Best practices for creating custom layouts

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Enterprise plans can have multiple layouts active at the same time for different types of tickets. Professional plans can have only one active layout. See Plan requirements for custom layouts.

Layout builder opens the door to customizing the layout of the Zendesk Agent Workspace to your team’s individual workflows. This helps improve agent efficiency by surfacing relevant information and removing distractions. Agents can immediately focus on the task at hand with fewer clicks. Custom layouts enable you to hide less-commonly-used components in the context panel. You can also maximize use of available real estate by stacking components vertically or creating a layout that is four columns.

This article describes some common scenarios where admins can create a custom layout in the Agent Workspace and agents can benefit. You can use these scenarios as a model for creating your own custom layouts. Once you create custom layouts, make sure you continually gather feedback from your agents to ensure the layouts are optimized for their success.

This article contains the following topics:

Scenario 1: Improve agent efficiency

Scenario 2: Tailor the agent interface (Enterprise only) (Enterprise only)

Scenario 3: Remove distractions

Scenario 4: Improve readability

Scenario 5: Integrate AI capabilities (legacy)

Scenario 1: Improve agent efficiency

This scenario shows you how to improve agent efficiency by taking mission critical apps out of the sidebar and putting them front and center.

Your company has several private apps that have been developed and installed. They provide critical customer information. Your agent workflows include finding customer information in App 1 that they can add into ticket fields and then add order information into App 2.

Without layout builder, your agents need to continually click into the Apps panel to locate App 1 and 2 to complete their workflow. With layout builder, your two custom apps can be brought into the main part of the ticket layout for an “always on” view. This reduces the number of clicks and ensures that your agents are able to quickly find and add information. They don't have to click back and forth into the Apps panel to locate the apps.

Scenario 2: Tailor the agent interface (Enterprise only)

This scenario shows you how to tailor the agent interface for different groups of agents who provide different levels of service.

Your company is a multi-national luxury lifestyle business that has three different levels of service depending on the customer’s ARR. Group 1 consists of top-tier agents who provide instant, personalized support to VIP customers who have special product requests. Group 2 consists of experienced agents who manage product shipping and returns for mid-level customers and wholesale distributors. Group 3 consists of agents who manage the knowledge base and self-service support for entry-level customers who typically purchase items from the company website. Each one of these groups leverages different apps, knowledge bases, and features such as side conversations and Advanced AI.

Your company is able to use custom layouts in combination with contextual workspaces to create a specialized workspace for each group of agents:

Group 1 has a layout that emphasizes social messaging channels and social messaging contact information so agents can respond instantly to VIP customer requests, no matter how the customers reach out.

Group 2 has a layout that has ticket fields, the conversation pane, and side conversations. Their main workflow is for passing email requests to their offshore Shipping and Returns teams.

Group 3 has a layout that spotlights the Knowledge section prominently to help agents find, maintain, and automate relevant product information that customers can reference on the web when they decide to purchase. The layout gives agents enough screen real estate for a better reading experience.

Each of these groups automatically gets their unique layouts through contextual workspaces.

Group 1: Social messaging

Group 2: Side conversations

Group 3: Knowledge and Knowledge Capture

Scenario 3: Remove distractions

This scenario shows you how to remove distractions by hiding unused components in the context panel.

Your company is a travel booking platform that is focused on the contact center and handles the majority of customer cases over the phone. As such, your agents have little use for the conversation pane and only use ticket fields and the Apps section to capture information and resolve tickets. The conversation pane is taking up unnecessary space in the ticket interface and is a distraction.

With a custom layout, your company is able to hide the conversation pane in the context panel. By doing this, you ensure that your agents have the optimal workspace that only shows the relevant information in a streamlined user interface.

Scenario 4: Improve readability

This scenario shows you how to improve readability by configuring the conversation pane.

Your company is a large scale manufacturer. The majority of your customer tickets are submitted through email, so the reading experience for your agents is absolutely critical.

To help create that optimal reading and writing experience for your agents in an email-first workflow, you can create a custom layout that sets the order of messages so the most recent is shown at the top of the conversation and has the editor default to a minimized state.

Scenario 5: Integrate AI capabilities (legacy)

Note: This is a legacy configuration. If you have agent copilot activated in your account, these capabilities appear directly in the main ticket interface. Intelligence in the context panel does not exist.

This scenario shows you how to integrate AI capabilities as a core part of workflows.

Your company handles food delivery and your agents process hundreds of tickets each day. Efficiency is key. Your agents need to resolve tickets as quickly as possible as customers message them in real-time. Any slowdown in ticket processing has a direct impact on customer satisfaction and your company’s growth. Your company recently began using Zendesk’s AI offerings as a way to aid your agents.

Creating a custom layout can amplify AI offerings such as intelligent triage and sentiment by placing the AI signals directly next to the customer conversation. This allows your agents to prioritize their efforts appropriately and complete tickets with higher confidence and speed.