Tags are words, or combinations of words, you can use to add more context to tickets (see About tags). Ticket tagging is enabled by default, but automatic ticket tagging is not. With ticket tagging, agents can add and edit tags on tickets. With automatic ticket tagging, Zendesk Support scans incoming ticket descriptions and adds tags that match. You must be an administrator to enable and disable ticket tagging.
This article contains the following sections:
Disabling ticket tagging
The primary purpose of ticket tagging (the Enable tags on tickets option) is to allow admins to control whether agents can manually add or edit tag on tickets. However, this option has a second purpose, which sometimes goes unnoticed—it sometimes adds tags to tickets automatically via the Update Ticket API (this is different from automatic ticket tagging, described in the next section). For example, if an agent specifies a value for a custom field (a drop-down list) and then submits the change, a tag is added automatically to the ticket.
Ticket tagging is enabled by default. You can turn off ticket tagging if you'd like. You might do this if you rely solely on automatic tagging (the Enable automatic ticket tagging option) or if you simply don't use tags. When you disable ticket tagging, the Tags field does not appear on new tickets.
To disable ticket tagging
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Settings > Tickets. - In the Tags section of the settings tab, deselect the Enable tags on tickets option.
- Click Save Changes.
If you disable this setting, any existing tags, that were applied to tickets will remain, but you cannot add new tags.
Enabling and disabling automatic ticket tagging
If you enable automatic ticket tagging, Zendesk Support scans new incoming ticket descriptions looking for words longer than two characters and then compares those words to tags that have already been used. The top three matches are added to the ticket. You can then use those tags in your business rules to, for example, automatically route tickets to specific groups or agents.
Tags are only automatically added to tickets that come from end-users via the ticket channels. Tags will not be added if an agent submits a ticket from within Support. However, if an agent creates a new ticket using an email, automatic tags will be applied.
- Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Settings > Tickets.
- In the Tags section of the settings tab, select the Enable automatic ticket tagging option.
Note: It's possible to have a situation where tags are added automatically to tickets, even when ticket tagging (the Enable tags on tickets is disabled. If you are using the Update Ticket API to add, remove, or modify tags this is expected behavior.
- Click Save Changes.
- Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Settings > Tickets.
- In the Tags section of the settings tab, deselect the Enable automatic ticket tagging option.
If you disable automatic tagging, you can still add tags manually.
22 Comments
I have a question. I made sure to turn off the "Enable automatic ticket tagging," but it still creates tags from drop-down menus at the Contact Us form. Do you know how to turn this automatic tagging off?
Thank you.
Hi Dae,
Automatic ticket tagging will not account for drop-down field tags. Custom drop-down fields must have tags associated with their values which you can actually set on your own when creating these fields. Automatic ticket tagging will account for tickets that get tagged based on the content within the ticket.
You can find more information in our Understanding tags and ticket fields article which I've attached.
I hope this helps!
Then, I'll ask you differently. How do I stop these tags created by the custom drop-down fields automatically adding tags in tickets? I set macros to delete these tags created by the custom drop-down fields, but they are still automatically created somehow. I also read the the article you recommended, but it does not answer my question. Thank you for your answer in advance.
Hey Dae,
The custom drop-down fields will continue to add these tags to these tickets. As long as those options are selected within the drop-down field the tag associated with that value will be applied to that ticket. Unfortunately using a macro to delete those tags will not work here since the drop-down field value is still selected in the ticket.
As mentioned in our Understanding custom ticket fields in business rules and views article you must have a tag for each field option.
Apologies for not being able to provide another alternative for you :-/
I can certainly pass this feedback over to the appropriate team if the option of removing tags from drop-down fields is something you're interested in.
Let me know!
Hi,
I have a question as well- does automatic ticket tagging apply also to talk and chat tickets?
Thank you in advance,
Mari
Hi Mari-Liis,
Automatic ticket tagging should work with any end-user created tickets. This would include Talk and Chat tickets as well.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Cheers!
Hi,
Is there any setting to prevent the creation of new tags by agents in Support and/or Chat?
Hey Andrei,
The Tag Locker app should allow you to restrict agents from creating new tags. I would recommend installing that app to see if that's what you're looking for.
Cheers!
Hi Brett,
Thank you! Will try this app.
I've enabled automatic ticket tagging on our helpdesk but have three questions:
1) I assume this will only apply for new tickets received from this point forward?
2) Is it possible to retrospectively create tags from previous tickets?
3) Is it also possible to create a list of words to ignore for tagging e.g. the, and, for which I'm guessing will get tagged as they are more than two characters?
Thanks!
Phil
Hello Phil,
Let me answer your questions in order:
1 - Yes, only ticket that are newly created.
2 - That is unfortunately not possible.
3 - unfortunately, this is not possible, Zendesk Support scans new incoming ticket descriptions looking for words longer than two characters and then compares those words to tags that have already been used. The top three matches are added to the ticket.
Hope it helps!
I thought I would revisit this as I still cannot get this working. I've enabled auto ticket tagging but it still doesn't create tags based on the content.
Am I missing something?
Hey Phil,
Can you confirm you've hit the save button at the bottom of the page after enabling this feature?
You may also want to check the ticket events and confirm there's no trigger that's removing these tags from the ticket.
Let me know if you continue to experience issues.
Thanks!
Hi Brett,
Yep saved correctly and no triggers in action I'm afraid...
Hey Phil,
I'm going to bring this into a ticket so we can take a look at some examples with you.
You'll receive an email shortly stating your ticket has been created.
Cheers!
I'm not sure I'm understanding how to achieve this: we want automatic tags and don't want the agents to manually add tags. If I uncheck the box for enabling tags on tickets, I don't have the option to enable automatic ticket tagging. This article makes it sound like those should be separate...what am I missing?
Hi Brett,
I agree with Dae that it would be good to allow the option to enable / disable the automatic tags that are created based on answers in dropdown menus. This can result in very messy 'tags' fields.
Kind regards,
Cindy
Hello Cindy,
We really appreciate the feedback. I would recommend posting this in our Support product feedback forums so our devs can consider this for future updates.
Best regards.
Done:)
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360044047513-Create-an-option-to-enable-or-disable-adding-tags-to-drop-down-ticket-fields
Thanks for taking the time to post your feedback, Cindy!
If others are looking for similar functionality, please visit Cindy's feedback post to up vote the idea and share your thoughts in the comments. Our product teams use votes and comments to gauge need and interest so that they can prioritize the things that the greatest number of users need.
Hi, I went to the Support app and opened Admin Settings. but I don't see Tickets or Tags anywhere. I would think my company has access to this. Am I in the wrong place? Is this doc wrong?
Hello Ajackson
I checked, and you should have access to implement ticket tags on your account. I'd recommend looking over this document, which breaks down the basics of adding tickets tags to your tickets and some of the fundamentals when working with them. If you're still running into issues, let us know, and we can troubleshoot this more with you.
About tags
Best regards.
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