Enabling and disabling the Zendesk Agent Workspace

The Zendesk Agent Workspace enables agents to manage Support, Chat, Talk, and messaging conversations within the same interface. Administrators can enable or disable this workspace for their Zendesk account.

This article contains the following sections:

• Preparing to enable or disable
• Enabling the agent workspace
• Resolving issues with the composer
• Coordinating call and chat traffic for agents
• Disabling the agent workspace

Related articles

• About the Zendesk Agent Workspace
• Migrating to the Zendesk Agent Workspace

Preparing to enable or disable

Before you can enable the agent workspace for the first time on an existing account, you'll need to migrate your Chat departments into groups. For details, see Migrating to the Zendesk Agent Workspace. For some new accounts created after July 28, 2020, the workspace may already be enabled by default and you don't need to migrate.

When you enable or disable the agent workspace, agents must refresh their browsers to see the change. Make sure your agents wrap up any chats, calls, or unsaved tickets when you enable or disable this feature. Otherwise, unsaved ticket replies, ongoing chats, and call recordings may be lost. When the workspace is enabled, Chat tickets cannot be updated using the Support mobile app.

If you prefer, you can test out the migration on a Sandbox account first. This gives you time to try out the agent workspace and train your agents before using the workspace in a production environment.

Enabling the agent workspace

To enable the agent workspace

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Settings > Agents.
2. In the Agent workspace section, select the Enable the Agent Workspace setting.

   If your agents work with Asian languages, consider enabling the Asian language fix in addition to enabling the agent workspace. See Resolving issues with the composer for details.

3. Save your changes.

To prevent application conflicts and potential tracking issues, Zendesk does not recommend using the Support Chat app with the Zendesk Agent Workspace. When the agent workspace is enabled, the Support Chat app is automatically disabled on your account. If you subsequently disable the agent workspace and you want to use the Chat app, you have to manually re-enable it.

To get the full agent experience, after you enable the workspace, you can set up social messaging channels and Zendesk messaging channels for the Zendesk Agent Workspace.

Resolving issues with the composer

If you have issues with the composer in the Zendesk Agent Workspace, you can enable a composer fix when you enable the workspace. For example, the composer in the Zendesk Agent Workspace doesn't fully support the following Asian languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. Also, the composer may not work well with some browser extensions.

Enable this setting if you have issues with the composer, such as Asian language characters not displaying correctly.

To help resolve composer issues

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Settings > Agents.
2. In the Agent workspace section, select the Enable the Agent Workspace setting, then select Resolve issues with composer.
3. Save your changes.

Coordinating call and chat traffic for agents

Note: The focus mode feature is currently in an Early Access Program (EAP). You're welcome to try it out, and we'd love your feedback. You can sign up for the EAP here.

When enabled, focus mode allows agents to be online on both Talk and Chat but only serves the agent one channel at a time. For example, if an agent is on a call, they will not be offered chats until the call and call wrap-up has ended. If an agent is responding to a chat or handling multiple chats (up to the maximum chat limit), then no calls are offered to the agent until all their chats have ended. This setting only applies for customers using Zendesk Talk and Chat, not Talk Partner Edition or social messaging.

To enable focus mode

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Settings > Agents.
2. In the Focus Mode section, select Enable focus mode for live channels.
3. Save your changes.

To disable focus mode

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Settings > Agents.
2. In the Focus Mode section, deselect Enable focus mode for live channels.
3. Save your changes.

Disabling the agent workspace

You can disable the agent workspace if desired and revert to a default Support interface without unified conversations. If your account has social messaging channels, you'll need to delete the social messaging channels in Admin Center and close out all your existing social messaging tickets before you disable the workspace.

To disable the agent workspace

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Settings > Agents.
2. In the Agent workspace section, deselect the Enable the Agent Workspace setting.
3. Save your changes.

   When you disable the workspace, a message appears asking you to provide feedback. Your feedback will help Zendesk learn more about how you use this feature.

   Disabling the agent workspace automatically disables focus mode.

4. To restore support for social messaging channels in your account, set up the Social Messaging functionality in Support > Channel integrations. (Optional).