Using Zendesk Support advanced search

<body>
<div class="article-banners">
<div id="docs-wmp-link">
<a href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5411234991258-plan" rel="noopener" target="_blank">What's my plan?</a>
</div>

<div class="article-banner" id="suite_all">
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<strong>All Suites</strong>
</td>
<td>Team, Growth, Professional, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>

<div class="article-banner" id="support_all">
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<strong>Support</strong>
</td>
<td>Team, Professional, or Enterprise</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>

</div>

<div class="body">

<p class="p">In addition to full text search, you can perform an advanced search using common
search operators combined with data property keywords and values to narrow
your results.</p>
<p class="p">Administrators can search everything and agents can search the tickets and users
that they have permission to see. Use this article in conjunction with the
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886879258" target="_blank">Zendesk Support search reference</a>, which
contains tables listing and describing the full set of keywords and values
you can use, to perform an advanced search.</p>
<p class="p">Topics covered in this article:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic-1__ul_cmy_pnw_rm">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_v5y_pp3_y5">Performing an advanced
search</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_j4c_44w_rm">Advanced search terms and
terminology</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_ngr_frb_vc">Search
operators</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_qmq_oxc_vc">Searching for properties
that contain no data</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_gbg_dvw_ld">Searching by date and
time</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_bbp_5rc_y5">Sorting search
results</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_fqt_ztc_y5">Using the 'type'
keyword</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_c2b_gwj_h2b">Suspended and verified users</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_ftq_rqf_x5">Search FAQ</a></li>
</ul>
<div class="p">Related articles:<ul class="ul" id="topic-1__ul_w3s_l4h_5cc">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408894221594" target="_blank">Searching the data in Zendesk
Support</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/8050806061210" target="_blank">Saving Zendesk
Support searches</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_v5y_pp3_y5">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Performing an advanced search</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">You can perform an advanced search in Zendesk Support.</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">To perform an advanced search</strong>
</p>
<div class="p">
<ol class="ol" id="topic_v5y_pp3_y5__ol_hkr_fbt_xr">
<li class="li">In <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408838272410" target="_blank">Support</a>,
click the <strong class="ph b">Search</strong> icon (<img class="image" id="topic_v5y_pp3_y5__image_wq3_3zg_5cc" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/search_icon.png">) in the upper-right of
the top toolbar. <p class="p">You can also hover your mouse
over the <strong class="ph b">+Add</strong> button, then select
<strong class="ph b">Search</strong> from the drop-down menu.</p>
<p class="p">Your
most recent searches and viewed content appear in
a menu. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408894221594#topic_mn4_xxj_f1c" target="_blank">Accessing your
recent searches</a> to learn more.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">Enter your search terms, using the terminology,
operators, and formatting described in the sections
below. </li>
<li class="li">When the search results appear, click the
<strong class="ph b">Tickets</strong>, <strong class="ph b">Users</strong>, <strong class="ph b">Articles</strong>, or
<strong class="ph b">Organizations</strong> tab to filter the results.<p class="p">If you anticipate performing this
search often, you may want to <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/8050806061210" target="_blank">save</a> it so
that it's easily accessible.</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_v5y_pp3_y5__ol_h4w_tth_xcc">
<li class="li">If you currently have a ticket open and the
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/8036381366426" target="_blank">similar tickets
feature is turned on</a>, filtering by
<strong class="ph b">Tickets</strong> shows you a <strong class="ph b">Similar tickets</strong>
header that includes any tickets related to the
ticket you’re currently working on, if
applicable.</li>
<li class="li">If you’ve <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9204149016346-Understanding-and-viewing-AI-agent-tickets-for-AI-agent-only-conversations-EAP#topic_myq_2r1_2gc" target="_blank">turned on AI agent
tickets</a>, for the initial suggested results,
the tooltip below the ticket subject says either
AI agent or Agent.<p class="p"><img class="image" id="topic_v5y_pp3_y5__image_ixr_yth_xcc" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/ai_similar_tickets_search.png" width="600"></p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div class="p">
<div class="note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> Due to <a class="xref" href="https://developer.zendesk.com/rest_api/docs/support/search#results-limit" target="_blank">API rate
limits</a>, advanced search returns only the
first 1,000 results.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_j4c_44w_rm">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Advanced search terms and terminology</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Advanced search allows you to narrow your results by using <em class="ph i">data
property keywords</em>, <em class="ph i">operators</em>, and <em class="ph i">search
terms</em>. In the context of an advanced search:</p>
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul" id="topic_j4c_44w_rm__ul_j1z_dmf_x5">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Data property keywords</strong> indicate that you are
restricting a search to one or more specific data
properties.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Operators</strong> are symbols used to modify the keywords
and focus the search.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Search terms</strong> are the words, phrases, or values
you are searching for.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">Search terms can include any string, including user, organization, or
group names. For example, you can search for "vip" to list all users
tagged as VIPs. However, the results will also include other data
that match the term "vip." For instance, if an
organization has "vip" in its name, like "Midwest VIP
Transportation" or "Viper Reptile Supplies,", it will appear in your
search results even if it doesn't have the VIP tag.</p>
<div class="note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> It can take a few minutes for Support to index new and modified
tickets, users, and other resources. If they don't appear in your
search results, wait a few minutes and try again.</div>
<p class="p">The following is an example of a search string looking for anything with
the tag "vip" that was created before May 1, 2015:</p>
<div class="p">
<pre class="pre codeblock"><code>tags:vip created&lt;2015-05-01</code></pre>
</div>
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul" id="topic_j4c_44w_rm__ul_shs_ktf_x5">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">tags</strong> is a keyword indicating you are searching
only within a specific data property, in this case a
<em class="ph i">tag</em>.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">:</strong> is an operator indicating the <em class="ph i">tag</em>
property needs to match the subsequent search term.
Note that there is no space before or after the
<strong class="ph b">:</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">vip</strong> is the search term referred to by the prior
property/operator combination.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">created</strong> is a keyword indicating you are searching
the <em class="ph i">created</em> data property for items created
relative to a certain date.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">&lt;</strong> is an operator indicating you are searching
for users, tickets, organizations, or articles
created before a certain date.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">2015-05-01</strong> is a search term indicating the date
you want to use.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="p">If submitting multiple search terms, search has a default AND behavior,
rather than an OR behavior. For example, searching for the following
phrase returns results only if <strong class="ph b">all</strong> of the words are present,
in any order.<pre class="pre">Please upgrade my account</pre>
</div>
<p class="p">However, when you use a data property keyword multiple times in a query,
there is an OR search across the values you specified. The following
phrase returns results that contain <strong class="ph b">either</strong> the tag "silver"
or the tag "bronze".</p>
<div class="p">
<pre class="pre">tags:silver tags:bronze</pre>
</div>
<p class="p">To perform an AND search on multiple data property keywords, wrap the
keywords in double quotes. The following phrase returns only results
that contain <strong class="ph b">both</strong> tags, "superman" and "is_awesome".</p>
<div class="p">
<pre class="pre">tags:"superman is_awesome"</pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested1" id="topic_ngr_frb_vc">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">Search operators</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">The following search operators can be used to build your search
statements.</p>
<div class="p">
<div class="tablenoborder">
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="table" frame="border" id="topic_ngr_frb_vc__table_aqr_lhv_uc" rules="all" summary="">
<caption><span class="tablecap"><span class="table--title-label">Table 1. </span>Search operators</span></caption>
<colgroup>
<col style="width:16.5016501650165%">
<col style="width:83.4983498349835%">
</colgroup>
<thead class="thead" style="text-align:left;">
<tr class="row">
<th class="entry nocellnorowborder" id="d88e377" style="vertical-align:top;">Operator</th>
<th class="entry cell-norowborder" id="d88e380" style="vertical-align:top;">Description</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody class="tbody">
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e377" style="vertical-align:top;">: </td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e380" style="vertical-align:top;">The colon indicates that the given field should equal the specified
value.<pre class="pre">status:open</pre>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e377" style="vertical-align:top;">&lt;</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e380" style="vertical-align:top;">Less than. <pre class="pre">status&lt;closed</pre>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e377" style="vertical-align:top;">&gt;</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e380" style="vertical-align:top;">Greater than. <pre class="pre">priority&gt;normal</pre>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e377" style="vertical-align:top;">&lt;=</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e380" style="vertical-align:top;">Less than or equal to. <pre class="pre">status&lt;=pending</pre>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e377" style="vertical-align:top;">&gt;=</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e380" style="vertical-align:top;">Greater than or equal to. <pre class="pre">priority&gt;=normal</pre>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e377" style="vertical-align:top;">" "</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e380" style="vertical-align:top;">Double quotes. In a simple keyword search, this is referred to as a
phrase search and returns the exact words in the exact order; however,
punctuation characters are not
included.<pre class="pre">"Please upgrade my account"</pre>
<div class="note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> In
the Japanese version of Support, this feature does not work as
expected. A simple keyword search that includes double quotes
returns results, but the results are not the exact words in the
exact order.</div>
<p class="p">In a search including data
properties, use double quotes to perform an inclusive AND search,
returning results that include <em class="ph i">all</em> properties in the search. </p>
<div class="p">
<pre class="pre">tags:"superman is_awesome"</pre>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e377" style="vertical-align:top;">- </td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e380" style="vertical-align:top;">Minus sign. Excludes items containing a word (or property value) from
the search results. For example, the following statement searches for
any tickets with the status 'pending', but excludes any tickets
containing the tag 'invoice' from the search results:
<pre class="pre">status:pending -tags:invoice </pre>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry row-nocellborder" headers="d88e377" style="vertical-align:top;">*</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d88e380" style="vertical-align:top;">The wildcard operator is useful when you want to search various forms
of a word. For example, searching for <code class="ph codeph">photo*</code> returns
results that would include photography, photographer, photograph and any
other words that began with 'photo'. <div class="p">However, because of the
performance issues involved with doing wildcard searches,
unqualified wildcard searches are not currently supported. In other
words, you need to use a property keyword to make your search
specific to the data you're trying to locate.
<pre class="pre">subject:photo*</pre>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="topic_qmq_oxc_vc">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">Searching for properties that contain no data</h2>
<div class="body">
<div class="p">Properties that contain no data can be searched for using
<code class="ph codeph">none</code> as the search term, along with the
<em class="ph i">group</em>, <em class="ph i">tags</em>, <em class="ph i">via</em>, <em class="ph i">organization</em>,
or <em class="ph i">assignee</em> keywords, as in this
example:<pre class="pre">assignee:none</pre>
</div>
<p class="p">This returns all unassigned tickets.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title6" class="topic nested1" id="topic_gbg_dvw_ld">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title6">Searching by date and time</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Date property keywords - <em class="ph i">created</em>, <em class="ph i">updated</em>, <em class="ph i">solved</em>,
and <em class="ph i">due date</em>) can be combined with search operators to return
data from a specific date, before a certain date, and after a
certain date. To search dates in any locale, use the format
YYYY-MM-DD. You can also use locale-specific formats such as
MM/DD/YYYY in the United States.</p>
<div class="p">To search for data before a certain date, use the less than (<strong class="ph b">&lt;</strong>)
operator:<pre class="pre">created&lt;2011-05-01</pre>
</div>
<div class="p">To search for data after a certain date, use the greater than (&gt;)
operator:<pre class="pre">due_date&gt;2010-01-10</pre>
</div>
<div class="p">To search for a specific date, use the equals (<strong class="ph b">:</strong>)
operator:<pre class="pre">solved:2010-01-10</pre>
</div>
<p class="p">You can also use the <em class="ph i">&lt;=</em> or <em class="ph i">&gt;=</em> operators to indicate
<em class="ph i">less-than-or-equal-to</em> and
<em class="ph i">greater-than-or-equal-to</em> respectively.</p>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title7" class="topic nested2" id="topic_gq4_cbd_y5">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title7">Searching with combined dates and times</h3>
<div class="body">
<div class="p">You can specify a combined date and time using <a class="xref" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601" target="_blank">ISO8601 syntax</a>:
<pre class="pre">created&gt;2015-09-01T12:00:00-08:00
updated&lt;2015-09-01T12:00:00Z</pre>
</div>
<p class="p">The first example above searches for anything created after
September 1, 2015 at 12:00 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time).</p>
<p class="p">The second example above searches for anything updated before
September 1, 2015 at 12:00 p.m. (UTC). </p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title8" class="topic nested2" id="topic_dcg_dvw_ld">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title8">Searching within a date/time range</h3>
<div class="body">
<div class="p">You can search within a date range, for example August 2, 2014
through August 4, 2014, using the following search
statement:
<pre class="pre">created&gt;2014-08-01 created&lt;2014-08-05</pre>
</div>
<p class="p">You can also include specific times in your search range. The
following example searches for anything created between
August 1, 2014 at 11:59 p.m. (UTC) and August 2, 2014 at
midnight (UTC):</p>
<div class="p">
<pre class="pre">created&gt;2014-08-01T11:59:00Z created&lt;2014-08-05T24:00:00Z</pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title9" class="topic nested2" id="topic_sk4_ps3_y5">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title9">Searching with relative times</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">You can search for a time relative to the present time, using the
time units <em class="ph i">hours</em>, <em class="ph i">minutes</em>, <em class="ph i">days</em>,
<em class="ph i">weeks</em>, <em class="ph i">months</em>, or <em class="ph i">years</em>. The
following search returns anything created in the last four
hours:</p>
<div class="p">
<pre class="pre">created&gt;4hours</pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title10" class="topic nested1" id="topic_qk1_qh2_cl">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title10">Searching for tickets with a specific ticket form</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">You can search for a ticket form and get results for all tickets where
that ticket form is applied. For example, the following search
returns all tickets that use the Change Request ticket form:</p>
<div class="p">
<pre class="pre codeblock"><code>form:"Change Request"</code></pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title11" class="topic nested1" id="topic_bbp_5rc_y5">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title11">Sorting search results</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">You can sort your search results by field, in ascending or descending
order, using the following keyword phrases:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_bbp_5rc_y5__ul_xzr_kt3_y5">
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><code class="ph codeph">order_by:<em class="ph i">field</em></code></p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><code class="ph codeph">sort:asc</code> or
<code class="ph codeph">sort:desc</code></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p class="p">Sorting is available on the following fields:</p>
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul" id="topic_bbp_5rc_y5__ul_kf1_5t3_y5">
<li class="li"><code class="ph codeph">created</code></li>
<li class="li"><code class="ph codeph">commented</code></li>
<li class="li"><code class="ph codeph">priority</code></li>
<li class="li"><code class="ph codeph">status</code></li>
<li class="li"><code class="ph codeph">ticket_type</code></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">Using the <code class="ph codeph">order_by</code> and <code class="ph codeph">sort</code> keywords is
equivalent to using the API parameters <code class="ph codeph">sort_by</code> and
<code class="ph codeph">sort_order</code>.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title12" class="topic nested1" id="topic_fqt_ztc_y5">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title12">Using the 'type' keyword</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">For API searches, one of the tools you have available for narrowing your
search results is the <code class="ph codeph"><em class="ph i">type</em></code> keyword. It is
used to explicitly declare that you want to search for one of the
following types: </p>
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul" id="topic_fqt_ztc_y5__ul_n31_kvc_y5">
<li class="li">ticket</li>
<li class="li">user </li>
<li class="li">organization </li>
<li class="li">group</li>
<li class="li">article (Help Center)</li>
<li class="li">entry or topic (forums) </li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">Using the <code class="ph codeph">type</code> keyword means that you are explicitly
searching on the type you specify. For example, you can search for
all the users that belong to the customer's organization using this
search statement: </p>
<div class="p">
<pre class="pre codeblock"><code>type:user organization:customers</code></pre>
</div>
<p class="p">If you instead searched for <code class="ph codeph">organization:customers</code> you
would also get all the tickets that have requesters who belong to
this organization. This is because searches that do not explicitly
specify type return results for all types, including tickets (and
organization is a ticket property).</p>
<p class="p">Using <code class="ph codeph">type:user</code>, your search returns all users that
belong to the Customers organization. So, you're narrowing your
search to the user type and excluding tickets. </p>
<p class="p">While organizations and groups are properties of the user object, they
have their own properties that can be searched as well. The
following query allows you search only for organization tags,
excluding tags of the same name that may be used in other elements
of Zendesk Support such as tickets and forum topics.</p>
<div class="p">
<pre class="pre codeblock"><code>type:organization tags:premium</code></pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title13" class="topic nested1" id="topic_c2b_gwj_h2b">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title13">Suspended and verified users</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">You can search for users based on whether or not they are suspended, and
whether or not they are verified. Users with any verified identity,
not just an email address, are included in the search results. For
example, users with verified phone numbers are listed.
</p>
<p class="p">To search for suspended users: </p>
<pre class="pre codeblock"><code>is_suspended:true </code></pre>
<div class="p" dir="ltr">To search for verified users:
<pre class="pre codeblock"><code>is_verified:true</code></pre>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title14" class="topic nested1" id="topic_ftq_rqf_x5">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title14">Search FAQ</h2>
<div class="body">
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul" id="topic_ftq_rqf_x5__ul_alc_anz_of">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">How soon can new data be searched?</strong><p class="p">When you add
new data to Zendesk Support, it typically takes
about a minute before it's indexed and can be
searched. It can take 10
to 12 minutes before <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408846801946" target="_blank">live chat and
messaging conversations</a> are indexed.
</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">How does punctuation affect search?</strong><p class="p">Punctuation
characters are generally not included in
searches.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Are there limitations to wildcard searches?</strong><p class="p">You
can only do wildcard searches when combined with
property keywords
(<code class="ph codeph">subject:photo*</code>). The wildcard
must go at the end of the search term.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Who can search what?</strong><p class="p">Administrators can search
all the data in Zendesk Support. Agents can search
the data that they've been granted access to.
End-users can do full text searches of the
knowledge base.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">What languages are supported?</strong></p>
<div class="p">There is language-specific support for searching
in the following languages:<ul class="ul" id="topic_ftq_rqf_x5__ul_f4v_wsn_1r">
<li class="li">Brazilian Portuguese</li>
<li class="li">Dutch</li>
<li class="li">English</li>
<li class="li">French</li>
<li class="li">German</li>
<li class="li">Italian</li>
<li class="li">Japanese</li>
<li class="li">Russian</li>
<li class="li">Spanish</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">The support includes dictionary-based
tokenization for Japanese because words are not
separated by spaces in that language. For the
other languages, the language-specific support is
primarily stemming, which allows different forms
of the same word to match. In particular, the
singular and plural forms of a word will generally
match.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>