The Zendesk Agent Workspace includes a flexible message composer that enables agents to work seamlessly across a variety of channels. Agents can work equally well with all types of messages in all types of languages, including social messages, web messages, live chats, emails, and internal notes. This article describes how to use the composer to manage conversations in the agent workspace.
This article contains the following topics:
Switching channels in the composer
When you receive a new message in a ticket, you can choose to reply on the same channel or pick another channel.
To switch channels
- In a ticket, locate the conversation that needs a reply.
- Locate the current channel indicator at the top of the composer window.
- Click the down arrow (v) to open the channel menu.
- Select the channel you want to use for the reply.
Your channel choices vary depending on which channels your administrator has set up for your workspace. They also vary based on the current state of your conversation. For example, during a live chat, you can reply by email (if there's an email on file for the customer), or add an internal note, then reply by chat. However, after the chat is ended, you can't reply by chat. See About channel switching logic in the ticket composer.
Your admin can configure default privacy settings for your conversations. See Changing the default privacy of ticket comments.
Saving drafts across channels
In the composer, each channel is a different way to communicate. You may compose different messages for each channel and the drafts are not carried across channels. For example, when you write something in an internal note and switch to a public reply, that message will not be displayed in the public reply. However, when you switch back to internal note, you will still be able to find the message you left there. This goes for all channels.
If you type a message in more than one channel and submit an update, any message you typed into another channel persists until it is sent or submitted. Channels with unsubmitted messages are marked with a blue dot.
These unsubmitted messages will persist in the ticket even if you switch to another ticket or end your browser session. To remove an unsubmitted message, switch the composer to the channel that has the draft message and completely delete the message.
If you're concerned about a draft being sent publicly by accident, you can use Draft mode to compose draft messages in public channels. Draft mode requires that you to confirm a message before it's sent. See Writing drafts of public replies in tickets. Working in draft mode is quicker than first composing the message as an internal note, then copying it over to a public channel.
Using Send vs. Submit
During a live chat or messaging conversation, click Send (or press Return) to send your reply.
To send an email or save other changes to a ticket, click Submit.
\
Resizing the composer window
The Zendesk Agent Workspace includes a flexible composer window. You can resize the window as needed to meet your requirements. For example, you can use a smaller window for chats and messages, but you might want to use a larger window for long email messages.
To resize the composer window
- In a ticket, click the border at the top of the composer window.
- Drag the border up or down to change the window size.
When you resize the composer window in a ticket, the window size is saved across multiple tickets. It stays the same until you resize it again.
Using formatting options and controls
The composer comes with a full range of built-in formatting options and controls, including rich text, tables, hyperlinks, emojis, and attachments.
When you pick a channel, the composer controls change to match the channel you're using. For example, a social messaging channel may not support tables or rich text formatting, but the email channel does.
The composer also supports shortcuts, macros, dynamic content, and @mentions.
Editing tables in the composer
You can make changes to tables that you paste into the composer from other applications. Changes you can make include editing table text, adding or deleting rows and columns, and merging or splitting table cells. You can quickly make table changes directly in the composer instead of returning to a separate application to do the work.
To edit a table
- Paste a table into the composer.
- Click inside the table to show the table menu icons above the table.
There are icons for a Column menu, a Row menu and a Merge/Split cell menu.
- To make changes to the table, click the desired menu icon and select a command.
For example, click the Row menu icon, then select Insert row above or Insert row below to add a new row to the table.
Tip: You can use a keyboard shortcut to set focus on the menu toolbar (Ctrl+Shift+`), then use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move between the menus. - You can also click inside the table and edit the table text.
Picking a skin tone for emojis
To help personalize your replies, you can pick a skin tone for the emojis you use in ticket comments. This feature works for any channel that supports emojis.
Watch the video (15 seconds). Refresh the page to replay the video.
To pick a skin tone
- In a ticket, click the emoji icon (
) at the bottom of the comment field.
A list of emojis appears.
- Click the skin tone picker (
) at the bottom of the emoji list.
A choice of skin tones appears.
- Select the skin tone you want to use.
All the emojis that support skin tone change to match the skin tone you pick. For example, many of the finger and face emojis support skin tone changes.
- Click an emoji to add it to your message.
You skin tone choice remains in effect until you switch browser types or clear your browser cache.
Changing text color
If enabled by an admin, you can use formatting options to change the text color and the text background color in ticket comments. This feature is useful for drawing attention to important items in your comments. If your channel supports rich text formatting, the colors you add to comments in a ticket appear as colored text in your messaging applications and email replies. To receive colored text responses from your customers, make sure the Rich content in email setting is enabled.
To change the text color
- Start typing a comment.
- Select the text you want to color.
- Click the T icon at the bottom of the comment field to open the formatting options, then click the text color icon (
).
A color picker appears.
- Select a text color and a background color from the picker.
You can choose from one of the predefined, accessible colors and apply it to the text you selected. You can use several combinations of different text colors with different background colors to enhance your comments. If the color picker is covering up some of the text you want to color, you can resize the composer window to prevent the overlap.
When you apply color to a bulleted list or numbered procedure, the list is colored, but not the bullet symbol or number. Color cannot be applied to text inside a code block or code span. Also, do not apply color to placeholders. If applied, the placeholder will not be visible.
- In addition to adding color to existing text, you can also pick a text and background color first, then start typing.
Note: When you copy and paste color text, from any source, the color is not retained.
Scrolling through a conversation
You can also use the scroll bar on the right side of the ticket to scroll up or down through previous responses without losing sight of the reply you're composing. Separated scrolling is useful if you're working on a long ticket with a lot of details.
As you scroll, you can also click See newest to jump to the most-recent reply or See oldest to jump to the oldest reply.
To prevent unexpected results, when you are actively working in a live chat or messaging conversation, Zendesk doesn't recommend changing the ticket requester.
Loading additional comments
For tickets with more than 100 comments in a conversation, only the 100 most-recent comments appear when you first open the ticket. This helps overall performance and enables the ticket to open quickly. Even though only the first 100 comments are loaded by default, you can still view all the additional comments in the ticket.
To view more comments
- Open a ticket.
If the ticket has more than 100 comments, you'll see a Show more banner at the top of the conversation pane.
- Click Show more.
The next 100 most-recent comments are loaded. You can continue loading comments, 100 at a time, by clicking Show more. You can also click the filter icon (
) to filter between public messages and internal notes.
22 comments
Francois Spinnael
The only reason why I don't activate this, is because we have to scroll down to see the latest replies.
Is it not possible to have the latest replies at top like it is in the non Agent Workspace view ?
4
Cheeny Aban
Hi Francois,
Unfortunately, there is no option to change the flow of comments in the Agent Workspace yet. However, we understand your need for this functionality so I am marking this ticket as product feedback. We truly value customer feedback and your voice and votes in the product feedback topics in the community help influence future Zendesk functionality.
-2
Florian
I'm intereseted to activate the agent workspace for our agents too, but having the latest reply on the bottom doesn't makes sense, especially as we have long conversations sometimes.
2
Beto
The reason for this change is that with the Agent Workspace, you are now able to treat Tickets from Support, Chat, and Talk as well as social media on the same composer. In order To be compatible with chats and provide a more-natural conversation flow, ticket comments are arranged from oldest to newest, with the newest comments at the bottom as you can see on this article: About the Zendesk Agent Workspace.
Remember that you can always go back to the last message by clicking here:
And you can revert back at any time to the classic Workspace after trying the Agent Workspace by following the instructions here.
I hope this was helpful!
0
Reneé Lasswell
Since we added text color, we -really- need a button for "remove formatting" in this WYSIWG panel!
1
Katya Stefanova
I've got Rich content in email showing as enabled but we don't get the option for
Changing text color
1
Bryan Haeussler
Any plans to add text coloring to the standard rich text editor for Support?
0
Yvey Colla
I've got Rich content in email showing as enabled but we don't get the option for, how is it activated?
Changing text color
0
Christle
Lisa Kelly It seems that the formatting of table in agent workspace has changed. Whenever we paste a table in an internal comment, the table does not show up, but the details show up but they look weird. Any insights on this?
0
Lisa Kelly
Hi Christie,
I don't have any specific information about this. I recommend you contact Zendesk Customer Support.
0
JJ Miclat
Hey Yvey Colla, Bryan Haeussler, & Katya Stefanova,
The ability to change text color in the rich-text editor in Support is only available if your account has Agent Workspace turned on. If you are still seeing an issue, you could contact Zendesk Customer Support.
Cheers,
JJ
0
RJ Hines
We're making a big push towards having our teams use macros to respond within Zendesk for FAQs and related issues, but it appears this ability to change text/color does not extend to macros.
Will the text/background color editor be available for macros eventually?
2
Amisha Sharma
Hello RJ Hines - Yes! We do plan to extend the ability to change the color of the text to macros as well. However, we do not have a timeline for that yet as that's a larger project which will involve changing the underlying technology of the macros creation editor.
We'll be sure to update here once we are closer to completing this project.
0
Tommy
It would be great if the size of the composer stays and not reverts to default state
0
Lisa Kelly
Hi Tommy. I recommend posting this idea on our Ticketing System Feedback site. For more information see: Giving Product Feedback at Zendesk
0
Amisha Sharma
Hello Tommy (Anatolii Binkovskyi) - you can upvote here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4408868302362-New-agent-workspace-save-reply-re-sizing
0
Amisha Sharma
Hello All,
We concluded rolling out the Tables Editing Feature in Agent Workspace today. You can read more about it in this article.
With this release, you can now edit the tables you paste into the composer. Please let us know how you are using this feature and if you have any feedback for us. Thanks! :)
0
Rosifah Khum
Hi,
We noticed that when switching from the initial channel to another one (social messaging to email for example) and then revisiting the ticket to respond again to the customer, it defaults the tab back to the initial social messaging channel.
Could there be any way to apply a rule that once an email has been sent that it defaults to the last channel used (here email) ?
0
Lisa Kelly
Hello Rosifah,
Thanks for asking! The Agent Workspace team has this on their roadmap (Improved channel switching logic) and we're hoping to share more information soon. Follow the Announcements and What's new sections of the Zendesk Help Center to get the latest updates.
0
Destiny
To provide you with the best service and address your concerns more effectively, we will continue this conversation through an official support ticket. The ticket dialogue allows us to document, track, and ensure prompt resolution of your query.
You will soon receive an email notification with the ticket number, and from there, we will converse and track the progress and resolution status.
Please keep an eye on your email and respond directly within the ticket thread for further communication. Thank you!
0
Rebecca Lundberg
This article states that when you write something in an internal note and switch to a public reply, you will still be able to find the message you left in the internal note. This has been true until very recently. Now if you create and submit a ticket with both public and internal notes, you lose whichever one was not submitted. This is only happening upon ticket creation, however, not on existing tickets. Is this a known issue or will this remain the functionality?
0
Paolo
Upon testing this on our Sandbox environment. I can confirm that this behavior indeed happens on proactive tickets. For now, this seems to be the expected behavior but it would be a good product feedback.
I encourage you to create a new post in the General Product Feedback topic in our community to engage with other users who have similar needs and discuss possible workarounds. Conversations with a high level of engagement ultimately get flagged for product managers to review when they go through roadmap planning.
Specific examples, details about impact, and how you currently handle things are helpful for our product teams to understand the full scope of the need when working on solutions. You may also want to review the Product feedback guidelines and how to write an effective feedback.
We truly value customer feedback and your voice and votes in the forums help influence future Zendesk functionality.
Best,
Paolo | Technical Support Engineer | Zendesk
0