding steady or catching up; when closed runs below new for several days, backlog is quietly accumulating. This is the single best early-warning read for a support queue that is starting to drown.

What it counts	Two daily series over the trailing 30 days: New = conversations with created_at on that day; Closed = conversations whose state moved to closed (statistics.last_close_at) on that day. The same conversation can appear in New on one day and Closed on another.
Sample type	Backend API data from Intercom (conversations search by created_at and by close time), refreshed on the standard data refresh.
Why it matters	This is the flow balance of your support operation. Sustained “new > closed” guarantees a rising backlog, longer waits, and eventually worse CSAT — well before those lagging metrics move. Catching it here gives the founder time to add capacity or deflect demand.
Reading the value	Compare the two lines, not absolute heights. Closed tracking just under new is normal (today’s work closes tomorrow). The warning sign is a persistent gap with closed below new — that gap is your backlog growth rate. A closed line spiking far above new signals a queue clean-up or a batch auto-close.
Currency	number
Time window	30D
Alert trigger	closed < new for 7d (backlog growing)
Sentiment key	null
Roles	owner, operations

Calculation

Calculated automatically from your Intercom data. Vortex IQ builds two daily series over the trailing 30 days. The New series counts conversations by created_at. The Closed series counts conversations by the day their state last transitioned to closed, derived from conversation.statistics.last_close_at. Because a conversation can be created one day and closed another, the two series are independent — the card does not net them per conversation. The threshold logic compares the rolling daily sums: if total closed stays below total new across a 7-day stretch, the backlog-growing alert fires. See the worked example below for a typical reading.

Worked example

A representative reading of New vs Closed for Blitz on Intercom. For most of the month the two lines move together — around 45 new and 44 closed on a typical weekday — so backlog holds flat. After a big product drop, new climbs to ~70/day while the two-agent team can only close ~50/day. The lines separate and stay apart. The alert fires after seven days of closed trailing new, and the support lead reads off the gap: roughly 20 conversations a day are piling up, which Open Backlog Trend confirms is climbing. The founder approves a temporary third agent. Over the next week the closed line lifts above new as the team works down the queue, the lines re-converge, and backlog flattens. For deeper investigation, use Vortex Mind to attribute the gap to a channel or topic; for natural-language exploration, ask Ask Viq “how many days has closed trailed new this month?”.

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

Card	Why merchants reach for it
ic_volume_trend	The “new” line in isolation, with full daily shape and spike detail.
ic_backlog_trend	The cumulative consequence: where the new-minus-closed gap actually lands.
ic_open_conversations	The real-time count of what is still unworked right now.
ic_median_resolution	Explains a sagging closed line — slower resolutions mean fewer closes per day.
ic_workload_by_team	Shows whether you have the capacity to lift the closed line back up.

Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in Intercom’s own dashboard:

In Reports → Conversations, Intercom exposes “New conversations” and “Closed conversations” as separate metrics that you can chart over the same 30-day range. Plot both to reproduce this card. Note that Intercom’s “Closed” counts close events on the day they happen, which matches the Vortex IQ Closed series; the Inbox “Closed” view shows lifetime closed and will not match a daily series.

Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:

Reason	Direction	What to do
Reopen handling. A conversation closed, reopened, and closed again can register two close events. Vortex IQ counts each close on its day, as does Intercom Reports.	Neutral	Cross-check with Reopen Rate if closed looks inflated.
Time zone. Close and create timestamps are bucketed in your reporting time zone, not necessarily the workspace zone.	Marginal	Align the two time zones, or compare weekly sums.
Auto-close rules. Workflows that auto-close idle conversations create batch closes that lift the closed line without agent effort.	Closed higher	Confirm your auto-close workflow settings before reading a healthy gap.

Cross-connector reconciliation: a widening gap that starts the day after an Adyen refusal spike or a stockout points to demand from a commerce incident — line this card up against Support Spike on Failed Payments. For divergence investigations, use Vortex Mind.

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Q: How often does New vs Closed update? The card refreshes on the standard data refresh (typically every 30-60 minutes for live integrations). The current day’s two points keep moving until the day closes.

Q: Why does my Intercom dashboard show a different number? The most common reasons are reopen/auto-close handling, time-zone alignment, and whether bot conversations are included. Match these in Reports → Conversations before assuming a divergence.

Q: Why don’t new and closed net to my backlog change exactly? Because conversations carried over from before the window, snoozed conversations, and merges all affect open count without appearing as a same-day create or close. Use Open Backlog Trend for the authoritative cumulative figure.

Q: Can I customise the alert threshold? Yes. The “closed < new for 7 days” rule is configurable per profile in the Alert Rules tab — tighten the day count for a faster warning or loosen it to reduce noise.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

New vs Closed is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Intercom and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English.

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