You can add custom fields to your tickets to enable you to collect information that's not collected by a standard Zendesk ticket. For example, you could add a drop-down list to tickets that enables the requester of the ticket to choose their office location.
When your ticket data is next synchronized with Explore, custom fields are also synchronized and can be used in your reports. This synchronization occurs every hour. Explore synchronizes ticket, user, and organization custom fields.
For details about how to create and use custom fields, see Adding custom fields to your tickets and support request forms.
This article contains the following topics:
How custom fields synchronize with Explore
When you create, edit, delete, or reactivate custom fields in Zendesk Support, the following happens in Explore:
- When a custom field is created or reactivated in Support, a corresponding metric or attribute is created in Explore at the next data sync (which can take between 1-2 hours). The custom field values must have been used in tickets, users or organizations for them to appear under the corresponding metric or attribute in Explore.
- When a custom field title or value is updated in Support, the metric or attribute title or value is updated in Explore.
- When a custom field is deactivated in Support the corresponding metric or attribute is deleted from Explore.
Finding custom fields in Explore
All ticket, user and organization custom fields are synced with Explore and automatically placed in the corresponding attribute or metric folders of the datasets. From there they can be selected and used on the queries or dashboards.
Only the latest field value is recorded in the standard Explore metrics and attributes. In the Ticket updates dataset, you can track updates to the fields by using the Changes attributes. For details, see Metrics and attributes for Zendesk Support.
Use the following table to help you understand where to find your custom fields in Explore:
Field type (from Zendesk Support) | Object type in Explore | Explore folder |
---|---|---|
Drop-down Multi-select Text (single line) Multi-line Checkbox Credit card Regex |
Attribute |
Ticket custom fields Requester/user organization custom Fields Requester/user custom fields |
Date |
Attribute |
Each date attribute is represented by multiple time dimensions placed in the attribute’s individual folder |
Numeric Decimal |
Metric |
Numeric custom fields |
Custom fields example
In this example, you'll create a custom field containing a drop-down list that lets agents add the requesters office floor to a ticket. You'll then synchronize this with Explore and finally, create a simple report showing tickets associated with each office floor. You must be a Support administrator to add the custom field.
Create the custom field in Support
Perform the following actions in Zendesk Support.
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Manage > Ticket Fields.
- Click the Add field button.
- Click New Field at the top of the page, and enter a title for the field, in this case Office location.
- From the list of field types, click Drop-down.
- In the properties for the list, enter a title for the list, an optional
description, and configure permissions as to who can set values for this
field.
For detailed information about the options on this page, see Adding custom fields to your tickets and support request forms.
- In the Field values section, enter each line of the list. For this
example, enter 1st Floor, 2nd Floor, 3rd Floor, 4th
Floor, and 5th Floor.
- Click Save.
- Add the custom field to the ticket forms you want to use it with. For help, see Adding custom fields to your tickets and support request forms.
The new custom field is now available in your Support tickets. Before you move on, create a few tickets using this new field, or update the field on some existing tickets.
Create the Explore query
Perform the following actions in Zendesk Explore after your data has synchronized. Synchronization takes place once every hour.
- In Explore, create a new query using the Support: Tickets dataset. For more help, see Creating queries.
- In the Metrics panel, add the Tickets metric.
- In the Rows panel, expand Ticket custom fields, and then click
Office location. It might take a few seconds to display the
custom field.Tip: To find custom fields for users, expand User custom fields and for organizations, expand Organization custom fields.
- Explore generates the report in a table similar to the following:Tip: Previously, Explore displayed custom field values as a tag instead of the actual value. If you have query filters, calculated metrics, or calculated attributes that reference the tag values, update these with the new custom field value to ensure they continue to work correctly.
- Give the query a name, and then save it.
Tips for using custom fields in Explore
Use the tips in the following table to help you understand how custom fields work in Explore and how you can get the best from them:
Field type (from Zendesk Support) | Values | Usage |
---|---|---|
Drop-down Multi-select |
Agents or end-users select values from drop-down and multi-select fields. These values appear in Explore as they are recorded in the Support UI. However, if a value is later deleted from the field in Support, its tag will be displayed in Explore instead of the actual value. |
The drop-down field is commonly used to track information about the user or their request. Some common examples are category, issue type, region, plan, etc. Drop-down fields work in a similar way to built-in Support fields like Type or Priority. Use the multi-select field when multiple values are required. For example, you could record multiple product areas, services provided, or areas of interest. Reporting on this field type is more complex than reporting for a drop-down field. Use this field type when a drop-down field cannot be used as an alternative. |
Checkbox |
Checkbox fields have three values True (if the box is checked), False (if the box is not checked) and NULL (if the ticket was closed before the checkbox was created). |
The checkbox is the simplest field type to use and is commonly applied as a query filter. Examples: Submitted for review, Serviced, Completed. |
Text (single line) Multi-line |
Text field values are manually typed in by agents or end-users meaning the field might contain a large number of values. Additionally, the values entered might be inconsistent, or contain spelling mistakes. |
Normally, text fields are used as notes to record additional unstructured data. This makes them less useful for reporting purposes. However, they can still be added to the table queries to provide context details about tickets or users. |
Credit card Regex |
Values for these fields are also manually typed in by agents or end-users, but the format is controlled by the credit card number format or custom regular expression. |
Because these fields provide a more structured way of recording data, they can be more useful for reporting purposes than standard text fields. |
Date |
Each date attribute is represented by multiple time dimensions like Date, Month, Year, etc. |
Enables you to record dates or deadlines, like date of birth, project end date, and booking date. They can be used in queries, dashboard filters or calculated metrics in the same way as any built-in time attributes. |
Numeric Decimal |
Numeric and decimal fields allow storing numeric values that can be computed in the same way as any other metric using the available Explore aggregators. |
These fields are similar to the system metrics, like Agent Replies or Resolution Time. Examples you could use are revenue, project length, or area in square meters. |
36 Comments
Hi Jason,
In that case I would put the metric as "Tickets" then for the column or row put your custom field. You can then remove the blank values this way: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360044348313-How-do-I-exclude-blank-values-from-my-query-
This will give you all the results for the times when that field was selected. Let me know if I'm off base with what you're trying to accomplish!
Hello All,
I am trying to run a report on individual tickets that are categorized under a certain ticket field.
For example, one of our ticket fields is "Cancelations/Refunds." Is it possible to go somewhere and pull up all individual tickets that have this ticket field assigned to it, easily? Further clarification: Is there a way for me to pull up from 2/1/21 to 2/7/21 each ticket that has this custom ticket field assigned to it?
Currently, I am having to go through each agent and pull the ticket numbers from the "recently solved" tickets and this is way too time-consuming. There has to be an easier way!
Thanks for any help that can be offered :)
Hi Kristie,

In Explore you can set a filter to that custom ticket field.
Depending on how you've configured the custom ticket field, you could set the filter to something like Cancellations/Refunds includes/excludes NULL.
That filters all tickets where this field is set.
Hi,
Can we report talk data based by custom organization fields. For example, were looking to be able to report on all callers with the organization field of "free", and view metrics like total talk time, and total calls.
Hi Bobby,
You can report on organization fields to a certain extend when working in the Talk dataset in Explore. You can find the list of reportable org fields here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022365173
For example:
-Organization name
-Organization ID
-Organization domains
-Organization status
-Organization tags
Note that custom org fields (or fields outside of the list above) will not be available for reporting in Explore, but we are happy to forward any field requests as product feedback to our Explore team.
Hope this helps Bobby and let us know if there is anything else we can assist with.
Warm Regards,
Eric G. Gao | Technical Support Engineer | Zendesk
Hi,
Couple questions:
1. Is there a limit on the number of fields that can be report on in explore? I know there was a total limit of 625 for Insights which was roughly about 500 custom fields.
2. Are multiselect fields reportable in Explore? Insights didnt allow them to be reported out on.
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