Views

What are Zendesk views?

As per Zendesk:

Views are a way to organize your tickets by grouping them into lists based on certain criteria. For example, you can create a view for unsolved tickets that are assigned to you, a view for new tickets that need to be triaged, or a view for pending tickets that are awaiting response. Using views can help you determine what tickets need attention from you or your team and plan accordingly.

Currently, Zendesk has 3 view types:

• Default: Pre-defined views created by Zendesk
• Shared: Views created by the Zendesk Administrator(s) (ie. Support Ops)
• Personal: Views created by you and usable only by you

Currently, Zendesk views have some limitations:

• Only 12 visible views (Default and Shared) will be displayed.
• Views cannot use criteria that is not “defined”, meaning it must be selectable data (text fields will not work, as an example).
• You can only display up to 8 personal views and Support Ops cannot manage/view them.
• Views will not include archived tickets (i.e. Closed tickets after 120 days.)

How do we maintain them?

Instead of managing Zendesk views via Zendesk itself, we instead use GitLab projects to maintain them. This allows us to have version-controlled views.

You can find our Zendesk view projects via:

• Zendesk Global
• Zendesk US Federal

Moving tickets between views

The criteria for most views is centered around the form the ticket is using. But there are some scenarios where the tags on a ticket can cause it to show in multiple areas.

As such, it is best to reach out to Support Operations for guidance.

Creating a view via Zendesk

To create a view in Zendesk, you first need to go to the Admin Center (Zendesk Global / Zendesk US Federal). From there, you need to go to the Views page (Workspaces > Agent tools > Views).

After doing so, you will then click the Add view button on the top-right side of the page. This will then load up the new view page.

From here, you will:

1. the name of the view
2. a description of the view (normally a request link)
3. who has access to the view
   • Any agent means it is globally shared
   • Agents in a specific group means it is shared only to those in specific groups
   • Only you means you are making a personal view
4. the conditions of the view
   • It is recommend to use the Preview feature to be sure the tickets it pulls are the ones you intended for it to pull.
5. which columns to show in the view (and in what order from left to right)
6. what grouping to use (and which order for the grouping)
   • Note: grouping order is based on the group item’s Zendesk ID
7. what sorting to use (and which order for the sorting)
8. Note: sorting order is based on the group item’s Zendesk ID

With all of that entered, click the blue Save button at the bottom-right of the page to create the view.

Editing a view via Zendesk

To edit a view, you will first go to the Admin Center (Zendesk Global / Zendesk US Federal). rom there, you need to go to the Views page (Workspaces > Agent tools > Views).

Once on the view list page, locate the view in the list (if looking to edit a personal view, you will need to change the filter on the right side below the Add view button to Personal views) and click on the title. This will bring up the view editor page (which is essentially the same as the view creation page).

Once you are done making your edits, click the blue Save button at the bottom-right of the page to save the changes.

Deactivating a view via Zendesk

There are actually two ways to deactivate a view in the Zendesk UI. The quicker way is to go to the views page, locate the view in question, hover over it, and click the three vertical dots on the right-hand side. This will bring up a sub-menu, which contains the option to Deactivate. Click that option and the view will be deactivated.

The alternative way to deactivate a view in the Zendesk UI is from within the view editor page. At the bottom right, ensure the dropdown says Deactivate and then click the blue Submit button.

Note: Deactivating a view does not change its position. This value is retained in the backend. Re-enabling the view will have it take the same position it was in while previously active.

Positioning

Many components of Zendesk using positioning to determine the overall run order. With views being how agents locate tickets, it is often very important to consider positioning.

By default, new views gain a position of N+1, where N is the highest position value of all views currently in Zendesk (both active and inactive). This is desired and we should rarely need to change this.

To edit positions in the Zendesk UI, go to the views page. From there, click the three horizontal dots at the top-right of the page (on the same line as the search bar). That will bring up a sub-menu with the option Reorder page. Clicking that will then allow you to drag and drop the list of views into the order you desire. After making the changes, click the blue Save button at the top right of the page.

Note: Both active and inactive views have an integer positional value. While this does not matter in the UI, it will matter in the repo sync we utilize.

Because only 12 non-personal views can be shown to any one agent, positioning is very important for views. You can make hundreds of them, but they won’t all show (and if no one can see the view, it isn’t very useful). As such, you need consider the following when creating/editing views:

• what views are the most important for agents.
• which views absolutely need to show based on the agent workflows.
• what kind of groups can agents be in, and how that might conflict with the views that show

View standards

To ensure all views we utilize are both consistent in nature and transparent in their actions, we strive to meet some standards on all views we work with.

Naming standards

The name used for the view should be simple, clear, and concise. You want the name to convey what the view is used for.

Condition standards

Generally speaking, we aim to make view conditions as simple as possible. When possible, you should use condition sets that are very specific and succinct. As an example, if you wanted a view to only run when the form is Support Ops, it is better to simply put a condition of “Form is Support Ops” than adding exclusions for every other form. This can take time and practice to learn, so when in doubt, pair with the rest of the Support Ops team!

Change management

As these are maintained via sync repositories, our standard change management process applies to all Zendesk views. See standard change management for more information.

Labels to use

For all issues and MRs involving views, the label Support-Ops-Category::Views should be used.

Change criticality

Due to the nature and impact adding/editing/deleting Zendesk views can impose on agents, all issues/MRs related to Zendesk views will be classified as either criticality 2 or criticality 3

The exception to this would be simple changes with very little impact, such as:

• Changing the column order
• Adding a new column