Why do I see a difference between the data I get through APIs and the results from my Explore reports and dashboards?

Question

Why do I see a difference between the data I see using APIs and Explore?

Answer

You might see a difference between the results you get through APIs and Explore for the below reasons:

The calculations might be different. API endpoints and Explore metrics do not always calculate results in the same way.
- For APIs, read the API endpoint description. For example, the count ticket GET api/v2/tickets/count endpoint provides an approximate count of tickets.
- For Explore metrics, check the metric's formula calculation in the Metrics and attributes articles.
The data might be processed differently. API endpoints pull data from the source without altering it, while Explore predigests and processes data to provide powerful dashboards and reports.
The data refresh times might be different. An API call gathers the exact result at the time the API endpoint is called, while Explore has various refresh rates. There might be a discrepancy between Explore and your API load.

After checking the reasons above, if you still see a significant discrepancy between your API calls and your Explore results, contact Zendesk Customer Support.

For more information, see these articles: