You can add users to your Zendesk manually one at a time, through a bulk import of users, through the Zendesk API, and also as new end-users submit requests for the first time. The term users here also refers to agents and administrators.
This article covers the following topics:
- Adding a user
- About the user options
- Setting agent privileges and defining ticket access
- Removing or replacing an agent
Once users have been added, you can organize them and manage the workflow using groups and organizations. See About organizations and groups.
For more information about adding users with the Zendesk API, see Zendesk REST API: Introduction.
You can also watch this short video.
Adding a user
Administrators can add end-users, agents, and administrators. Agents can add end-users only.
For information about the administrator and agent roles, see Understanding Zendesk user roles.
- Hover over the +add tab, then select User.
- Enter the user's full name and email address.
- Click Save.
You can add additional information to the user's profile after clicking Save.
If you get an error when adding an agent, make sure you haven't exceeded the total number of agents on your account. You can add more agents to the account if you need them. See Manage > Account > Subscriptions.
- When the user's profile opens, select a Role.
- If you're adding an agent, set privileges for the agent (see Setting agent privileges and defining ticket access below).
If you are on Enterprise, skip this step. Agent permissions are determined by the custom role you select for the agent. For more information about Enterprise custom roles, see Custom agent roles.
- Enter the user's profile information. See About the user options below.
- If you want to add additional contact info, click Add contact, select the type of contact, then enter the contact info in the field that appears. Repeat as needed.
The new user is saved automatically, so when you are finished you can simply navigate away. The new user receives the welcome email and verification link to choose a password and sign in for the first time.
About the user options
The following table describes the options that can be set for a new user.
| Profile data | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | User's name. |
| Email address used for all email communications with the user. | |
| Role | Defines the user's function and access level in your Zendesk. There are three user types: End-user, Agent, Administrator. On Enterprise, you can create custom roles for agents. Only administrators can change a user's role.
For information about roles for Starter, Regular, and Plus, see Understanding Zendesk user roles. For Enterprise, see Using custom agent roles. |
| Contacts | Other contact information for the user, such as Phone, Twitter handle, Facebook page, and Google account. |
| Phone | Personal telephone number for the user. |
| Alias (Plus and Enterprise) | Alternative name for an agent to use on all communications with end-users instead of the agent's real name. If this field blank is blank, the agent's real name will be used in email communications.
Zendesk Classic: This option is called Display name.
For more information, see Adding an agent alias. |
| Signature | Closing line added to an agent's email notifications. |
| Tags | List of tags that will automatically be added to new tickets created by this user. Separate tags with a space. Tags are added to new tickets only, not updated tickets. This is an optional feature and your Zendesk may not have enabled user tagging.
For more information about user tags, see Adding tags to users and organizations. |
| Organization | A collection of users (both end-users and agents) created by an administrator. On Starter and Regular plans, users can belong to only one organization. On Plus and Enterpise, users can belong to multiple organizations, up to 100. A user does not have to belong to any organization, however.
For more information, see About organizations and groups. |
| Language | Language the user will view your Zendesk in. This setting affects this user only. |
| Time zone | Local time zone for the user; used to time stamp tickets. This setting affects this user only. |
| Details | Additional details about the user. Address, for example. Details are visible to other agents but not end-users. |
| Notes | Additional notes about the user. Notes are visible to other agents but not end-users. |
Setting agent privileges and defining ticket access
When you add agents you need to define their privileges (groups they will be assigned to, their access to tickets, if they can make both public and private comments, and if they can moderate forums). These privileges are described in the following table.
If you are on Enterprise, agent permissions are determined by the custom role you select for the agent. For more information about Enterprise custom roles, see Custom agent roles.
| Privileges | Description |
|---|---|
| Groups | List of groups the agent belongs to. Agents must belong to at least one group.
Click the group name to edit the groups for the agent. For more information, see About organizations and groups. |
| Access |
Define the agent's access to tickets as one of the following:
Zendesk Classic: This option is called Has access to.
|
| Comments | Determine the type of comments an agent can make on tickets.
|
| Help Center
(if you have Help Center enabled) |
Set the Help Center privileges for the agent.
|
| Forums (Zendesk Classic) | Set the Web portal privileges for the agent.
|
Removing or replacing an agent
To replace an agent with another agent, demote the current agent to an end-user and then add a new agent. By demoting instead of deleting an agent, you can preserve some information about the agent.
To remove an agent
- Make sure to reassign all the tickets currently assigned to the agent.
- Open the agent's profile page. Click Manage > People > Agents, and then click the Edit button on the right side of the agent's name.
- Downgrade the agent by selecting End-user as the new Role.
- Confirm that you want to downgrade the agent's role.
- Update any triggers and automations that auto-assigned tickets to the agent.
If you want to completely remove the agent after the downgrade, use the User options arrow in the upper right on the profile page.
Hi. What happens to a user's tickets if you delete the user? I'm thinking in terms of who the ticket lists as the requestor, and all the posts entered in any ticket previously be the deleted user - who owns them?
Steve,
As mentioned in the article, you can't delete a user/requester until all their tickets are closed. Once that happens and you delete the user/requester, there will still be references to that deleted user in those closed tickets.
What about editing users in bulk?
i.e We might take on a couple on new stores, so we would need to change the organisations and tags and the like for multiple users
Anton:
How does one tell through the XML output that a user is marked as suspended? Is there a field which exposes this fact?
Also, why is organization suspension no longer an option?
Will there be the ability to do a mass suspension? Like all members under organizations?
Neil,
The user XML export does not currently include the suspended status. Also, suspending an organization was never possible. It may be in the near future.
Jason,
Would these be new users? From new stores? If you originally added your users via a bulk import, you can update their data and re-import that user data. You can also do that with the API.
Matt,
Right now you can only suspend users one at a time.
Can I, as an admin, reset an agent's password?
@Josh, Yes! You can go to their profile page at Manage > People, to the 'Identities' tab, and enter a new password for them, making sure that it meets the password security level you have in place in your system.
I agree with Matt. Mass suspension feature would be great. Or at least the ability to suspend from the People view without having to click on each person's name, then action before we are able to suspend. Thanks!
Matt, so if we are syncing our user accounts to Zendesk, it should be safe to remove Zendesk users if they have left our internal organisation? (i.e. assuming they have no open tickets?) and their history of older tickets will still be around and searchable?
Also, it doesn't seem you can suspend a user via the rest api, is that true?
Sorry, didn't mean to target that question to Matt, oops
Hi, Colin - Are you using remote authentication to synch your users? If so, any changes you make in your own system will propagate to Zendesk. If you remove a user from your system, they won't have access to Zendesk. In that case, it would be totally safe to remove a user (though, you won't be able to until they have no open tickets). Let me know if that's not what you're asking.
Is this unavailable from the API? I don't see a suspend field there.
Using the API you can set a user to inactive. See the section called Destroy in this topic: http://www.zendesk.com/support/api/users.
Gah, that is definitely not the same thing as suspend. Unfortunately I tried it and it actually deleted the User - is there any way to undelete??
I just manually recreated the deleted user (which thankfully wasn't associated with anything). The real suspend flag can apparently only be set by the usual http auth to:
PUT /users/{{user_id}}
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
user[suspended]=true
Is there an easier way to filter out the Suspended users? I like to put all the Suspended users into an organization called "Spam users". So, whenever they email again, I can route them to Spam folder directly instead to the Suspended Tickets. Anyone see anything wrong with that approach?
Now, my challenge now is how to filter out the Suspended users from the thousands of good users. Any suggestion?
No I still haven't found anything on this...
Is there an easier way to export the user information out directly?
I wish to export them out so that I can update changes into the table and import them back again.
It seems I cannot set a new agent's password unless he logged in at least one time. This is really annoying when I want to set up a new agent and just email him his credentials (without me having to rely on him fishing the invitation email out of his spam folder). Is there no other way?
Gotta say, there are an *awful lot *of unanswered forum posts like these. Worries me somewhat as an evaluator.
Hello :) When adding a new user, I get the box which asks for name and email. Can I add role to that box as well?
Thanks!
Hi Sabrina,
At this time that's as much information as can be entered in the box. I'll send your feedback along to the Product team - I agree it would be nice to be able to enter the Role there at the same time!
Is there a way to deactivate the Welcome mail that is sent to new users? I've looked in Triggers and Automations, but couldn't find anything regarding that option.
Hello Nadia,
In order to restrict the welcome email from being sent to your customers, you need to modify your end-user settings. Only administrators can make the following changes to the end-user settings.
To modify account settings:
Click the Manage icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Customers.
Zendesk Classic: Select the Settings menu, then select End-users.
In the Anyone can submit tickets section, check the Enabled option.
Next, uncheck the option called Ask users to register.
Finally, in the User welcome email section, uncheck the Also send verification email when a new user is created by an agent or administrator option.
Click Save Changes.
When an unregistered end-user submits a request for the first time, they are added to your Zendesk as a new end-user. They receive the request confirmation email but not the verification request email. They remain unverified in your Zendesk.
Perfect! Thanks, Brandon.
Is there a pricing difference for Administrators & Agents? We will need developer accounts but they probably won't field to many tickets. Do we pay for an account for an API user?
Hi Tom,
There's no difference between pricing for Admins and Agents since they can both handle tickets. The only pricing difference based on someone's role comes with the Enterprise plan where you have the option of Light Agents. These agents can sign into your Zendesk and view tickets but they can't be assigned tickets, make public replies or access ticket fields - they are mostly for internal use. We don't have an API user role unfortunately; maybe if you can say a little more how you would use the developer accounts we can think of some options? What would they need to do or have access to?