| Announced on | Development ends | Removal |
|---|---|---|
| November 26, 2018 | July 8, 2019 | December 31, 2019 |
Zendesk is announcing the removal of support for Internet Explorer 11 effective December 31, 2019. Microsoft Edge is the path forward to use Zendesk if you prefer, or are required, to use a Microsoft browser. Edge will be officially supported before our end of development milestone on July 8, 2019.
Microsoft recently announced plans to make Edge broadly available across more versions of Windows beyond Windows 10.
If you are currently using IE 11, we recommend you switch to Edge or another supported browser. In accordance with the Zendesk feature removal policy, July 8, 2019 is the end-of-development milestone. This means that, after that date, new Zendesk functionality may not work in Internet Explorer, and no minor bugs or cosmetic issues will be fixed for Internet Explorer.
This article covers the following topics
- What does this mean?
- Why is Zendesk removing this?
- What do I need to do?
- Am I affected?
- Who should I contact if I need help or have questions?
What does this mean?
Currently some Zendesk products, including Support, Chat, and Guide, support the use of MSIE 11 by agents and admins. After the end of development milestone on July 8, 2019, users may experience partial loss of functionality within those products if they do not switch to another browser. (Our customers’ customers are permitted a wider range of browsers when interacting with Zendesk products, and this announcement does not affect them.)
After the removal of support milestone on December 31, 2019, the Zendesk Support agent interface will no longer be accessible. End-users will still be able to view Guide content, interact with the web widget, and any other end-user content. Supported browsers for end users can be found here.
Why is Zendesk removing this?
In 2015, Microsoft released the Edge browser as a replacement for IE. Because of this, Internet Explorer no longer receives major updates adding the latest security and functionality that supports complex web apps like Zendesk Support.
Zendesk strives to deliver products that meet our customers’ needs. The increasing gap between Internet Explorer 11 and all other browsers has meant that we needed to expend considerable effort to avoid and fix defects that only appear in that browser. It limits our technology choices and dampens our ability to deliver the reliability and functionality our customers expect.
Because only 1-2% of Zendesk customers use IE11 to access the agent interface, we are removing support to concentrate our efforts on the latest browsers with the latest functionality, such as Google Chrome (which 85% of our customer’s agents use today) to benefit as many customers as possible.
What do I need to do?
Update your systems to ensure that your agents use a browser that will remain supported. See the Zendesk Support browser policy.
Am I affected?
If you have agents who currently use IE 11 to sign in to the Support agent interface, they will need to update to another supported browser before December 31, 2019.
Who should I contact if I need help or have questions?
Please contact maketheswitch@zendesk.com with any additional questions.
11 Comments
In this post you stated...
"In 2015, Microsoft released the Edge browser as a replacement for IE. Because of this, Internet Explorer no longer receives major updates adding the latest security and functionality that supports complex web apps like Zendesk Support."
Yet in the link to supported browsers it says..
"Microsoft Edge is not supported by Zendesk, but reportedly works well for customers."
This effectively means that you are choosing to not support the default browser that accompanies the current version of Microsoft Windows. Since there is no mention of any intention to ever support Edge one can only assume that Zendesk intends to NOT support any Microsoft browser product.
Edge may be the new comer and may have some work to be done before it can be fully supported. However, it's now available on Android, MacOS, and iOS.
Chrome is the undisputed browser leader and still configured on my machines as my default. However, Mozilla was my default at one time only to be replaced by IE. With IE and Edge combined accounting for 6.3 percent of browser market share (according to w3counter.com) one would think that some reason should be given for the choice to not support the current Microsoft browser.
Are there any plans to support Edge? Is it a dead issue, or is it just wait and see if Microsoft's market share increases?
Is there a banner or notification that our end users/customers of the web portal will see about this closer to the retirement? Or do I have to let my own end users/customers know about this change?
Very disappointed that you are dropping IE without officially supporting Edge, especially as there is very little market share between Edge and Safari.
We were just thinking the same thing, without IE11 support, not having support for Edge means that any Microsoft Windows user will in the future need to install additional browser software in their organisation to be 100% compatible with Zendesk. Perhaps the bulk of Zendesk users are not PC users.
If you plan to add a notice or warning to users of IE11 or other unsupported browsers that'd be visible to non-agents on a ZenDesk Guide, please share a glimpse of what that'll look like here and provide instructions to suppress it.
After opening a ticket with Zendesk, they said this change only affects Agents. End Users can still use IE.
The announcement is meant to say that agents and admins may eventually have issues (after June 3, 2019) when using the agent and admin portions of Zendesk products. End-users (described as 'Our customers’ customers') would still be able to interact with Zendesk products using IE11 since their capabilities are much more limited in scope.
My sincere apologies for any confusion or trouble this may have caused, and please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns!
Best Regards,
Trent
Support Engineer, Tier 2
Thanks for updating this thread, Henry!
Indeed, this change will only affect the Agent interface for these product areas, end-users on Guide should see no difference after this change.
Let us know if you have any further questions regarding this change, we'll be happy to clarify!
My question still stands, I'm afraid. Still no plans to official support Microsoft Edge (for agents)?
Hi Chris, we've added some more information in the "What do I need to do?" section of the article that I hope goes some way to answering your question.
Perfect, thanks!
We've updated this article to reflect a new timeline and expanded our position on Microsoft Edge. Please see the body of the article for the updated content.
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