Adding and managing end-users

End-users are those people who request support; these are your customers. They may interact with your Zendesk using Help Center, Web widget, email, chat, telephone, Facebook, and Twitter. All of these paths into your Zendesk are referred to as channels.

Regardless of the channel that your customers use to request support, each customer must have an account in your Zendesk. And, like channels, there are many ways that users can be added. They can add themselves by submitting a support request. You can add them manually or in a bulk import of users or via the Zendesk API.

An end-user's account contains required data such as their name and email address. It can also contain additional identities, such as other email addresses, the user's Twitter handle, their organization, and the rest of the data described in the following section.

This article covers the following topics:

• Adding end-users
• Adding user contact information
• Viewing and editing a user's profile
• Identifying undeliverable email addresses for users
• Deleting users
• Merging users

Adding end-users

As an agent, you can only add end-users. Administrators can add other administrators, agents, and end-users.

Note:

Administrators can also add users in a bulk import. See Bulk importing users and organizations in the Zendesk Administrator Guide.

You can add end-users by creating new user accounts. You might do this, for example, if you're on the telephone with a customer who has never before requested support and therefore does not yet have a user account. By adding them to your Zendesk, you can open a ticket for the customer, and they will receive email notifications whenever the ticket is updated and be able to communicate via email with the agent assigned to the ticket.

You can enable end-users access to the Help Center so that they can sign in and submit and track support requests. Or you might only interact with their end-users via email. To sign in to the Help Center, end-users need to verify their account and create a password. End-users who interact with your Zendesk via email only are not required to verify their account since they do not sign in to the Help Center.

So, depending on how your Zendesk is set up, when you add a new end-user they may or may not receive an email prompting them to verify their account and create a password. However, everyone who requests support receives an email when a ticket is created that acknowledges that their request has been received and is being worked on.

Zendesk Classic: The following procedure is not applicable to Zendesk Classic. To add a user in Classic, select Manage > People, then click Add user. Enter the user's information (refer to the table below), then click Create.

To add an end-user

1. Hover over the +add tab in the top toolbar, then select User.

   

2. Enter the user's full name and email address.
3. Click Save.

   You can add additional information to the user's profile after clicking Save.

4. When the user's profile opens, enter the user's information (described below).
5. 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.
6. When you are finished entering information, you can close the user's profile by navigating away from it. The information you entered is saved automatically.

   User data	Description
   Role	Defines the user's function and access level in your Zendesk. There are three user types: End-user, Agent, Administrator. By default, all new users are set to end-users. Agents can only add end-users. Only administrators can change a user's role.
   Access	Enable the end-user to access only the tickets they create or give them access to all tickets created by users in their organization.
   Email	This is the email address you added for the end-user.
   Contacts	You can also add additional contact information for users using the Add contacts link. See Adding and managing user contact information below. Zendesk Classic: Enter contact information in the Identities and Phone sections.
   Tags	List of tags you want automatically added to new tickets created by the end-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 in the Zendesk Administrator Guide.
   Organization	If your Zendesk uses organizations, and you want to add this end-user to one, click Add organization, then enter the name of the organization. Click Add organization again if you'd like to add this user to multiple organizations (see Managing users in multiple organizations). On Starter and Regular plans, users can belong to only one organization. On Plus and Enterprise, users can belong to multiple organizations, up to 100. A user does not have to belong to any organization, however. If your administrator has set up user mapping, which automatically adds new users to an organization based on their email domain, you can leave this blank.
   Language	Language the user will view your Zendesk in. This setting affects this user only. The end-user's Web portal or Help Center will appear in the selected language and some system messages and email notifications may also be in the selected language.
   Time zone	The end-user's local time zone; used to time stamp tickets submitted by this user. This setting affects this user only.
   Details	Additional details about the end-user. Address, for example. Details are visible to agents only, not end-users.
   Notes	Any notes about the end-user. Notes are visible to agents only, not end-users.

Adding user contact information

A user account can contain multiple types of contact information, including email, phone, and social media, like Google, Twitter, and Facebook.

A user account can contain multiple email addresses. Each time you add an email address, a verification email is sent to that address and must be confirmed before the email address is valid. One email address is set as the primary, which means that notifications are sent to that address. You can change the primary email address to any of the other verified email addresses.

You can also add multiple Google accounts and Twitter accounts. Note that you can only add one phone number and one Facebook account.

Note: In addition to adding contact info to a user profile, you can add a photo to a user's profile, depending on your role. For more information, see Adding a photo to your profile.

To add contact information for an end-user

1. Click the Search icon () in the sidebar, then enter a name in the search box and click the user's name when it appears.
   Zendesk Classic: Enter a name in the search box in the top toolbar, then, when the user's name appears, click the Edit link next to the name.
2. In the user's profile, click Add contact and select the type of contact you want to add, then enter the contact information in the field that appears.
   Zendesk Classic: Add a phone number in the Basic Info tab. In the Identities tab, click the Add link in the Email or External accounts sections to add an email address or a Twitter account.
3. Repeat as needed.
4. When you are finished, you can close the user's profile by navigating away from it.

To remove or change a contact

• In the user's profile, click the contact info you want to delete and select Remove. To change the contact, remove it and add a new one following the steps above.

To make an email primary, to resend verification, or to verify an email

• In the user's profile, click the email address and select the appropriate action.
  Zendesk Classic: In the Identities tab of the user's profile, select another email addresses as primary. The email address you choose must have been verified.

Viewing and editing a user's profile

Your registered end-users can edit their own profiles when they sign in to your Web portal. They can't change their role or organization but they can update their contact information, add a photo, and so on.

Agents and administrators can also edit an end-user's profile. You can access a user's profile from one of their tickets or by searching for them.

To view and edit a user's profile, do either of the following

• In a ticket, click the tab for the ticket requester's profile, which contains the user's account data and a list of all of their tickets.

  

• Click the Search icon () in the sidebar, then search for the end-user you want to edit.
  Zendesk Classic: Open a ticket and you'll see a link to the user's profile in the user widget in the right column. Or, use the search in the top toolbar to find the end-user.

Identifying undeliverable email addresses for users

If Zendesk cannot deliver email notifications to a user's email address, after 50 attempts an alert will appear in the user's profile beside the email address.

Email might be undeliverable for many reasons, including the email address is entered incorrectly or the email account is closed. The issue might also be temporary, such as the email server is down or the email account is full (especially if the email account is shared).

To identify an undeliverable email address

• In a user's profile, look for a warning icon beside an undeliverable email address, then hover your mouse over the icon to read the message.

  

To resolve the warning icon:

• If the email address is incorrect, or otherwise needs to be replaced, take these steps: Add the correct email address as a new email address, then remove the incorrect email address.

  You cannot edit a user's email address.

• If the email address is valid, and it's the only email address for the user, take these steps: Add a fake email address and delete the email address with the alert. Then add the correct email address and delete the fake email address.

  You cannot edit a user's email address, and a user must have at least one email address at all times.

Deleting users

Deleting users can be done by agents and administrators. Agents can delete end-users and administrators can delete all users (except for the account owner). You cannot delete end-users who are requesters on tickets that are not closed.

Note: Deleting a user's account cannot be undone, so be careful to select the correct user when deleting user accounts.

To delete a user

1. Open the user's profile by doing one of the following:
   • Click the user's profile from a ticket submitted by that user.
   • Click the Search icon () in the sidebar and search for the user.
     Zendesk Classic: From a ticket, click the link to the user's profile in the user widget in the right column or use the search in the top toolbar to find the end-user.
2. In the user's profile, click the User options arrow in the upper right, then select Delete.

   

   Zendesk Classic: Select Actions > Delete user.
3. When prompted, click OK to confirm the deletion. If you want to cancel the deletion, click Cancel instead.

Merging users

To handle multiple accounts for the same end-user, you can merge one end-user account into another end-user account. You can only merge registered (verified) end-users. Administrator and agent user accounts cannot be merged.

For information, see Merging a user's duplicate account.