Announcing support for comments within an approval request

Announced on | Rollout starts | Rollout ends
November 3, 2025 | November 3, 2025 | November 6, 2025

Zendesk is excited to announce the addition of comment threads to approval requests.

This announcement includes the following topics:

What is changing?

Why is Zendesk making this change?

What do I need to do?

What is changing?

Originally, approvers had two options for responding to an approval request: approve or deny. Now, agent approvers have a third option, which allows them to communicate directly with the ticket assignees within the context of the approval request. Comment threads in approval requests make the approval request itself a single source of information by providing insight into the decision making process and any additional information taken into consideration.

Key features of comments within approval requests include:

The ability to post and view an approval request's comments from the moment the request is created until it is approved, denied, or withdrawn

Email notifications to the approver and ticket assignee, respectively, when new comments are added

"New" indicators for unread comments in an approval request

Comments are associated with an individual approval request rather than the ticket as a whole

Comments are only allowed while the approval request's status is pending. No comments can be added after the request is approved, denied, or withdrawn

At this time comments within approval requests are supported for agent approvers only. For the time being, end user approvers still have only the options to approve or deny a request.

For more information, see Responding to approval requests as an agent.

Why is Zendesk making this change?

Zendesk realized that, currently, agent approvers are using separate channels, such as ticket notes, email, Slack, or Teams, to clarify approval details prior to responding to the approval request. The fragmentation of these conversations can lead to delays, loss of context, and incomplete audit trails that all add up to unclear decision-making process.

Supporting comment threads within the approval request itself is designed to improve communication clarity and efficiency, reduce approval response times, increase completion rates, and enhance satisfaction of the approval process overall.

What do I need to do?

This change is being rolled out to all accounts with access to approvals. No action is required. Agents working in tickets with approval requests and agent approvers will automatically have the option to add and view comments within the requests. For more information, see Responding to approval requests as an agent.

If you have feedback or questions related to this announcement, visit our community forum where we collect and manage customer product feedback. For general assistance with your Zendesk products, contact Zendesk Customer Support.