How much notice does Zendesk give for feature removal?

Zendesk wants to make sure we give everyone ample notice of any feature or functionality removal. We understand, as consumers of Software as a Service ourselves, just how disruptive change can be.

The following table provides guidelines for the minimum amount of notice Zendesk aims to provide before a fully supported and available feature or product is removed.

Project type | End of life timeline
Low effort and impact | At least one month
Medium effort and impact | At least two months
High effort and impact | At least three months

Notes:

The deadlines of externally mandated changes may be outside the control of Zendesk. Such changes may not follow this feature deprecation schedule.

Zendesk may not follow these timelines if the removal of features or products is deemed necessary for security reasons.

These timeframes are not applicable to non-standard services like pre-release features offered under Beta or Early Access Program terms or Built by Zendesk Applications.

These timeframes do not apply to modifications of features and products.

Milestones

As explained in How Zendesk communicates feature removal, there are many types of communication we'll use to make sure everyone is informed about upcoming feature removals.

All of that communication is organized around key milestones. For the purpose of our policy, a "milestone" is defined as a significant event leading up to the feature's removal date.

Zendesk will also use other communication methods, such as an alert in your account or within the feature itself. See How Zendesk communicates feature removal to learn more about the different communication methods used.

After an announcement has been made, no further improvements or new functionality will be added to the deprecated feature.

Announcement milestone

The first milestone for a feature removal is the announcement. At this point, Zendesk will create an article in the Announcement section of the help center.

End of development milestone

When the end of development has been reached, there will be no real noticeable change to the feature or functionality.

At this point that Zendesk will:

No longer resolve most bugs or cosmetic issues

Continue to resolve major breakage in functionality

Continue to keep documentation available

Limit support to issues related to the feature's removal and/or migration to its replacement functionality (when available)

Removal milestone

The final milestone is the removal date itself. It is at this point Zendesk will begin removing the feature or functionality. Depending on the feature, this may result in the feature or functionality being removed entirely or your account being automatically migrated over to the new functionality.