Creating and using lookup relationship fields


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.


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Lookup relationship fields let you create connections between tickets, users, organizations, and custom objects. You can use these fields to define relationships, filter options, and view related records. They are useful in triggers and views, allowing you to automate actions based on relationships. Customize fields to fit your needs and use the API for advanced data retrieval.




A lookup relationship field is a custom field that you can use to establish relationships
between tickets, users, organizations, and custom objects. Additionally, lookup relationship fields can
be used to define relationships for custom objects with articles in Zendesk Knowledge
and brands.
This article contains the following topics:
Adding lookup relationship fields
Viewing lookup relationships
Using lookup relationship fields in triggers and views


Related articles:
Understanding lookup relationship
fields
Retrieving lookup relationship data with the
API
Defining parent-child relationships for
custom objects




Adding lookup relationship fields

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:
Suite Team and Growth plans can have a maximum of 5 lookup relationship
fields per object.
Suite Professional plans and above can have a maximum of 10 lookup
relationship fields per object.


To create a lookup relationship field


Start by adding a custom field to your users, organizations, tickets, or
custom object and select Lookup relationship as the custom field
type. For more information, see:

Adding custom fields to your
tickets and ticket forms

Adding custom fields to
users
Adding custom fields to
organizations
Defining a custom object's schema
with custom fields

Example:



Set the Display name, Field key, and Description as
described in the articles linked from step 1.
Select a related object to list in the lookup relationship field. 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 User as the
related object, the lookup relationship field will display a list of
Zendesk users.

(Optional) Click Add filter to define one or more filters to reduce
the number of options that the field can display. You can filter objects
by any number of tags or custom fields. For more information, see Filtering the field's options.
Note: Filters aren't
supported for custom object lookup relationship fields with articles
as the related object.


Click Save.




Filtering the field's options

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.
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: Tags | Contain at least one of the following
| account_manager. This isn't possible for lookup fields that
target custom objects.
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.
Lookup fields that target tickets have the following additional default
filters are available: Status, Type, Priority, Assignee, Requester,
Form, Organization, and Channel.
Lookup fields that target users have an additional Role filter
available.
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.


Lookup relationship fields also support filtering by other custom fields added to
the related object. For example, if you add a Security Clearance custom
checkbox field to the user profile, the Security Clearance 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: Security
Clearance | Is | Checked.
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 Product category that points to a
custom object named Product, you could filter the results to return only
Product records that have a Category field value that matches
the ticket's Product category 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.
When using the match and does not match
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.
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.
You can modify the filters at any time. This won't affect the values previously
selected within lookup relationship fields.
To learn more, see About custom fields and Building trigger condition
statements.




Viewing lookup relationships

Establishing relationships between records is important for building out your complex
data model. However, it's also important to see and interact with those
relationships within Zendesk. Each user profile, organization, and custom object
record displays a list of related records. For tickets, any related records are
visible as values within the ticket fields.
Clicking on lookup relationship fields opens the related record's details in a new
tab in Support.

Note: Archived tickets aren't included in lists
of related records.


Viewing records related to users and organizations

Each Zendesk Support profile for a team member, end user, or organization includes a Related
tab that lists all related source objects. The information is grouped by the
type of source object (Tickets, Organizations, Users, or
Custom objects) and the specific lookup field.
In the following example of a team member profile, tickets have a
lookup relationship field called Driver. If Annie Porter is selected in
the Driver field, that ticket appears under the Related tab on her
team member profile. It’s grouped by the type of source object, Tickets,
and the name of the lookup field, Driver.

The Related tab doesn’t appear on user profiles in your help center.



Viewing records related to tickets

Within a ticket, lookup relationship fields are displayed like any other fields
in the ticket field panel.
For lookup fields pointing to organizations, users, or other tickets, clicking on
the field opens the record in a new tab in Support. If the lookup field points
to a custom object, you can view the record's details within the context panel
without navigating away from the ticket you're working on. See Interacting with related object records in
tickets.



Viewing records related to custom objects

Similar to users and organizations, when you view a custom object record's
details, you'll see all values for all of the object's fields on the left and
then a list of related records grouped by the source object's type on the right.
When viewing the list of related records, the source object's type is indicated
by one of the following icons, the source object's name, and then the lookup
relationship field's name is in bold and parentheses.








Icon
Source object





Custom object



Organization



User



Ticket







Note: Related articles and brands aren't reflected in the related records list.
Instead, the related article and brand values are visible only within the
record's fields. Related articles in a custom object record function as a
hyperlink to the article.

The following example shows the details for record 256 of the
Project custom object. In addition to the specific details about
project 256, you can also see that this project is related to 3 tickets via a
lookup relationship field on the ticket ( ) named Project Code that points to the
Project object.





Using lookup relationship fields in triggers and views

You can use lookup relationship fields to help define triggers and views.
When adding a condition to a trigger or view, any lookup relationship fields also
appear in the list of options. In the following example, the first condition of a
trigger is a user lookup relationship field named Support Manager. The
trigger will only fire for tickets associated with the support manager named
Jennifer Hanson.

You can also use lookup relationship fields in the actions of your triggers. In the
following example, the action sets the value of the organization lookup relationship
field named Company Organization to Northwest Region when the trigger fires.

In addition to using the record name specified in lookup fields in trigger conditions
and actions, you can also reference the related record's fields within your
conditions and actions. For example, if you have a ticket lookup relationship field
named Software requested that points to a custom object named
Software, you could use the Software requested lookup field to create
conditions and actions around the record selected within the lookup field—as in a
record is or isn't present, or the record's name is or isn't set to a specific
value—or you can reference other fields within the record, such as a Approval
required checkbox being selected or not within the record related to the
ticket. For more information about using lookup relationship fields that target
custom objects in triggers, see Using custom objects in triggers.
You can also use placeholders to retrieve information about the target
record in a lookup relationship field. This is true for lookup fields pointing to
other tickets, users (requester), and organizations. The ID can then be used in API
requests, such as to assign the ticket to the user specified in a lookup field or
notify the manager of the user specified in a lookup field that their approval is
required.


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