Creating and using lookup relationship fields

<p id="docs-hc-snippet" style="display: none;">
A lookup relationship field is a custom field that you can use to establish
relationships between tickets, users, organizations, andcustom objects. Additionally,
lookup relationship fields can be used to define relationships for custom
objects with articles in Zendesk Knowledge and brands.
</p>
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Summary: <span id="up-triangle">◀</span><span id="down-triangle">▼</span>
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Lookup relationship fields let you link tickets, users, organizations,
and custom objects to define relationships and filter options by tags
or custom fields. You can create up to 10 fields per object depending
on your plan. Filters help narrow choices based on roles, statuses, or
matching field values, improving data relevance and organization for
support workflows.
</p>
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<div class="body">
<p class="p">
A lookup relationship field is a custom field that you can use to establish
relationships
between tickets, users, organizations, and
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5914453843994" target="_blank">custom objects</a>.
Additionally, lookup relationship fields can
be used to define relationships for custom objects with articles in Zendesk
Knowledge
and brands.
</p>
<div class="p">
This article contains the following topics:
<ul class="ul" id="topic_cq2_zy4_mtb__ul_hkl_dgp_mtb">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="#topic_kmz_wl3_ttb">Adding lookup relationship fields</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="#topic_t14_w3l_5tb">Filtering the field's options</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="p">
Related articles:
<ul class="ul" id="topic_cq2_zy4_mtb__ul_lns_sx2_2jc">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10689134053658" target="_blank">Understanding lookup relationship
fields</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://developer.zendesk.com/documentation/ticketing/using-the-zendesk-api/retrieving-lookup-relationship-fields-with-the-api/" target="_blank">Retrieving lookup relationship data with the
API</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10689819118746" target="_blank">Defining parent-child relationships for
custom objects</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_kmz_wl3_ttb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Adding lookup relationship fields</h2>
<div class="body">
<div class="p">
As with other custom fields, lookup relationship fields are displayed
on their
object's pages in the Zendesk interface. The number of lookup fields
you can create
per object depends on your plan:
<ul class="ul" id="topic_kmz_wl3_ttb__ul_tnd_zxn_zgc">
<li class="li">
Suite Team and Suite Growth plans can have a maximum of 5
lookup
relationship fields per object.
</li>
<li class="li">
Suite Professional plans and above can have a maximum of
10 lookup
relationship fields per object.
<div class="note" id="topic_kmz_wl3_ttb__note_udm_kn5_3kc">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> For tickets,
these limits apply to the number of lookup fields per
ticket
form, up to a total of 40 lookup fields for all ticket forms.
</div>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">
<strong class="ph b">To create a lookup relationship field</strong>
</p>
<div class="p">
<ol class="ol" id="topic_kmz_wl3_ttb__ol_dcn_mm3_ttb">
<li class="li">
Start by adding a custom field to your users, organizations,
tickets, or
custom object and select
<strong class="ph b">Lookup relationship</strong> as the
custom field
type. For more information, see:
<ul class="ul" id="topic_kmz_wl3_ttb__ul_eld_2xh_ttb">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408883152794" target="_blank">Adding custom fields to your
tickets </a>
and
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408846520858" target="_blank">ticket forms</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408822051866" target="_blank">Adding custom fields to
users</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408842677786" target="_blank">Adding custom fields to
organizations</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5392409465370-Creating-custom-objects-to-integrate-with-custom-data#topic_cq4_1sn_lwb" target="_blank">Defining a custom object's schema
with custom fields</a>
</li>
</ul>
<p class="p">Example:</p>
<p class="p">
<img class="image img-screenshot" id="topic_kmz_wl3_ttb__image_pbf_ws3_ttb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/lookup-relationship-field-add.png" width="450">
</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
Set the <strong class="ph b">Display name</strong>,
<strong class="ph b">Field key</strong>, and
<strong class="ph b">Description</strong> as
described in the articles linked from step 1.
</li>
<li class="li">
Select a related object to list in the lookup relationship
field.
<p class="p">
The
related object can be a ticket, user, organization, or
the name of
another custom object. For custom objects, the related
object can also
be articles or brands. For example, if you select
<em class="ph i">User</em> as the
related object, the lookup relationship field will display
a list of
Zendesk users.
</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
(Optional) Click <strong class="ph b">Add filter</strong>
to define one or more filters to reduce
the number of options that the field can display.
<div class="p">
You can filter objects
by any number of tags or custom fields. For more information,
see
<a class="xref" href="#topic_t14_w3l_5tb">Filtering the field's options</a>.
<div class="note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> Filters aren't
supported for custom object lookup relationship fields
with articles
as the related object.
</div>
</div>
</li>
<li class="li">
Click <strong class="ph b">Save</strong>.
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_t14_w3l_5tb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Filtering the field's options</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">
Your account could have thousands or even millions of ticket, user,
organization, and
custom object records. In most cases, you'll want a defined subset
of records for
the options in your lookup relationship fields. For example, you
might want to list
only users who are account managers.
</p>
<p class="p">
All lookup relationship fields that target standard objects can filter
the records of
the related object by tag. For example, to list only users who are
account managers,
you could add an "account_manager" tag to the user profiles of your
account managers
and then define the following filter condition for the lookup relationship
field:
<code class="ph codeph">Tags | Contain at least one of the following | account_manager</code>.
This isn't possible for lookup fields that target custom objects.
</p>
<div class="p">
Depending on the object the lookup field is defined on and the object
it targets,
different filters are available to help admins restrict the records
available to be
selected within the field.
<ul class="ul" id="topic_t14_w3l_5tb__ul_tqz_g5f_l1c">
<li class="li">
Lookup fields that target tickets have the following additional
default
filters are available: Status, Type, Priority, Assignee,
Requester, Form,
Organization, and Channel.
</li>
<li class="li">
Lookup fields that target users have an additional Role filter
available.
</li>
<li class="li">
Ticket lookup relationship fields that target other custom
objects can
dynamically restrict the object records available for selection
within the
lookup field by using additional filters based on the ticket's
current user,
assignee, requester, and organization.
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">
Lookup relationship fields also support filtering by other custom
fields added to the
related object. For example, if you add a
<em class="ph i">Security Clearance</em> custom checkbox
field to the user profile, the <em class="ph i">Security Clearance</em>
field will appear as a
filter option when you add the lookup relationship field. You could
then define the
following filter condition for the field:
<code class="ph codeph">Security Clearance | Is |
Checked</code>.
</p>
<p class="p">
Furthermore, you can filter lookup relationship fields based on whether
they match or
don't match field values in the source object. For example, if a
ticket has a lookup
relationship field named <em class="ph i">Product category</em> that
points to a custom object
named <em class="ph i">Product</em>, you could filter the results
to return only <em class="ph i">Product</em>
records that have a <em class="ph i">Category</em> field value that
matches the ticket's
<em class="ph i">Product
category</em> field.
When filtering lookup relationship fields for matching
values in one of the source object's fields, the tags (rather than
values) are
compared for drop-down fields.
</p>
<p class="p">
When using the <code class="ph codeph">match</code> and
<code class="ph codeph">does not match</code> operators
to filter lookup field values, you can only compare values in fields
of the same
type. For example, two drop-down field values can be compared, but
you can't compare
a drop-down field's value to a multi-select field's value. Therefore
these operators
are only available when matching field types exist. Additionally,
the lookup fields
must have the same target object. For example, you can filter which
custom object
records are available for selection in a ticket lookup relationship
field targeting
a custom object by matching the ticket's brand with the custom object
record's brand
because in both cases, the target object is brands.
</p>
<p class="p">
When using lookup relationship fields to connect to an object with
a currency field,
you can filter based on the record's currency value being equal to,
greater than, or
less than a specified currency and value.
</p>
<p class="p">
You can modify the filters at any time. This won't affect the values
previously
selected within lookup relationship fields.
</p>
<p class="p">
To learn more, see
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408838961562" target="_blank">About custom fields</a>
and
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408893545882#topic_i3y_fkz_1cb" target="_blank">Building trigger condition statements</a>.
</p>
</div>
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