Using macros to update tickets and chat sessions

You can simply and effectively streamline your workflow by creating macros for support requests that can be answered with a single, standard response. This saves you the time and effort of crafting a separate response to each customer with the same issue.

Macros can be created from scratch, or can be based on existing tickets. Macros contain actions, which can be updates to ticket properties, ticket comments, or chat sessions. Macros are applied manually to tickets or chat sessions by agents.

Note: Macros for classic chat are available on Team, Professional, and Enterprise.

There are two types of macros: personal macros (created by an agent or administrator for their own use) and shared macros (created by an administrator for multiple users). A personal macro is only visible to and can only be used or modified by the agent or administrator who created it. Administrators can create shared macros, and can modify all shared macros, regardless of who created them. Administrators on Enterprise can create custom roles to allow agets to perform these tasks.

Note: Personal macros are available only for Team, Professional, and Enterprise.

Macros can also be organized into categories to help the support staff quickly locate and apply them. For more information, see Organizing and managing your macros.

This article contains the following sections:

• Accessing the Macros page
• Zendesk macros to get you started
• Applying macros to tickets and chat sessions
• Applying macros to tickets in a view
• Creating macros for tickets

Be sure to check out our community tips for macros.

Tip: Fine Tuning: Learn how to improve your agents' productivity in Sylviana Ho's Fine Tuning: Agent Productivity.

Accessing the Macros page

You manage your macros from the Macros page of the Admin Home page.

To access the Macros page

• Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Macros.

Zendesk macros to get you started

Zendesk provides a number of macros to get you started, including:

• Close and redirect to topics

  This sets the ticket status to closed. If it is an incident of a known problem, the requester will be informed via a comment that the ticket has been closed and recommended that they visit the forums for more information about the incident.

• Customer not responding

  This is a reminder that can be sent to the requester if they have not responded to a request for more information on a pending ticket.

• Downgrade and inform

  This tells the requester that the priority of their request has been downgraded to low and that there may be some delay in resolving their request.

• Take it!

  This macro is a shortcut for agents to assign a new request to themselves.

These macros can be used as is, edited, or cloned, so you can modify and repurpose them as needed.

Applying macros to tickets and chat sessions

You can manually apply macros to tickets and chat sessions. You can apply more than one macro to a ticket or chat. Keep in mind that what one macro does can easily be undone by another macro.

So why would you apply more than one macro? A typical use case is a ticket that contains more than one question or issue, let's say two in this example. You might have set up two macros that both insert a comment into a ticket to answer each issue separately. By applying each macro to the ticket, you add two comments and address both issues in a single response.

To apply a macro

1. In a ticket or active chat session, click the Apply macro button in the bottom toolbar.

   

   Zendesk Classic: Click the Apply Macro link.
2. Typically, your five most commonly used macros from the past week appear at the top of the macros list.

   

   You can select one of these, begin typing the name of the macro, or scroll through the list to find the one you want to use.

   The most-used macros display can be disabled, in which case, you'll only see the all macros list. For information, see Disabling the most-used macros option.

   Note: Macros can be set up for a specific channel, Web (tickets), Chat, or for all channels. If you select a macro that is not enabled for your channel, it will not be applied. Unless your admin included the channel in the macro title, there will be no indication in the macro list as to which macros are available for which channels.

   The actions defined in the macro will be applied. If the macro updated the ticket comment or chat session, you can edit the text before submitting the ticket or sending the chat.

3. To apply another macro, click Apply macro again and select another macro.
   Tip: Fine Tuning: Check out how Zendesk uses macros to manage tickets with Jilliana Peterson's Fine Tuning: How Zendesk uses Zendesk, Part 1.

Applying macros to tickets in a view

Just as you can make bulk updates to many tickets at once, you can also apply a macro to more than one ticket using your views. See Managing tickets in bulk.

Creating macros for tickets

Unlike triggers and automations, macros only contain actions, not conditions. Conditions aren't used because nothing is automatically evaluating tickets to determine if a macro should be applied. Agents evaluate tickets and apply macros manually as needed.

Remember, there are two types of macros: personal and shared. Agents can only create personal macros, for their own use.

Note: You can create a macro from an existing ticket. For information, see Creating macros from existing tickets.

Creating personal macros for tickets (agents)

Although only administrators can create the macros that are shared by all the agents in your Zendesk, agents can create macros for their own use.

Note: Personal macros are available on Team, Professional, and Enterprise.

To create a personal macro for tickets

1. On the Macros page, click the All shared macros drop-down menu and select Personal macros.
2. Click the Add macro button.
3. Enter the macro name, and add actions for your macro as described below in Building macro action statements.
4. Click Create.

Your personal macros are added to the list of available macros.

Creating personal or shared macros for tickets (administrators)

Administrators create macros that are shared by all agents in the Zendesk or macros that are shared by only agents in a specific group. Administrators can also create personal macros for their own use.

To create a personal or shared macro for tickets

1. On the Macros page, click the Add macro button.
2. Enter a title for your macro.
3. Use the drop-down menus to add actions for your macro as described below in Building macro action statements, and set the macro's availability.

   The drop-down menu offers three types of macros to choose from:

   • All agents, available to all agents in your Zendesk.
   • Agents in group, available only to agents in the group specified. A drop-down menu to choose the group appears when you select this option.
   • Me only, available only to you.

   

   Note: The Agents in group option is available on Professional and Enterprise. Personal macros are available on Team, Professional, and Enterprise.
4. Click Create.

Building macro action statements

Using macros you can set ticket properties, add or modify tags, and add comments. Select an action using the drop-down menu, then select or enter specifics in the associated drop-down menu or text entry box.

Table 1. Actions

Actions	Description
Set subject	You can use this action to replace the ticket's current subject.
Status	The ticket status can be set to the following: Open indicates that the ticket has been assigned to an agent. Pending indicates that the requester has been asked for information and the ticket is therefore is on hold until that information has been received. On-hold means that the support request is awaiting a resolution from a third party—someone who is not a member of your support staff and does not have an agent account in your Zendesk. This status is optional and must be added to your Zendesk (see Adding the On-hold ticket status to your Zendesk in the Zendesk Administrator Guide). Solved indicates that the customer's issue has been resolved. Tickets remain solved until they are closed.
Form	Your ticket forms are available as actions. Select a specific form. See Creating ticket forms to support multiple request types.
Priority	The priority can be set to Low, Normal, High or Urgent.
Type	The type can be set to the following: Question Incident indicates that there is more than one occurrence of the same problem. When this occurs, one ticket is set to Problem and the other tickets that are reporting the same problem are set to Incident and linked to the problem ticket. Problem is a support issue that needs to be resolved. Task is used by the support agents to track various tasks. Note: It's currently not possible to link incident tickets to problem tickets or set task due dates using the task action in macros.
Group	You can set groups to any of the following: (—) is used to unassign a group (if one has already been assigned) (current user’s groups) is all the groups to which the agent who is updating the ticket belongs. Group name is the actual name of the group that is assigned to the ticket.
Assignee	You can set assignee to any of the following: (—) is used to set assignee to no one (unassigned) (current user) is the last person to have updated the ticket, which is not necessarily the same person who is assigned to the ticket. The current user (whoever updated the ticket last) changes whenever the ticket is updated. Assignee name is the actual name of the person assigned to the ticket.
Satisfaction	Offered to requester.
Set tags	The tags you want to insert into the ticket. The set tag action replaces the current tags. Tags must be separated with spaces. Multi-word tags must be joined with an underscore (for example, about_sales).
Add tags	The tags you want to add to the existing list of tags (if any). Tags must be separated with spaces. Multi-word tags must be joined with an underscore (for example, about_sales).
Remove tags	The tags that you want removed from the existing list of tags contained in the ticket (if any). Tags must be separated with spaces.
Comment/description	The text of ticket comment, email notification, or chat session. The channel can be set to the following: All for tickets and chat Web for tickets Chat for chat sessions
Comment mode	Public or Private. Only agents can view private comments.
Custom fields	Custom fields that set tags (drop-down list and checkbox) are available as actions. You can select the drop-down list values and Yes or No for checkboxes.
Add CC	You can use this action to automatically copy a specific agent to the ticket or the (current user). You cannot use this action to copy an end-user.