Zendesk glossary


This glossary describes key Zendesk concepts, terminology, and products It's a good place to get started learning how to set up and use your Zendesk products.


This glossary describes key Zendesk concepts, terminology, and products It's a good place to
get started learning how to set up and use your Zendesk products.
@ - A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y -
Z


@

@mention

@mentions allows agents to "mention" any other agent (but not end users) in a ticket
comment. In the help center, users can @mention any other user, including end users, when
commenting on a post or article. See Adding other agents to tickets using @mentions and Enabling @mentions for users in your help center.




A

Account assumption

See Assuming a user.



Account owner

See Owner.



Add-on

Add-ons are supplemental features that allow you to add functionality to your Zendesk account to
fit your specific support needs. They are available for Zendesk Suite and Support plans.
See About Zendesk add-ons.



Admins

Admins are agents with additional privileges to manage and customize Zendesk accounts.
Admins can perform all agent tasks, but they may also do other things like control
settings for your instance. Sometimes referred to as administrators. See Understanding Zendesk Support user roles.



Advisor

This is a system custom agent role on Enterprise plans. Advisors manage the workflow and
configure Zendesk. They create or manage shared automations, macros, triggers, and views.
They also set up the service level agreements, channels, and extensions. Advisors don't
solve tickets and can make private comments only. See Understanding system custom agent roles.



Agent

Agents are the bulk of your support staff. They are assigned tickets and interact with
customers as needed to resolve support issues. The agent's role and privileges are defined
by admins. See Understanding Zendesk Support user roles.



Agent alias

On Suite Growth and above or Support Professional and above, agents can keep their real
names private by setting up an alias that will be used on all communications with ticket
requesters. This feature is not available on Team plans. See Adding an agent alias.



Agent collision

Agent collision is a feature that alerts your agents when another agent is viewing and
possibly updating the same ticket, to help prevent agents from trying to make updates to
the same ticket at the same time. See Avoiding agent collision.



Agent escalation

In an automated
conversation, passing the customer to a live agent. Also called agent
transfer.



Agent interface

The agent interface is what agents and admins see when they sign in to Zendesk. From the
agent interface, you can access and manage tickets. The latest version of the agent
interface is called Agent Workspace. The version of the agent interface prior to Agent
Workspace was referred to as the standard agent interface. See About the Zendesk Agent Workspace.



Agent signature

An agent signature is a standard text signature that can be appended to all public ticket
comments and outgoing emails made by agents. Agents can customize their signature on their
profile page. See Adding an agent signature to ticket email
notifications.



Agent transfer

See Agent escalation.



Agent Workspace

Agent Workspace is the latest version of the agent interface. It is a unified space for agents to manage and
respond to customer support requests. The agent interface prior to Agent Workspace was
referred to as the standard agent interface. See About the Zendesk Agent Workspace.



AI agent

An AI agent is an automated persona that can interact with the customer through messaging
or email channels. AI agents were formerly known as Zendesk bots or conversation bots.
See About AI agents.



Allowlist

The allowlist is used to allow email to be received from specific email domains and
addresses. It can be used along with the blocklist to, for example, allow email from a
specific address in a blocked domain to be accepted into your Support instance (and not
suspended). See Using the allowlist and blocklist to control access to
Zendesk Support.



Analytics (formerly Explore)

The latest generation of reporting for the Zendesk Suite, including tools to analyze your
business information, build reports, and share those reports with other people. See Getting started with Zendesk Analytics.



API

An application programming interface (API) lets you interact with Zendesk
programmatically instead of using the UI. See the API docs.



App

A custom-built application that extends or enhances the functionality of Zendesk
products. See Using the Zendesk Marketplace.



Archiving

Archiving is the act of moving data into a less-frequently-used storage area. Zendesk
automatically archives closed tickets after 120 days, and Zendesk customers can enable
automatic email archiving. See About ticket archiving and Archiving ticket email notifications.



Assignee

Assignee is the agent or end user currently assigned to a ticket. Assignee is used in
macros, views, automations, triggers, and reports to refer to or set the assigned agent.
See Understanding Zendesk Support user roles.



Assignee stations

This is the number of agents who have successively been assigned to a ticket. This is
used as a condition in triggers. See Creating and managing triggers.



Assuming a user

Admins can sign in to Zendesk Support as a particular end user. This is referred to as
assuming a user. This allows admins to see that user's Zendesk account as they
see it, which can be useful when troubleshooting problems. See Assuming end users.



Audit log

On Enterprise plans, you can track the account and user changes that have been made by
you and members of your support staff. See Viewing the Audit log for changes.



Automated conversation

An automated conversation is a text-based interaction between an end user and an AI agent
in a messaging interface. Automated conversations can be configured in Admin Center. See
Creating an AI agent for your web and mobile channels.



Automated resolutions

Automated resolutions are the unit of measurement used for calculating and billing your
account for AI agent usage. Paying per automated resolution means that you pay only for
customer requests that were successfully resolved by the AI agent, without any escalation
to a human agent. See About automated resolutions for AI agents.



Automations

Automations are similar to triggers (see Trigger) because both define conditions and actions that modify ticket
properties and optionally send email notifications to customers and the support staff.
Where they differ is that automations execute when a time event occurs after a ticket
property was set or updated, rather than immediately after a ticket is created or updated.
See About the standard Support automations and Streamlining workflow with time-based events and
automations.




B

Base agent

Base agents are agent seats billed as part of your regular billing cycle, as opposed to
temporary agents. See also: Temporary
agent.



Billing admin

A billing admin is a Zendesk admin with special permission to manage subscriptions for
your Zendesk account. Account owners can give Support admins billing permission. See Enabling admins to manage subscriptions.



Blocklist

The blocklist is used to suspend email received from domains and addresses that you
specify. It can be used along with the allowlist to, for example, suspend an email domain
while also allowing one or more specific email addresses from the same domain to be
accepted into your Zendesk. See Using the allowlist and blocklist to control access to Zendesk
Support.



Bot builder (legacy)

Bot builder is a click-to-configure tool to create flows that guide customers
to a resolution. Only available for customers who had any drafted or published AI agents
as of February 2, 2025. See About bot builder (legacy).



Brand

A brand is a customer facing identity, represented by a collection of contact points for
your customers. These contact points can include email support addresses, help center, Web
Widget (Classic), and messaging Web Widget. With most Zendesk plans, you can have multiple
brands associated with your account. See Setting up multiple brands.
See also: Multibrand.



Built by Zendesk

Apps that are created by Zendesk that can be downloaded and installed into your
configuration.



Bulk import

You can add many users in a single batch with a bulk import. To do this, you create a CSV
(comma separated values) file that contains the user's data. You can also import
organization data. See Bulk importing users and organizations.



Business hours

On Suite Growth and above or Support Professional and above, you can set a schedule with
business hours for the days of the week and times of day that your Zendesk is available to
respond to requests. Non-Enterprise plans can set a single schedule, while Enterprise
plans can set multiple schedules. You can use business hours in views, SLA policies,
triggers, automations, and Liquid markup. See Setting your schedule with business hours and holidays.



Business rules

Business rules enable you to customize and manage the ticket workflow. Automations,
macros, SLA service targets, triggers, and views are all types of business rules. See
Streamlining your support workflow.




C

Channels

Channels are the ways that you can engage with your customers (how they create support
requests and how you communicate with them). All channel communication is recorded in
tickets. You choose and configure the channels you want your Zendesk to support. To find
out about the available channels, see About Zendesk channels.



Chat

Chat is a channel that enables your customers to have live chat conversations with your
agents. See also Messaging.



Closed Zendesk Support

Your Zendesk Support instance is considered closed when only those users you choose can
submit tickets. This means users must be added to your Zendesk instance in order to submit
support requests. See Permitting only added users to submit tickets.



Copilot

The Zendesk Copilot add-on is a set of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) tools that
are purpose-built for customer service experiences and expand on the AI offerings
already built into the Zendesk Suite. See About Zendesk Copilot.



Comment

When a ticket request is submitted it contains a subject and a description. All follow-up
communication on the ticket is contained in comments. Agents and requesters can add
comments to the ticket. Comments can also be added by automations, macros, and triggers.
There are two types of comment: public and private (or internal). Everyone, including
anyone copied on a ticket, can see public comments but only agents can see private
comments.



Community

Part of the help center, the community is where your end users can ask questions, provide
answers, or share ideas. Questions and ideas are associated with discussion topics.
Community contributions can include ideas, tips, or any other community items. Answers can
include observations, clarifications, praise, or any other response that's part of a
typical community discussion. See Planning and activating community in your help center.



Context panel

The context panel is part of Agent Workspace and provides valuable information agents can
use to get a better understanding of customers and solve tickets quickly. See Using the context panel.



Contextual help

A Web Widget (Classic) feature that uses the web page your visitor is currently on, along
with your help center content, to suggest help center articles that may be relevant to
their questions. See About Contextual Help for Web Widget (Classic).



Conversation

The thread of messages back and forth between a human and/or AI agent and an end user
while working to resolve a the end user's issue.



Conversation history

The record of an ongoing (or past) conversation between a live and/or AI agent and an end
user. Conversation history is available to agents in the Agent Workspace. See About conversation history.



CSS customization

You can modify the default elements and styles in your help center using CSS (cascading
style sheets) code to more closely match the look of your company's website. See Customizing the CSS or JavaScript in your Help
Center.


Note: When you edit the page templates, CSS, or JavaScript for a standard theme, it is
saved as a custom theme. Custom themes are not supported by Zendesk and
are not automatically updated. See About standard themes and custom themes in the help
center.




Current user

In triggers, (current user) is the last person who updated the ticket. The
(current user) changes each time someone different updates the ticket. The update
can be made by any agent or end user with access to the ticket.
In views, (current user) is the agent who is currently viewing that view. This
enables one view to show relevant tickets to each agent, without having to create a
specific view for each individual agent.



Custom agent roles

On Enterprise plans, you can define your own agent roles and assign those roles to any
agent in your Zendesk account. This allows you to define agent roles that suit your own
organizational structure and workflow. See Creating custom roles and assigning agents.



Custom fields

You can add custom fields to tickets, users, and organizations. Custom ticket fields can
be visible to agents only or to both agents and end users. Your visible custom ticket
fields appear on your support request form in the help center. Custom ticket fields are
typically used to gather more information about the support issue or product or service.
Custom organization fields and custom user fields are visible to agents only. See About custom fields.



Customer

This is often used interchangeably with end user. See End user.



Customer portal

Part of help center where customers submit tickets and also manage their tickets.



Customer satisfaction rating (CSAT)

Your end users (customers) can provide feedback about their support experience by rating
their solved tickets. See About customer satisfaction ratings.



Customized theme

When you use the Theme Editor to edit the page templates, CSS, or JavaScript for the
standard help center theme, or when you develop your own theme, it is saved as a custom
theme. Custom themes are not supported by Zendesk and are not
automatically updated when new features are released. See About standard themes and custom themes in the help
center.




D


Dashboard

A space to present analytics about your Zendesk products. Dashboards allow you to view,
share, and (on some plans) create and customize reports that give you an overview of your
Zendesk data. There are two types of dashboards: prebuilt and custom. See Understanding dashboards.



Data masking

Data masking allows certain roles to have data obscured based on custom role settings.
This means that while the original data remains intact, it is hidden from view for agents
without permission to see it. This capability allows customers to maintain data integrity
while safeguarding user privacy. See About data masking.



Data redaction

Data redaction allows admins or agents in custom roles with permission to permanently
remove sensitive information from tickets, ensuring that deleted data can't be retrieved
or viewed by any agents. Agents can redact ticket content manually, or, with the Advanced Data
Privacy and Protection add-on, admins can create triggers to automatically redact ticket data.



Dynamic content

To provide multiple language support, you can create dynamic content that can then be
referenced via a placeholder in automations, macros, triggers and by many of the system
generated messages such as those sent in email notifications when a user creates an
account. Dynamic content is a powerful tool for streamlining your multiple language
support because the appropriate version of content is automatically displayed to users
based on their language. See Providing multiple language support with dynamic content.




E


Email forwarding

Many accounts prefer to use their own email addresses rather than use a Zendesk address.
You can set up email forwarding to accept email at your own address (for example,
help@mycompany.com) and then forward it to your Zendesk address
(support@mycompany.zendesk.com). See Forwarding incoming email from your existing email address to Zendesk Support.



Email notifications

Email notifications can be generated via a trigger or automation when a ticket is
updated. Common notifications include a new public comment added to the ticket or a change
to the ticket status. You can customize your email templates to match your branding and to
modify the wording. See Customizing your email templates.



Employee service

Employee service management is a strategic initiative aimed at elevating employee support
by streamlining HR, IT, and other internal support functions, automating routine tasks,
and empowering employees with self-service capabilities. See Zendesk Employee Service Suite overview.



End user

End users (often referred to as customers) are people who generate support
requests from any of the available support channels (help center, email, voice, messaging,
and so on.). End users do not have access to any of the admin and agent features of
Zendesk. They can only submit and track tickets and communicate with agents publicly
(meaning their comments can never be private). For more information, see Understanding Zendesk Support user roles.



Extensions

Extensions are tools that extend the functionality of your Zendesk. For example, you can
add CSS and JavaScript widgets to customize the look or functionality of Zendesk or you
can enable integrations with cloud-based software applications and services such as
Salesforce, Google Analytics, and Constant Contact - just to name a few. Extensions can be
configured by agents with admin permissions.



External email domain

You can change your email address to an email domain other than myaccount.zendesk.com,
making it appear that it originated from your own email address (help@mycompany.com). See
Forwarding your incoming email to Zendesk Support.




F


First reply time (FRT)

A metric that counts the number of minutes between the time a ticket is created, and the
timestamp of the first public agent comment on that ticket. See Calculating first reply time.



Flow (legacy)

A flow is a collection of answers, created in bot builder, that define an AI agent's
behavior in an interaction with an end user. Only available for customers who had any drafted or published AI agents as of February 2, 2025. See
Creating answers for common customer questions in AI agents
(Legacy).




G


Group

Groups are used to create collections of agents. Agents can belong to more than one
group. End users cannot be added to groups, only organizations. See About organizations and groups and Creating, managing, and using groups.



Group stations

This refers to the number of groups that have successively been assigned to a ticket. Use
the metric in the Support: Tickets dataset to track group station and group station can be
used as a condition in triggers. See Creating and managing triggers.



Guided mode

Guided mode is a custom role option that requires agents to work through tickets using
the Play button. See Setting up Guided mode.




H


Help center

The help center is the customer-facing self-service portal that can consist of a
knowledge base, a community, and a customer request portal. End users can use the
knowledge base for help or turn to the community for answers. If they can't find an
answer, they can submit a request to an agent. See Getting started with help center and Getting started with community.



Holidays

You can schedule holidays as exceptions to the business hours set in your schedule. You
can add as many holidays as you like, and they will be treated as outside of business
hours and not count toward any metrics you measure in business hours. See Setting your schedule with business hours and holidays.



Host mapping

Host mapping (also referred to as domain mapping) is the ability to map your default
Zendesk domain URL to a different URL. For example, rather than using
http://support.mycompany.zendesk.com you may want your Zendesk URL to contain your
company's name, like this: http://support.mycompany.com. You need to configure this with
your domain provider. Changing the address of your help center subdomain (host
mapping).




I


Integration

External applications created and designed to work with your Zendesk, to create a bridge
between your Zendesk and the external app. Many integrations are offered through the Zendesk Marketplace.



Insights (legacy)

Insights was a legacy analytics offering with data and best-practice dashboards to help
you make sense of your data. Insights was replaced by Zendesk Explore, which was later
renamed Analytics.



Intent

An intent is an AI-powered prediction of what a customer request is about. It is the
purpose or goal behind a common category of questions posed by end users, such as billing,
refunds, or sign-in. End users in different organizations and industries may have
different intents. Intents are used in the intelligent triage, intent suggestions, and suggested intents features.




K


Knowledge base

Part of the help center, the knowledge base houses the official support content offered
by your company or organization. You can create articles and arrange them into sections
and categories. Your end users may be allowed to comment on articles. See Organizing help center knowledge base content in categories and
sections and Creating articles in the knowledge base.




Knowledge (formerly Guide)

A knowledge solution to provide end users with a complete self-service support option and
empower agents to better help customers. See Getting started with your help center.




L


labels

Labels are a single word or a multiple-word phrase you can add to a help center article
to influence article search relevance. See Using labels on your help center articles.



Legacy agent

This is a system custom agent role. If you upgrade your account to the Enterprise
version, this role is used for all agents who have not been assigned to one of the other
Enterprise roles. Each agent's permissions are the same as they had previously on the plan
you upgraded from. If you assign all your agents to Enterprise agent roles, this role will
disappear. You cannot select this agent role, it's only used to designate agents not yet
assigned Enterprise roles. See Understanding system custom agent roles.



Light agent

Light agent is a limited agent role. Light agents can be CC'd on tickets, can view
tickets, and can add private comments to tickets within their groups. They cannot be
assigned to or edit tickets. Light agents can be given permission to view reports or they
can be restricted from viewing any reports. They cannot create or edit a report. See Understanding light agent permissions.



Liquid markup

Liquid markup is the templating language that Zendesk uses to enable placeholders. You can also use Liquid markup to customize how
this data is selected and displayed as output in ticket comments and email notifications.
See Using Liquid markup to customize comments and email
notifications.




M


Macro

A macro is a prepared response or action that agents can use to quickly respond to
support requests that can be answered with a standard response or to modify a ticket.
Macros contain actions, which can include updates to ticket properties. Agents manually
apply macros when they are creating or updating tickets. Macros can also be organized into
categories to help agents quickly locate them. See Using macros to update tickets and chat sessions .



Managed account

A type of Zendesk account that requires contacting Zendesk to make subscription changes.
The account owner and billing admins cannot make changes using the Subscription page in
Admin Center. They must contact Zendesk to make the change. Also called a
sales-assisted account. See About Zendesk account types for billing and subscription
management.



Markdown

Markdown is a simple markup language you can use to easily add formatting, links, and
images to plain text in certain fields in Zendesk. See Formatting text with Markdown.




Metrics

Metrics are quantifiable measures used to track and assess the status of a specific
process. Zendesk collects time-based metrics (first reply time, full resolution time,
requester wait time), effort metrics (number of replies, reopened or reassigned tickets),
agent activity metrics (online time, availability, resolved tickets), and others, as well
as custom metrics, and uses them to analyze the quality of user services.



Messaging

Messaging is a channel that lets your customers have conversations with your agents that
are persistent, with full context and history. You can offer messaging through your
website or help center, or mobile apps. See Getting started with messaging. See also Social messaging.



Mobile SDK

The Mobile SDK enables you to embed Zendesk support options directly in your native app,
including help center browsing and searching, ticket submission and viewing, and a Rate My
App component. See Using the Mobile SDK to embed customer service in your app. Also
see our Mobile SDK developer documentation for Android and IOS.



Multibrand

The ability to set up multiple brands in your instance. Brand is a customer facing
identity, represented by a collection of contact points for your customers. Brand is also
a ticket value added to all your tickets. Depending on your Zendesk plan, you can add from
5 up to 300 brands. See Setting up multiple brands.




N


Non-restricted agent

A non-restricted agent is an agent who has access to all tickets. In other words, they
have not been restricted to only the group or groups to which they belong, the
organization they belong to, or to the tickets they have been assigned to. The ability to
refer to these agents can be useful when creating triggers. See Understanding Zendesk Support user roles.




O


Omnichannel routing

The Zendesk routing solution that directs tickets from email, calls, and messaging to
agents based on availability and capacity. See About omnichannel routing.



Online-assisted account

A type of Zendesk account that allows the account owner and billing admins to make a
limited set of changes to their subscription directly from the Subscription page in Admin
Center. Also called an assisted-online account. See About Zendesk account types for billing and subscription
management .



Open Zendesk Support

Your Zendesk Support instance is open if any user can see your help center and submit
support requests. See Enabling anyone to submit tickets in Zendesk Support




Organization

Organizations are collections of users (agents and end users). After you create them, you
can use organizations to define views, as criteria for assigning tickets, as conditions in
automations and triggers, to define access to forums, and in your reports. See About organizations and groups and Creating organizations.



Owner

The account owner is a type of admin. The account name is associated with the account
owner, who is usually the person who created the account. There can only be one account
owner. However, account ownership can be reassigned by the account owner to another admin.
The account owner can access areas of Support that other regular admins cannot, such as
invoicing, payment options, and benchmarking for the account. See Understanding Zendesk Support user roles.




P


Permissions

Authorizations granted to users that define which parts of Zendesk they can access and
what tasks they can perform. Permissions are attached to roles. See Adding agents and admins, and Creating custom roles and assigning agents.



Personalized email replies

The email address used in replies to show the user's name as a friendly name (for
example, "Claire Grenier <notifications-support@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com>").
You can turn personalized email replies off to show your Zendesk account name instead (for
example, "MondoCam Support Center
<notifications-support@yoursubdomain.zendesk.com>"). See Understanding personalized email replies.



Placeholders

The references to ticket and user data that you include in the subject and text fields of
email notifications. Without placeholders it is impossible to create automatic
notifications. You'd have to manually enter the data for each ticket. Placeholders are
contained in double curly brackets,for example: {{ticket.assignee.name}}. For example, you
can view the list of available system placeholders when creating macros. Custom fields can
also be referenced as placeholders. See Using placeholders.



Play mode

Automatically guides you through the available tickets in a view. Depending on the
settings configured by your admin, you might be automatically launched into Play mode when
you select a view. See Using Play mode to quickly work through tickets.



Priority

Each ticket is assigned a priority. The ticket priority is used to generate views and
reports, as conditions and actions in automations and triggers, and as actions in macros.
See About ticket fields.



Private ticket

A private ticket contains only private (internal) comments and no public comments. A
private ticket can be created by enabling the first ticket comment to be private. When
enabled, new tickets created by agents default to the internal note option, as do all
subsequent comments, until a public reply is made. See Creating a private ticket on behalf of a user.



Private ticket group

Admins can designate a group as private. This means that agents outside the group
generally can’t access tickets assigned to it, although agents may be granted permission
to view private tickets. See About private ticket groups.



Product menu

The product menu in the header that enables agents to easily switch among the various
products that Zendesk offers. Clicking a product name within the menu will open the
product. See Switching among Zendesk products.




R


Redaction

See Data redaction.



Remote authentication

Refers to the process of authenticating your users outside of your Zendesk (for example,
via social media single sign-on providers such as Facebook and Google, or via Enterprise
single sign-on using JSON Web Token (JWT) or Secure Assertion Markup Language (SAML). See
Setting up single sign-on.



Requester

A requester is the person who is asking for support through a ticket. By default, the
requester of a ticket is the submitter, but the requester can be changed. For example, if
an agent opens a ticket on behalf of a customer, the customer would be the requester and
the agent would be the submitter. The term is used in macros, views, automations,
triggers, and reports to refer to the person that the support request is intended to help.
See Understanding Zendesk Support user roles.



Request portal

See Customer portal.



Restricted agent

The term is used for agents whose ticket access has been limited to all tickets in the
agent's group, tickets requested by users in this agent's organization, or tickets
assigned to the restricted agent. An agent's access can be restricted via their user
profile. See Understanding Zendesk Support user
roles.



Restricted help center

In a restricted help center, end users are required to sign in to access your help
center. Anonymous users cannot access your help center. See Restricting help center access to signed-in end
users.



Restricted Zendesk Support

Your instance of Zendesk Support is restricted if you are an unregistered user. Only
users with email addresses in domains that have been approved can register and submit
support requests. All other users' requests are either sent to the Suspended Tickets queue
or completely rejected, depending on your setup. See Permitting only users with approved email addresses to submit
tickets.



Roles

Roles define the permissions and access that a user has in your Zendesk account. Roles
are assigned to both external users and internal users. See Understanding Zendesk Support user roles and Creating custom roles and assigning agents.




S


Sales-assisted account

See Managed account.



SAML

Secure Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is one of the two types of single sign-on
available for remotely authenticating users, the other is JSON Web Token (JWT). See Single sign-on (SSO) options in Zendesk.



Sandbox

A sandbox is an internal-only instance of Zendesk that you can use to set up and test
changes before moving them to your customer-facing production instance. Sandboxes
replicate information and configurations from your production Zendesk account, such as
roles, groups, triggers, business rules, and some ticket data. One sandbox is included
with on Support Enterprise plans, and two are included in Suite Enterprise and Enterprise
plus plans. Additionally, sandboxes can be purchased as an add-on for Support Professional
plans and above and Suite Growth plans and above. See About Zendesk sandbox environments.



Satisfaction Prediction Scores; satisfaction prediction

A Satisfaction Prediction Score is an indicator of whether a ticket is likely to receive
a good or bad satisfaction rating, based on a predictive model built for individual
accounts, using past customer support and satisfaction rating data. See About Satisfaction Prediction Scores.
changes before moving them to your customer-facing production instance. See About Zendesk sandbox.



Schedule

You can set a schedule for your Zendesk account that includes a time zone, business hours, and
holidays. On Enterprise plans, you can set multiple schedules. You can use your scheduled
business hours in views, SLA policies, triggers, automations, and Liquid markup. See Setting your schedule with business hours and holidays.



Self-service account

A type of Zendesk account that allows the account owner and billing admins to make
changes to their subscription directly from the Subscription page in Admin Center. See
About Zendesk account types for billing and subscription
management .



Sell (legacy)

Zendesk Sell is a legacy sales force automation (SFA) tool for the Zendesk product
family. It enables your sales teams to enhance productivity, processes, and pipeline
visibility.



Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

You can define Service Level Agreement (SLA) policies so you and your agents can better
monitor your service level performance and meet your service level goals. SLAs are
typically an agreed upon measurement of the average response and resolution times that
your support team delivers to your customers. Providing support based on an SLA ensures
that you are delivering a measured and predictable service, and have greater visibility
when there are problems. See Defining and using SLA policies.



Shared organization

A shared organization allows all users within that organization to see all of the
organization's tickets and (optionally), allows those users to comment on each other's
tickets. An admin can set up shared organizations when creating or editing an
organization. As an admin, you also have the option of granting this privilege to select
end users instead, setting it up in the user's profile. See About organizations and groups.



Side conversations

Side conversations, also known as private conversation threads, are spaces in a ticket
where agents can have a side conversation with a specific group of people, or discuss a
specific area of concern or course of action. You can use a side conversation to organize
information about a ticket. See Using side conversations in tickets.



Single Sign-On

In addition to the user authentication provided by Zendesk, you can also use single
sign-on (SSO) to authenticate your users outside of your Zendesk. There are two types:
social media SSO and Enterprise SSO. Social media SSO has additional login options that
you can provide for your customers convenience. For example, you can make Facebook,
Google, and X (formerly Twitter) logins available on your login page. Enterprise SSO is provided by
JSON Web Token (JWT) and Secure Assertion Markup Language (SAML). See Single sign-on (SSO) options in Zendesk.



Social messaging

A channel for customers to communicate with their end users through third-party social
media services. See Getting started with social messaging. See also Messaging.



Staff

Collective term sometimes used for users with an admin or agent role in Zendesk. Does not
include end users.



Staff agent

This is a system custom agent role. A Staff agent's primary role is to solve tickets.
They can edit tickets within their groups, view reports, and add or edit personal views
and macros. See Understanding system custom agent roles in
Zendesk.



Standard theme

The default theme that comes with a help center and is used to define the layout of your
help center, is the Copenhagen theme. This theme is supported by Zendesk and automatically
updates when new theme features are released. You can also update the Copenhagen theme by
using branding and advanced settings in the Settings panel. However, you cannot edit the
code to customize the theme, otherwise it will no longer be considered a standard theme.
See About the standard theme and custom themes in your help
center.



Status

Each ticket is assigned a status. There are five status values in total: New, Open,
Pending, On-hold, Solved, and Closed. The ticket status is used to generate views and
reports. It's also used as a condition in automations, macros, and triggers. The status
can only be changed to Closed via automations and triggers (not manually). See About ticket fields.



Subdomain

Your subdomain is part of the URL address you use to access your Zendesk account. Your
subdomain uniquely identifies your Zendesk account on the network. The convention for
accessing your Zendesk account is https://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com. An example
would be https://mayfield.zendesk.com, where mayfield is your subdomain. See Viewing account information on Admin Center Home.



Submitter

A submitter is the person who actually creates a ticket. By default, the submitter of a
ticket is the requester, but the requester can be changed (the submitter cannot be). For
example, if an agent opens a ticket on behalf of a customer, the agent would be the
submitter and the customer would be the requester. See Understanding Zendesk Support user roles.



Support addresses

Any email address you want to use to receive support requests as tickets can be added to
your Zendesk as a support address. Support addresses can be either variations of
your Zendesk address or external email addresses. See Adding support addresses for users to submit tickets.



Support request

This term is used to describe what end users create in the help center or any other
channel, such as email, voice, and messaging, when they request help. Support requests
become tickets in Zendesk Support.



Suspend a user

Users can be suspended, which means that they are no longer able to sign in to Zendesk
Support and any new support requests you receive from the user are sent to the suspended
tickets queue. See Suspending a user.



Suspended ticket

Based on a number of factors (such as an email being flagged as spam) some of the email
coming into Zendesk Support might be suspended or even rejected. Email messages that are
suspended are added to the suspended tickets queue from where they can be recovered or
deleted. See Managing suspended tickets and spam.




T


Tag

To help you categorize, act on, or search for tickets, you can add tags. Tags can be
added to tickets automatically based on the words in the request, manually by agents, or
via triggers, automations, and macros. Once added, you can create views by tags, search
for tags and the tickets in which they are included, and use tags in your triggers,
automations, and macros. Tags can be added to users and organizations and these tags can
then be used in business rules to manage the ticket workflow. See Working with ticket tags and Adding tags to users and organizations.



Target

You can notify an email target when a ticket is created or updated. See Notifying external email targets.



Team leader

This is a system custom agent role. Team leaders have greater access to Zendesk Support
than staff agents. They can read and edit all tickets, moderate forums, and create and
edit end-users, groups, and organizations. See Understanding system custom agent roles in Zendesk.



Ticket

Support requests received from any of your channels) become tickets in Zendesk. Each ticket is assigned to an agent to
solve and all activity related to solving the support request is captured as details
within the ticket. Ticket data includes Subject, Email, Description, Status, Type,
Priority, Group, Assignee, Tags, and any other custom fields you create. Each ticket
requires a subject, email address, and description. See About ticket fields.



Ticket form

A ticket form is a set of predefined ticket fields for a specific support request. The
ticket form determines the fields and data a ticket contains. See Creating multiple ticket forms to support different request
types.



Ticket deflection

Providing information to users so they find answers to their questions on their own
rather than submitting help tickets.



Ticket sharing

Tickets can be shared between Zendesk accounts so that you can collaboratively solve
tickets. You establish sharing agreements with other Zendesk accounts and specify the
terms under which sharing can occur, and how shared tickets are managed. See Sharing tickets with other Zendesk Support accounts.



Time-based events

See Automations.



Triggers

Creating or updating tickets generates events. You can use these events to automatically
modify tickets and send email notifications. For example, when a new ticket is created
Zendesk sends an email confirmation to the person who generated the ticket (the
requester). The mechanism that enables this is called a trigger. Using triggers, you can
also automatically assign a ticket to a specific support agent or support group based on
the email address it was sent to, the organization to which the requester belongs, or
keywords contained in the request message. See About the standard Zendesk Support triggers and Creating and managing triggers.



Type

Each ticket is assigned a type. There are four values for type: Question, Incident,
Problem, Task. The ticket type is used throughout Zendesk Support to generate views and
reports and it's also used as a condition in automations, macros, and triggers. See About ticket fields.




U


User alias

If aliases are enabled for your help center, you can set up an alias in your help center
profile that is used in place of your name when you post or comment. See Adding or editing your help center alias.



User segment

A collection of end users and agents defined by a specific set of attributes and used to
determine access to help center content. See Creating user segments for help center user permissions.




V


View

Views define a collection of tickets, leads, contact, or deals based on a set of criteria
(expressed as conditions). For example you could define a collection of tickets as "My
open tickets" or "Recently solved tickets". Views can be formatted to display as lists,
tables, or stages (for deals), and you can specify who can access them. See Accessing your views of tickets and Using views to manage ticket workflow.



Voice (formerly Talk)

Integrated voice support in Zendesk. Agents make themselves available to
receive calls and their conversations with customers are recorded and added to tickets.
When agents are unavailable, customers leave voicemail messages that automatically
become tickets containing the voicemail recording and a transcription. You can also make
outbounds calls. See Getting started with voice support.




W


Webhook

A webhook sends an HTTP request to a specified URL in response to an event, such as a
trigger or automation firing in Zendesk Support. Web developers typically use webhooks to
invoke behavior in another system



Web portal (legacy)

Web portal was the original version of the customer-facing, end-user portal. Web portal
was replaced by the help center. See the Help
Center entry.



Web Widget

The channel for embedding Zendesk messaging on a website or help center. See Working with messaging in the Web Widget.



Web Widget (Classic)

Web Widget (Classic) enables you to embed support options in your website or help center,
including help center search, Zendesk chat, and a contact form. You configure the
components you want in the widget, then add the widget code to your website or help
center. After you add the code, you manage changes via Zendesk. SeeUsing Web Widget (Classic) to embed customer service in your
website.



Whitelist

See Allowlist.




Z

Zendesk account

A Zendesk instance. A Zendesk account includes all products and features that are hosted
under a single subdomain. For example, "myaccount" in https://myaccount.zendesk.com.



Zendesk bots (legacy)

Zendesk bots was the former name for AI agents. See AI agents.



Zendesk Copilot

See Copilot.



Zendesk Marketplace

The Marketplace is the hub for apps to customize Zendesk. It also offers help center
themes for your help center. See Using the Zendesk Marketplace.



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