Planning your workflow

Before you launch Zendesk Support, take a careful look at your company’s workflow to make sure you create a Zendesk setup that meets your needs. The planning doesn’t have to be elaborate. Basic sketches of each participant type, each ticket type, and general workflow are sufficient. The more planning you do in advance, the better. If you have a large company and you can’t plan it all by yourself, invite other groups to participate.

To help with your planning, here are some questions you should ask:

Groups	Can you identify a specific purpose for every group in your company that will use Zendesk?  What actions do they perform? What workflows do they need? What groups can you create to add value in Zendesk?
Roles	Can your agents accomplish what they need to with roles that are currently available? How many different roles do you need Zendesk? Which roles (if any) are unnecessary? Which roles can you add/modify to improve your workflow? For example, do you need custom roles for agents who perform specialized or repetitive tasks?
Business schedules	Do you support your end users 24/7/365? Do you have any teams that are only available during specific hours or days? Do you have any holidays with reduced hours? How many different schedules do you need?
Organizations	Do you plan to synchronize user or organization information from an external CRM? What do your organizations represent (companies, departments, classifications, and so on)? Do you want to enable your users to belong to multiple organizations? If so, which organization should be the default?
User fields and Organization fields	What information needs to be stored in Zendesk (agents, end users, organizations)? What information would you like to pass onto the user’s or organization’s requested tickets? What information is important to know when routing or prioritizing a user’s tickets? What end-user information is critical to helping agents solve and serve customers?
Ticket fields	What do I need to know in order to route my tickets? What do I need to know in order to solve my tickets? What do I need to know in order to report on my tickets? Which fields need to be end-user facing, and which need to be internal only? Which fields should be required upon end-user submission? Which fields should be required upon agent solve? Do you plan to import ticket data from an existing system? If so, which one(s)?
Ticket forms	Do I need multiple ticket forms, or just one form, for each task and organization? Does my account support multiple ticket forms? Am I asking for the right information from my end-users? Can predictable, follow-up information be included up front to reduce churn? Does the flow of my ticket form(s) feel natural? If not, what is out of place? Are my forms named clearly for my end-users? For my agents?
Omnichannel routing and skills-based routing	How do you want agents to receive work? Via an automatic assignment (omnichannel routing) or manual assignment (skills-based routing)? Do my agents need to balance workloads across multiple channels of work? Do my agents have highly specialized skills, or can all agents handle any given ticket?
Triggers	Do your agents live in Zendesk all day or in their email? Which of your agents need email notifications? When do they need to be notified? When do your end users need to be notified? Which items in your workflow can be automated? How should your notification triggers be worded?
Automations	Should this workflow situation be a trigger or an automation? Do you need the system to notify you or take action when a ticket has gone stale? How long should a ticket be in the solved status before it is closed? How should your notification emails be worded?
SLA policies	Are you contractually obligated to meet specific service goals? Do you have internal service target goals? Do you need multiple policies, or one blanket policy? How do you prioritize your tickets? Do you have a service goal for the time it takes to solve a ticket?
Views	How should your tickets be prioritized? Which tickets should each group see? How do you classify your tickets?
Macros	What are the most common issues that your end users submit tickets for? What should your comment text say? Should your macro leave a public or private comment? Which agents should have access to which macros? What’s your process for agents to create and share personal macros?