Migrating to the Zendesk Agent Workspace

<body>
<p id="docs-hc-snippet" style="display: none;">This article describes how to migrate your account to use theZendesk Agent Workspace, which enables agents to manage email, chat, voice, and messaging conversations all within a single ticket interface.</p>
<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">

<div class="note fastpath">
<span class="fastpathtitle">Location: </span> <span class="ph">Admin Center &gt; Workspaces &gt; Agent tools &gt; Agent
Workspace</span>
</div>
<p class="p">This article describes how to migrate your account to use the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821259930" target="_blank">Zendesk Agent Workspace</a>, which enables agents to manage email, chat,
voice, and messaging conversations all within a single ticket interface.</p>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">The workspace enables agents to work seamlessly across all Zendesk channels. Agents
can use the appropriate channels to address issues, without being restricted to the channel in
which the customer originally made contact. Zendesk has found that, on average, companies see
significant improvements to customer reply and resolution times after moving over.</p>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">This article includes the following sections:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic-1__ul_mct_b21_bhb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_c1g_2fq_wnb">Before you migrate</a></li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr"><a class="xref" href="#topic_m1x_qhq_nkb">About the migration</a></li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr"><a class="xref" href="#topic_cyn_4lq_nkb">Starting the migration</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_lwk_2xq_nkb">After the migration</a></li>
</ul>
<p class="p">Related articles</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic-1__ul_fkp_dds_z4b">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821259930" target="_blank">About the Zendesk Agent Workspace</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408824569114" target="_blank">Migrating social messaging channels to the Zendesk Agent
Workspace</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_c1g_2fq_wnb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Before you migrate</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p" dir="ltr">The Agent Workspace provides a completely-new working environment for your agents
with a great set of tools to manage interactive, cross-channel conversations. The benefits
are significant, but there are some considerations. </p>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">Make sure you consider these items before you migrate:</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Account management</strong></p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_c1g_2fq_wnb__ul_tzx_kfq_wnb">
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Activating the workspace applies to your entire account. You cannot restrict
the activation to individual agents or agent groups. If you have an Enterprise account,
you can test out the activation in a Sandbox first before you activate it in your
production account. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4581758611866#topic_jpk_lwg_rlb" target="_blank">Preparing to activate</a>. </li>
<li class="li">With migration to the Agent Workspace, Chat is
integrated with Support. To make it more a seamless experience, chats are created as
tickets and have the ticket rules applied to them. This means that both <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886797466" target="_blank">Support triggers</a> and <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408884148762" target="_blank">Chat triggers</a> can have an impact on chats or other messaging
types in the Agent Workspace. <p class="p"> For example, a trigger that changes the status of the
ticket to Solved and is encompassing enough to catch an incoming chat, might force an
incoming chat to be auto-closed. Before you migrate, Zendesk recommends checking any
triggers that change ticket status to make sure they are compatible with Chat and other
messaging channels and don't have any conflicts.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">If Data Center Location (DCL) is important to your account, make sure you understand our
Zendesk <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408883599130-Regional-Data-Hosting-Policy" target="_blank">Regional Data Hosting Policy</a>. Also, make sure you
understand which Agent Workspace features <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821805338#topic_lts_bdf_vpb" target="_blank">support DCL</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Chat and messaging</strong></p>
<div class="p">During the migration, Chat departments and Support groups are merged. Admins manage agents
through Support groups, instead of departments on the Chat dashboard. Admins have a single
location for managing collections of agents instead of switching between interfaces. See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821752346" target="_blank">Managing groups of agents</a>. <div class="note warning">
<span class="warningtitle">Warning:</span> This merge cannot
be reversed. After migration, all activities associated with adding, updating, and
deleting groups of agents in Support also affect Chat departments.
</div>
</div>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_c1g_2fq_wnb__ul_ey4_5p2_qrb">
<li class="li">To migrate your Chat account, you need an account with Chat Phase 3 or Chat Phase 4. See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408836197658" target="_blank">Determining your Zendesk Chat account version</a>.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Chats are served directly from the ticket interface, agents cannot serve chats
from the Chat dashboard. Agents have one single location to manage all their conversations
(chats, social messages, web messages). <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408843683226-Receiving-and-sending-social-messages-in-the-Zendesk-Agent-Workspace#topic_fzy_pxj_2mb" target="_blank">See Answering a message</a>.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Agents cannot see the contents of a chat or message before accepting it, but
chat routing for messaging has been improved to help get chats and messages to the right
agents at the right time. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408824058138#topic_nbm_dsl_2mb" target="_blank">Setting triggers, automations, and views for
messaging</a> and <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821905434#topic_zgt_l3h_3nb" target="_blank">Business rules for messaging</a>.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Multi-agent chats are not supported, but agents can transfer chats to other
agents. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408822136346" target="_blank">Sharing chats with other agents</a>. The chat visitor
path is only available during a live chat. </li>
</ul>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Ticket interface</strong></p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_c1g_2fq_wnb__ul_z1j_dq2_qrb">
<li class="li" dir="ltr">To provide a more-natural flow, conversations are arranged with the
most-recent comments at the end of the flow. This takes some adjustment for agents who
work with email messages and are familiar with seeing the latest comment at the top of the
ticket. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821259930#topic_j53_h5h_bhb" target="_blank">Sample ticket.</a>
</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Customer context has moved to a new location in the ticket interface. It has
been expanded to include information from third-party applications. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408829170458#topic_ehg_1qz_vkb" target="_blank">Viewing customer context</a>.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">The ticket tab interface in the workspace has changed to work better with
interactive conversations. Ticket numbers aren’t included on chat and messaging ticket
tabs, but conversation status, recent comments, and channel type are highlighted. See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408844108826" target="_blank">Using ticket tabs to manage conversations</a>.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">The composer maintains separate text buffers for each conversation type (for
example, internal notes vs public comments). This may be confusing for agents when they
first start to use it, but it enables them to switch quickly between threads without
losing content. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408831849882#topic_gtw_j1h_rmb" target="_blank">Switching channels in the composer.</a>
</li>
<li class="li">The Zendesk Agent Workspace includes native <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408846470170" target="_blank">ticket redaction</a>, which provides additional functionality that
the Zendesk Ticket Redaction app doesn’t support. If you are using the app, uninstall the
app and use Zendesk Agent Workspace native ticket redaction. Ticket redaction via API
commands is also fully supported with the
workspace.</li>
</ul>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Composer updates</strong></p>
<p class="p">The Agent Workpace includes a new composer, powered by <a class="xref" href="https://ckeditor.com/" target="_blank">CKEditor</a>, that combines support for both rich text
formatting and Markdown commands. You no longer have to switch between composers. </p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_c1g_2fq_wnb__ul_xlz_nkw_4wb">
<li class="li">Because the Agent Workspace handles markdown and formatting syntax differently, it is
<em class="ph i">expected</em> and <em class="ph i">intended</em> for new markdown conventions to apply on
pre-existing tickets comments. This can cause minor ticket formatting and spacing issues
for legacy comments that were generated in the standard agent interface. </li>
<li class="li">After migration, Zendesk recommends that you review and possibly update any API scripts
you use to that generate comments. This will help make sure your API scripts work as
expected with the new composer.</li>
</ul>
<p class="p">Finally, it’s important to check out the current product limitations to see how they might
impact your particular situation. For example, if your account serves a very high volume of
chats. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821805338" target="_blank">Limitations for the Zendesk Agent Workspace</a>. Zendesk
recommends <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408843642394-" target="_blank">evaluating your account for migration</a> before you
migrate.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_m1x_qhq_nkb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">About the migration</h2>
<div class="body">
<div class="p" dir="ltr">Before you can activate the workspace, you have to migrate your account. During
migration, your Chat departments are merged into Support groups. This enables you to manage
collections of agents in one location, rather than switching between two separate locations.
Mapping Chat departments to Support groups is necessary for Chat transfer to work properly
in the Zendesk Agent Workspace. <div class="note note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> The migration from Chat departments to Support groups
can't be reversed.</div>
</div>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">Before migration:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_m1x_qhq_nkb__ul_x13_thq_nkb">
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Chat agents are arranged in departments.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Support agents are arranged in groups.</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Groups and departments are managed from Support and Chat respectively.</li>
</ul>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">After migration:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_m1x_qhq_nkb__ul_y13_thq_nkb">
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Agents are organized in groups, instead of departments. You add agents to
groups rather than departments. </li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Administrators manage groups (for Chat and Support) from Support
settings.</li>
</ul>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">Migration is required only once for your account. Going forward, you’ll manage
all your agents from Support settings. The migration from Chat departments to Support groups
can't be reversed.</p>
<div class="note important">
<span class="importanttitle">Important:</span> Only migrate your account when Chat traffic is stopped and there are no
ongoing chats. Otherwise, your active chat sessions may be lost. </div>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">If you prefer, you can test out the migration on a Sandbox account first. This
gives you time to try out the Agent Workspace and train your agents before using the
workspace in a production environment.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested1" id="topic_cyn_4lq_nkb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">Starting the migration</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p" dir="ltr">To prepare your account for the Zendesk Agent Workspace, Zendesk Support provides
a migration wizard to help you update your account.</p>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">Most Zendesk Suite and Support accounts are already using the Agent Workspace.
Only a few legacy accounts need to be migrated. You don't need to migrate your account
unless you see a <strong class="ph b">Get started</strong> button on the Agent Workpace page.</p>
<div class="p">Before you migrate, do the following to ensure a smooth process:<ul class="ul" id="topic_cyn_4lq_nkb__ul_urj_hyk_sqb">
<li class="li">Plan your migration for the beginning of day or when you'll have the lowest possible
volume globally for your account, ideally before your agents start working on tickets
for the day.</li>
<li class="li">Send a communication to your agents to let them know the migration is about to start.
Ask them to close out their tickets and refresh their browser as soon as they see the
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4581758611866#topic_xjc_3d3_b3b" target="_blank">Switch workspace</a> message in the Zendesk
interface.</li>
<li class="li">Deactivate the Web Widget on your <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408838063258-#topic_ldx_wlc_vfb" target="_blank">contact form</a> to help agents refresh
faster.<p class="p"><img class="image" id="topic_cyn_4lq_nkb__image_gt3_wgl_sqb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/contact_form_disable.png" width="450"></p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p" dir="ltr"><strong class="ph b">To start the migration</strong></p>
<ol class="ol" id="topic_cyn_4lq_nkb__ol_w4p_qlq_nkb">
<li class="li">
<span class="ph">In <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4581766374554#topic_hfg_dyz_1hb" target="_blank">Admin Center</a>, click <img class="image" id="topic_cyn_4lq_nkb__d8e1089" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/ac_workspaces_icon.png">
<strong class="ph b">Workspaces</strong> in the sidebar, then select <strong class="ph b">Agent tools &gt; Agent Workspace</strong>.</span><p class="p" dir="ltr">If the Agent Workspace is available on your account, you’ll see a
description of how to migrate.</p>
<p class="p">If you see this message, migration has been
disabled for your account. Work with your account representative or <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408843597850" target="_blank">Zendesk Customer Support</a> to get your account
migrated.</p>
<p class="p"><img class="image" id="topic_cyn_4lq_nkb__image_anz_sh3_3qb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/uc_migration_blocked.png" width="450"></p>
</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Click <strong class="ph b">Get started</strong>.<p class="p" dir="ltr">A page appears with a description of
what happens during the migration. </p>
<p class="p" dir="ltr"><img class="image" id="topic_cyn_4lq_nkb__image_gn5_51r_nkb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/uc_migration_intro3.png" width="600"></p>
</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Review the description, then click <strong class="ph b">Next</strong> to proceed. <p class="p">If you have
groups and departments with the same names, a page appears with instructions on <strong class="ph b">How
to handle duplicate names</strong>. If there’s no duplication, this page does not appear.
</p>
<p class="p" dir="ltr">To fix the duplication, you can:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_cyn_4lq_nkb__ul_dhz_pwq_nkb">
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Automatically merge groups and departments with the same name into a
single group. This is the default. <p class="p" dir="ltr">For example, if you have a Chat
department named <strong class="ph b">General</strong> and a Support group named <strong class="ph b">General</strong>, all agents
in the <strong class="ph b">General</strong> Chat department are combined with all the agents in the
<strong class="ph b">General</strong> Support group, resulting in one large <strong class="ph b">General</strong> group that
included both types of agents.</p>
</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">Keep the groups separate and append the word <strong class="ph b">copy</strong> to
similarly-named groups. <p class="p">For example, if you have a Chat department named
<strong class="ph b">General</strong> and an Support group named <strong class="ph b">General</strong>, the Support group is
renamed <strong class="ph b">General_copy</strong> to distinguish it from the existing Chat department. The
Support agents remain in the renamed <strong class="ph b">General_copy</strong> group and the Chat agents
are moved to the <strong class="ph b">General_copy</strong> group.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="li">If necessary, select <strong class="ph b">Automatically merge</strong> or <strong class="ph b">Don’t merge</strong>, then click
<strong class="ph b">Migrate</strong>. <p class="p" dir="ltr">Depending on how many departments you have, it may take a
few minutes or hours for the migration to complete. </p>
<p class="p">When the migration is
complete, return to the Agent Workspace page. You'll see a checkbox to turn on the
workspace. You may need to refresh your browser to see the change.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">Select <strong class="ph b">Turn on the Agent Workspace</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Save</strong> your changes.<p class="p" dir="ltr">A tutorial appears that shows you how to use the
new workspace.</p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="topic_lwk_2xq_nkb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">After the migration</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p" dir="ltr">Once migration is complete and the workspace is activated, agents can start <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408824439194" target="_blank">serving chats</a> from the Zendesk Agent Workspace and administrators
can <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821752346" target="_blank">manage agents</a> in Support groups, instead of Chat departments. For
more information on how to work with the Zendesk Agent Workspace, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408827107226" target="_blank">Documentation Resources</a>. </p>
<div class="p" dir="ltr">After migration, open (or refresh) the Chat dashboard.<ul class="ul" id="topic_lwk_2xq_nkb__ul_bvr_3xq_nkb">
<li class="li">All groups are listed in the <strong class="ph b">Department</strong> tab on the Chat dashboard.<p class="p"><img class="image" id="topic_lwk_2xq_nkb__image_n3g_yzq_nkb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/uc_groups_dashboard.png" width="600"></p>
</li>
<li class="li">Department settings on the Chat dashboard are changed. See example below. To edit
group names, descriptions, and group memberships, you are automatically redirected to
the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821199258#topic_zhr_14b_wqb" target="_blank">Groups page</a> in Admin Center. <p class="p"><img class="image" id="topic_lwk_2xq_nkb__image_hz1_11r_nkb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/uc_groups_dashboard_edit.png" width="400"></p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">Although agents are managed in groups instead of departments, departments still exist in
Chat and can be used in <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4565311804186" target="_blank">routing triggers</a>. </p>
<div class="note note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> If you use custom apps in your account, after migrating Chat departments to Support
groups, your app developers should update all public APIs for Chat department Create,
Update, and Delete to public APIs for Support group Create, Update, and Delete.</div>
</div>
</div>
<script id="docs-schema-markup" type="application/ld+json">{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "TechArticle",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4583448479514",
"url": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4583448479514",
"headline": "Migrating to the Zendesk Agent Workspace",
"description": "You can migrate your account to a unified agent workspace that integrates chat, email, voice, and messaging conversations into a single ticket interface, requiring the merging of chat departments into support groups and activation of the workspace for all agents.",
"articleSection": "Setting up Agent Workspace",
"datePublished": "2022-05-06T18:21:22+00:00",
"dateModified": "2026-05-15T23:22:29.520353+00:00",
"inLanguage": "en",
"mainEntityOfPage": {
"@type": "WebPage",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4583448479514"
},
"author": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Zendesk",
"@id": "https://www.zendesk.com"
},
"publisher": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Zendesk",
"@id": "https://www.zendesk.com"
},
"isPartOf": {
"@type": "WebSite",
"name": "Zendesk Help",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/"
},
"about": {
"@type": "SoftwareApplication",
"name": "Zendesk",
"@id": "https://www.zendesk.com"
}
}</script><script id="fast-path-script">
//<![CDATA[
const fast_path_style = document.createElement('style');
fast_path_style.innerHTML = `#article-body .fastpath{font-size:.9em;background-color:#f3f3f3;border:1px solid #d3d3d3;padding:10px 10px 8px;margin-bottom:16px}#article-body .fastpath::before{content:none!important}`;
document.head.appendChild(fast_path_style);
//]]>
</script>
</body>