You can add custom fields to your Zendesk Support tickets to enable you to collect information that's not collected by default. 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 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 from Support.
For details about how to create and use custom fields in Support, 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 will no longer appear in new Explore reports, but will continue to display on existing reports where it was used.
- If you delete an active field without deactivating it first, it will not be
deleted from Explore. When this happens, the tag associated with the deleted
field value appears in Explore reports instead of the value's name.
For example, if you had a custom ticket field value named "VIP Plan" with the tag "vip_plan" and then you deleted the "VIP Plan" custom ticket field value, Explore reports would show "vip_plan" as the attribute value instead of "VIP Plan." Additionally, if you then created a new drop-down field value with an identical tag to the one you just deleted, the attribute value in Explore reports would change to the new value you created.
If you need help with a deleted field that was not deactivated first, contact Zendesk Customer Support. - When multiple custom fields share the same name, issues can occur. If a shared field name is used in a formula, Explore's formula editor always resolves that field as the custom field with that name that was created first. This means you can't create formulas with a custom field that shares the same name as another custom field and was created after the first one. If you have multiple custom fields with the same name, deactivate and delete the one that isn't needed, or rename it.
- If a custom field uses dynamic content, updates to the dynamic content itself don’t automatically sync with Explore. If you update dynamic content, you must also update the custom field that uses that content so that Explore pulls in the updated data. To trigger an update to the custom field, you can add a space to the field name, click Save, and then immediately remove the space and save again.
- Explore uses the default Zendesk account language for the dynamic content used in custom fields. This means that the field values are shown in the same language for all Explore users. The default language is synced by Explore during the latest field update. If the default language is updated, the custom field that uses dynamic content also needs to be updated to propagate the new default language to Explore custom field attributes.
Finding custom fields in Explore
All ticket, user, organization, contact, lead, and deal 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 reports or dashboards.
Only the latest field value is recorded in the standard Explore metrics and attributes. In the Updates history dataset, you can track updates to the fields by using the Changes attributes. For details, see Metrics and attributes for Zendesk Support.
Use the tables below to help you understand where to find your custom fields in Explore.
Remember to double-check which Explore folder you're selecting the metric or attribute from. For example, you might see the same field name under both Ticket custom fields and Requester/user custom fields, and the value might vary depending on which you select.
Field type | 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 custom fields Requester/User organization 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 |
Lookup relationship This applies only to lookup relationship fields that are present on standard objects, including tickets, users, and organizations. Lookup relationship fields present on custom objects cannot be reported on. However, for lookup relationship fields present on a standard object that link to a custom object, Explore can return the ID and name of the custom object. |
Attribute Relationship lookup data is available only from April 6, 2023 onward. Relationship lookup data related to custom objects is available only from September 18, 2023 onward. For lookup fields with a related object of User, if a user has no tickets (as either a Requester or Submitter), then that user record isn't returned in Explore. For more information, see Using lookup relationship fields. |
Ticket custom fields Requester/User custom fields Requester/User organization custom fields The attribute names of lookup fields with a related object of Ticket are appended with " - id". The attribute names of lookup fields with a related object of User or Organization are appended with either " - id" or " - name". Additionally, if an " - id" field is related to a custom object, you can click the attribute’s value in a report and select Open link to see the custom object record. For details, see Viewing lookup relationships. |
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.
- In Admin Center, click Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Tickets > 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 report
Perform the following actions in Zendesk Explore after your data has synchronized. Synchronization takes place once every hour.
- In Explore, create a new report using the Support: Tickets dataset. For more help, see Creating reports.
- 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 report 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 report 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. Use this field type when a drop-down field cannot be used as an alternative. Reporting on this field type is more complex than reporting for a drop-down field. For example, while you can use the CONTAINS or REGEX_MATCH function to create a custom attribute for multi-select field values, you cannot create an attribute that simultaneously includes one value while excluding another. |
Checkbox |
Checkbox fields have three values:
|
The checkbox is the simplest field type to use and is commonly applied as a report 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 table reports to provide context 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 reports, 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. |
34 comments
Kristie Thomas
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 :)
0
Kay
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.
0
Bobby Quezada
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.
0
Eric Gao
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
1
Alex Aguilar
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.
0
Ivan
Hello!
Can I use a Sell Contact's custom fields in Explore? In Sell reports I see all these fields, but in Explore (using Sell dataset) I see only standard fields and no one of my custom:
0
Bart
Hi All,
How can you bring up custom fields from their original bulk updated information to what they have been changed to so you can set it back to the original state?
For example, the custom field had some data that has now been changed, and I would like to know where it was changed, the original information and the new information it has been updated to so I can easily revert it back to what it was before.
0
Sabra
Hey @...! In Explore's Ticket Updates dataset, you can utilize the Updates metric with the Changes - Field name attribute to filter to ticket updates that only involve the custom field you are interested in. Then, with the Ticket ID, Changes - Previous value and Changes - New value attributes, you can see for each ticket what the value of the field was and what it changed to. For more information on these metrics, check out the Ticket updates dataset article.
1
James Clark
Hello - I have over 40+ custom fields available as part of our ticket type selection, which can be broken down into 6 categories.
For example
Campaign::Creating a Campaign
Campaign::Adding Collaborators
Campaign::Creating Ads
Technical::Technical Spec
Technical::File Fix
System::New User
System::Password Reset
etc
When I create a pie chart of ticket numbers I get all 40+ results (one per category) and the data is difficult to visualise. How can I SUM the data into categories (campaign, technical, system etc) and display this as a top level overview?
0
Dave Dyson
There's a recipe for that! Here it is: Explore recipe: Reporting on nested drop-down fields
1
James Clark
Hi Dave
Perfect - Exactly what I needed.
Thanks
0
Dave Dyson
0
CJ Johnson
This is not quite right, in my experience. For starters, it's 1 and 0, not True or False, on the Updates Dataset. Also, the status of NULL is applied to every checkbox at creation and then "updates" to 0.
0
Roger
Hey guys, we're facing some problems exporting custom fields data..
Actually, we have the 'Growth' license..
It let us create and use the custom fields on the ticket system, but we cannot download any information about it!
I guess there is two workarounds on this scenario;
1 - Get an plugin, where we could retrieve the all data from the tickets and merge it with the ZenDesk usual reports;
2 - Get our license updated, so it will enable us to export all the data from the tickets (including custom fields).
I would like to know if this make any sense and if those two ways to resolve really can be applied, or if there's something else i'm missing..
Roger A.
0
Antonio Guerra
Hello, has there been a solution for this? I'm having trouble because I see my custom fields as blanks when I try to create a new Query. It looks like this. (Tipo de ticket is the name of my custom field, Seleccionar todo is selects all)
0
CJ Johnson
Antonio Guerra Has the field been used on any tickets yet? You won't be able to see or filter on values that have not been used on a ticket, unfortunately. Additionally, if your query has filters that are restricting the results to tickets that have not applied the field, you won't see the options in the filter there, either.
0
Rebecca Che
Hi, I'm trying to create a report on custom Fields. There are two different Fields with Checkbox. As an example, A customer with a checkbox, B customer with a checkbox.
Here are created custom attributes to separate and categorize them as below.
If ([A Customer]="true") then "A Customer"
ELIF ([B Customer]="true") then "B Customer"
else "C Customer"
Endif
However, the B customer counts always give the wrong data. For example in March, B customer the tickets count is 36, however, when using this attributes, it shows only 19. Can you help with this?
0
Gab Guinto
Have you checked if there are tickets where both checkbox fields are ticked? With how IF THEN ELSE statements work, if 'A Customer' and 'B Customer' are both true, then the ticket will only be counter under the bucket for "A Customer".
0
Birgit Vunk
Hi!
I have added a custom multi-line field I would like to use as a tag. I would want to add product LOT numbers in this field. Sometimes under one ticket I have many products or many different LOT numbers of the same product.
How do I enter multiple numbers into the field, so that it differentiates between the (lets say) two different lot numbers, so it would be possible to count tickets with either lot number? At the moment it understands this entry as one lot number. Is there some kind of a semicolon or such solution to put between the two variables?
Thanks a lot for your help!
0
Alex Zheng
Text fields are generally not super useful for reporting and generally better served as notes to record additional unstructured data so unfortunately it is not possible to differentiate multiple items in a multi line field. It would be better to report on with a multi select field or some other type of field.
Best regards,
0
CJ Johnson
Alex Zheng In Birgit's example, the items are product IDs. Assuming that there's potentially hundreds of IDs and more being added every day, a multi-select solution doesn't really work too well for this type of thing. Can you clarify what other types of fields might be able to accomplish this goal?
0
Krizzia Kaey
Hi. How can I add the request category to my reports? I have customized my request category and I wanted to check tickets by request type on my report, how can I do that?
0
Diogo Maciel
If "request category" is a field in your account, you may check the article below to ascertain how that field is entered in Explore and how it can be used in your reports
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408824384538-Reporting-with-custom-fields
I hope this helps!
0
Katalynn Hagston
I'm trying to do step one of setting this up under objects/rules within the admin center and don't see what you are mentioning. This is all I see
0
Dave Dyson
Generally, you need to be an Admin in your account in order to create, edit, or manage custom fields (although on the Enterprise plan it's possible to create a custom agent role that provides management privileges for custom fields). It looks like you're a Contributor, which has more limited privileges, so you'll need to ask your account owner or admin to grant you Admin status (and possible add an agent seat to accommodate you, since the Contributor role does not consume an agent seat).
0
☆BeaconHelp
Hi expert, I have a question.
I'd like to show the numeric custom field to metric in the report.
I want to know how to show the nemeric value.
I only can see the integer ..
0
Gabriel Manlapig
You can do this by going to Chart configuration > Display format. Then, select the metric and choose Custom and you can choose how many decimal places to show.
Some more information on that here: Customizing the result format.
I hope this helps. Thank you!
1
Mark Molloy
I am creating an Explore Report using the Support Tickets dataset. A custom field is not appearing as an attribute. Other custom fields are available as attributes in Explore. Here is the Custom Field "Patch":
Here is the search for the attribute "Patch":
Is there something I missed setting up the custom field. It was created as the same time as the other ones.
Thanks!
1
Gabriel Manlapig
Numeric fields are imported as metrics in Explore, and not as attributes (How custom fields synchronize with Explore). Use the table below to help you understand where to find your custom fields in Explore.
Alternatively, to convert these field types into attributes, follow this recipe: Explore recipe: Converting between metrics and attributes. I hope this helps. Thank you!
1
Mark Molloy
Gabriel,
Thank you!
Mark
0