# What is Backlog?

> Open tickets waiting on someone, and the clearest early sign a team is underwater.

Canonical: https://www.decimal.app/glossary/backlog · Last reviewed: 2026-09-23

A support backlog is the set of unresolved tickets at a point in time. Teams usually track its size, its age distribution, and how much of it is waiting on another team such as engineering.

## Why it matters

A growing backlog means demand is outpacing capacity. When the oldest tickets are mostly escalations, the bottleneck isn't support headcount, it's engineering time.

## Best practices

1. Watch age, not just count. Fifty tickets under a day old is healthy; ten tickets over two weeks old is a problem.
2. Tag who's blocking. Separate tickets waiting on the customer, on support, and on engineering.
3. Review weekly. Close stale tickets, merge duplicates, and push known issues to a single tracking ticket.

## How Decimal helps

Decimal works every ticket as it arrives, which keeps escalation-bound tickets from piling up while they wait for an engineer.

## Related terms

- [Ticket Triage](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/ticket-triage): Sorting incoming tickets by type, urgency, and owner before work begins.
- [Engineering Escalation](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/engineering-escalation): A ticket support hands to engineering because it needs code-level investigation.
- [Service Level Agreement (SLA)](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/sla): A contractual commitment on response or resolution times.
- [Queue](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/queue): A list of tickets waiting to be picked up by a team or agent.

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