Current and upcoming Zendesk betas and early access programs (EAPs)

At Zendesk, we value the feedback of our customers and consider it an important part of our process. That's why we offer early access for some features in development so that you can try out the feature in advance and give us feedback or report issues. We may also provide other feedback opportunities during the development process

In addition to participating in betas and early access programs (EAPs), you might want to join our Experience Research Panel to learn about UX research opportunities where you can help shape our products.

We are offering opportunities for you to give input in the following areas:

• Zendesk Support
• Zendesk Explore
• Zendesk messaging
• Zendesk Guide
• Zendesk Workforce Management
• Zendesk AI
• Developers

Important considerations

Participation in betas and EAPs is completely optional, and availability may be limited. Please be aware that pre-release features and functionality:

• May not always function as expected or meet your particular needs.
• Are not subject to any Zendesk Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that may be applicable to your Service Plan.
• Are not considered “BAA Covered Services” or “HIPAA-Enabled Add-Ons” under your Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with Zendesk if you are entitled to and have signed one.
• May be discontinued or significantly modified at Zendesk’s discretion.

When a beta or EAP closes, Zendesk will often make the feature or functionality generally available to all eligible Zendesk customers. The feature or functionality may be included in an existing Service Plan, or it may require the purchase of an Add-On. Upon general availability, beta or EAP participants may be required to upgrade Service Plans or purchase an Add-On in order to continue accessing the feature or functionality.

Zendesk Support

The following current and upcoming betas are available for Support:

• Dark mode
• App Builder
• Sandbox configuration management
• Custom objects in Explore
• Ability to merge organizations
• Approvals

Dark mode

The Dark mode EAP provides early access to dark mode settings in Support. When activated by an admin, dark mode provides agents with the flexibility to choose the interface that best suits their needs. Agents can pick between dark mode or light mode in their profile menu. They can also choose to match the system appearance they have set for their operating system.

Learn more about activating the dark mode EAP for your account. 

App Builder 

The App Builder EAP is a new and powerful feature leveraging generative AI to empower admins to create custom apps without the need for developer resources, making it faster and more cost-effective than ever to tailor your Zendesk experience to your unique business needs.
Features of the App Builder include:

• Conversational UI: Lets you to describe your desired app using natural language.
• Example prompts: A small collection of prompts to help you get started.
• Iterative app development: Continuously refine and build applications using LLM, allowing you to adjust the app according to your specific requirements.
• Version control: Save different versions of the created app, enabling easy navigation between various iterations.
• Real-time visual preview: Preview the app visually in real-time as you build.
• Data integration: Create apps that utilize data from Zendesk, your company's internal system, and third-party platforms such as Shopify, Jira, and others.
• Code accessibility: View the generated code for the app, which can be reviewed by more technically skilled admins or developers.
• Testing environment: Test the app within your Zendesk Lotus environment prior to installation to ensure proper functionality.
• Publishing and deployment: Publish and deploy the app to install it within your Zendesk account, including an app permission flow.
• Error resolution: Utilize LLM for error fixing if you encounter any unexpected issues.
• Feedback submission: Use the feedback form to report bugs, request features, or share general comments.

Although the EAP is currently limited to a small group of users, we are actively working to make it available to a larger audience in the coming months. If you would like to try out App Builder when it becomes more widely accessible, we encourage you to join the waitlist. Please be aware that access to App Builder currently requires the Copilot add-on.

Sandbox configuration management

The Sandbox Configuration Management EAP provides early access to features that streamline the management of configuration settings across your Zendesk environments. The EAP will consist of multiple phases, beginning with inspection, which gives admins a near-complete overview of an environment's configurations. It also supports saving snapshots of your configuration settings.

Future phases of the EAP will include comparing environment configuration snapshots and deploying configurations from one environment to another.

Learn more about the Sandbox Configuration Management EAP.

Custom objects in Explore

Note: Custom objects in Guide are now generally available. Expanded reporting on custom objects in Explore remains in EAP.

The Custom objects in Guide and Explore EAP provides early access to multiple enhancements to custom objects. First, lookup fields pointing to custom objects can be included in your help center request forms. Second, you can configure end user permissions to view and interact with each custom object's records. Finally, you can also leverage expanded reporting on lookup relationship fields in Explore. Together, these features allow you to integrate custom objects into your end-user's experience and collect more complete data about how lookup relationship fields and custom objects are being used.

Learn more about the Custom objects in Guide and Explore EAP

Ability to merge organizations

Admins can merge one organization into another. When organizations are merged, all users, open tickets, and domains are merged into one organization - the receiving organization. The merging organization is deleted after the merge completes. All changes related to an organization merge are recorded in the audit log. Additionally, tickets that are part of the merge show the change in their ticket events log.

Learn more about merging organizations

Approvals

This EAP introduces the new approval request process feature. Approvals are requests that agents make on behalf of other agents and end users. You can use approvals to increase agent efficiency, ensure compliance, maintain quality control, and provide transparency within your organization.

Learn more about the Approvals EAP

Zendesk Explore

The following current and upcoming betas are available for Explore:

• New report builder

New report builder

This open beta introduces the new report builder, a newly redesigned reporting experience that makes data exploration and report creation more efficient and intuitive for beginners and advanced report builders alike.

Learn more about the new report builder open beta

Zendesk messaging

The following current and upcoming betas are available for messaging:

• Engagements reporting API

Engagements reporting API

The omnichannel engagements reporting API has been launched as an Early Access Program (EAP) for eligible customers to access the engagements dataset.

Engagements represent individual legs of agent interactions in the overall ticket lifecycle.

Learn more about the engagements reporting API

Zendesk Guide

The following current and upcoming betas are available for Guide:

• AI translations for articles
• Service catalog EAP
• Article multiplacement EAP
• New article editor with generative AI article summaries EAP
• Generative search for help center
• New request list experience

AI translations for articles EAP

AI translations for articles uses AI to help you quickly create article translations within your knowledge base, making it easier to provide support in multiple languages.

With this feature, you can generate translations for articles directly within the article editor. If your help center supports multiple languages, you can create an article in your default language, then use the AI translation feature to automatically translate the article into any language supported by your help center.

Learn more about the AI translations for articles EAP.

Service catalog EAP

The service catalog is a ticket channel built for employee service that lets employees easily find and request employee services and assets from internal departments via the help center.

When an employee requests a service or asset from the service catalog, a ticket is automatically created and linked to that item. Internal support specialists can manage and resolve requests through their unified workspace, and employees can manage their requests through the request management interface in the help center.

Learn more about the service catalog EAP.

Article multiplacement EAP

Article multiplacement lets you create one article and place it in up to ten different sections across all brands in your help center. Article placements share the same title and body but have a unique article ID and placement configuration that tells your help center where the placement article should appear.

As a result, when you update the content of an article, the content of related placements are also updated and published. This powerful feature makes it possible to create content once and share it between multiple sections and brands.

Learn more about the article multiplacement EAP.

New article editor with generative AI article summaries EAP

The new article editor includes improvements designed to streamline your content creation process and boost audience engagement. Specifically, with the new editor, you will have access to improvements such as:

• New editing tools: New image editing tools (including text-wrapping around images), a new table editor, and drag and drop functionality for content elements.
• Source code improvements: Cleaner code when using content blocks. You can now view the article source code above and below the content block, regardless of where your cursor is positioned in the article.
• Article components: You can now insert components including HTML blocks, horizontal lines, and AI-powered article summaries into your articles.

Learn more about the new article editor with generative AI article summaries EAP

Generative search for help center

Generative search for help center includes the following capabilities:

• Provides AI-generated answers to help center searches
• Allows end users to provide feedback on the quality of the generated answer

To use these capabilities, your account must meet the following requirements:

• Have a connected Zendesk knowledge base

Learn more about the generative search for help center EAP

New request list experience

The help center, by default, offers the option for end users to submit requests. End users who submit requests can also manage their support requests in the customer portal.

The new request list experience (Beta) improves the way in which end users can manage large numbers of requests in the customer portal. When you enable the new request list experience in your theme, end users can use the new combinable filtering options to refine the requests they want to manage as well as new column configuration options to show/hide columns.

Learn more about the new request list experience open beta.

Zendesk Workforce Management

The following EAPs are available for Zendesk Workforce Management (WFM). This section was formerly Tymeshift.

• Define a rotation period for automatic shifts
• Track agent time with Google Chrome extension
• Combined workstreams and workstreams prioritization
• Forecast vs Actual report
• Unassigned shifts

Define a rotation period for automatic shifts

This EAP lets admins define rotation periods for automatic shifts. By defining rotation periods, agents' shift start times are automatically rotated based on the time period you defined, which frees managers from having to decide a specific order in which to rotate shifts.

Learn more about the automatic shifts rotation period EAP.

Track agent time with Google Chrome extension

WFM admins can track how agents spend time outside of Zendesk by using the Zendesk time tracker Google Chrome extension and configuring extension tracking. Extension tracking allows general tasks to be mapped to specified URLs. When agents can install the Zendesk time tracker extension from the Google Chrome web store, their activity is tracked when they visit any of the specified URLs.

Learn more about the extension tracking EAP.

Combined workstreams and workstreams prioritization

Admins can combine workstreams, as well as prioritize workstreams so that you can ensure that you’re covering the right work at the right time. 

Learn more about the combined workstreams and workstreams prioritization EAPs.

Forecast vs Actual report

The Forecast vs Actual EAP unveils a dynamic new reporting feature, offering users the ability to directly compare forecasted data with actual performance metrics within their operations. This reporting page is tailored to enhance decision-making and operational analysis by providing insights into Inbound Volume, Staffing, Average Handle Time, and Service Levels.

Learn more about the forecast vs actual report EAP.

Unassigned shifts

Unassigned shifts are created without being assigned specific agents, allowing managers to ensure optimal coverage without focusing on individual team members. Once created, unassigned shifts can be shared with a group of agents who can apply to take them.

Learn more about the creating and managing unassigned shifts EAP.

Zendesk AI

The following EAPs are available for Zendesk AI:

• Entity detection
• Similar tickets
• Custom intents

Entity detection

The entity detection feature allows you to define and detect unique information in tickets and messaging conversations. You can then use that information to populate associated custom ticket fields and power automated workflows and reports.

Learn more about the entity detection EAP

Similar tickets

The similar ticket feature uses generative AI to show agents a list of tickets that are similar to the one they're working on. By seeing how similar issues were addressed, agents are able to solve tickets more efficiently.

Learn more about the similar tickets EAP

Custom intents

The custom intents EAP allows you to instantly create custom intents. It is added immediately to your intent list and available right away to start predicting the intent of incoming tickets. Leveraging custom intents will help you optimize and extract valuable insights about your customer service operations.

Learn more about the custom intents EAP

Generative AI

The following EAPs include generative AI features:

• Similar tickets
• Generative search for help center

Developers

The following early access program is available for workforce management (WFM).

WFM reports API

The WFM reports API is a powerful new tool for you to harness your data more effectively. This endpoint allows you to extract data from both default and custom reports by specifying the ID of the desired report template.

The WFM reports API is currently in an Early Access Program (EAP). You can sign up for the EAP here.