

Contextual workspaces enable you to present ticket tools and features based on specific workflows. For example, your company might have a specific workflow to use when a customer makes a return or when they have a billing issue. This article describes how to create a contextual workspace and define the conditions that will launch the workspace.
This article contains the following topics:
- About contextual workspaces
- Creating a contextual workspace
- Setting workspace conditions
- About the agent experience
For information on how to manage contextual workspaces, see Managing contextual workspaces.
About contextual workspaces
Workspaces optimize your support workflow, without restricting the tools agents need to complete their jobs. With workspaces, you can simplify the forms and relevant macros that agents see when they first open a ticket, and you can expand, collapse, or reorder apps. You can also create a custom layout and assign it to a contextual workspace, giving agents the ideal ticket interface to do their jobs, based on the criteria you specify.
The set of workspaces you define can be as simple or as detailed as you need. For example, you could have a single workspace that defines the ticket form and tools your Customer Support team uses, or you could define a full set of workspaces for your Fulfillment Center based different types of international shipping locations, product types, and currencies.
Workspaces are for recommendations, not restrictions. Agents can still search for other macros that are available to them, apply other forms, or use other apps if desired.
Creating a contextual workspace
You create new contextual workspaces, and edit existing ones, from the workspaces page. You can create up to 500 active workspaces for an account and include up to 10 conditions per workspace.
- In Admin Center, click
Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Contextual workspaces.
- Click the Add Workspace button. A new workspace builder opens. The builder includes five tabs: Details, Ticket Forms, Macros, Apps, and Layout.
- On the Details tab, Enter a Title and Description for the workspace, then enter the conditions that will launch the workspace. For more information, see Setting workspace conditions.
- On the Ticket Forms tab, use the Active form drop-down to select a predefined ticket form to associate with the workspace.
You can begin typing the name of the form to filter the displayed list, or you can scroll through the list to locate the form you need. When you select a form, a read-only list of ticket fields appears.
If you do not want to apply a ticket form, select No change from the menu.
- On the Macros tab, select one or more macros to associate with the workspace.
To select macros, you can begin typing the name of the macro to locate potential matches, filter the list by Categories or Permissions, or you can scroll through the list to locate the macro you need. Only shared macros are available when creating a workspace.
If your macros are sorted into categories, you can click the category name to drill down the list.
The macros you select appear in the Selected tab.
- On the Knowledge tab, in the Default filters section, configure the default filters that are available for agents searching for content in Knowledge in the context panel when using this workspace.
If you want to:
- Remove the selected filters, click X to remove the filters displayed in the Default filters list.
- Add new filters, use the dropdown menu to select the filters that you want to add.
You can click the > icon to display the filters grouped under a filter type (for example, Brand or Language). Select up to five filters within each filter type that you want to use as default search filters.
Note: To change knowledge section settings that are not part of this workspace, see About Knowledge in Agent Workspace. - On the Apps tab, select one or more apps to expand in the Apps panel. Only apps in the ticket sidebar can be set in contextual workspaces.
You can begin typing the name of the app to filter the displayed list, or you can scroll through the list to locate the app you need.
To change the order that apps appear in tickets, click and hold the drag handles to reorder the apps. The apps order you set here takes priority over the order you set for tickets on the My apps page.
Agents can manually click the header of any app to expand or minimize it. The apps you select to Expand by default will be expanded for all tickets viewed in the workspace.Note: If you’re using contextual workspaces with custom layouts, Zendesk recommends configuring apps as part of a layout (instead of using this Apps tab) to get the best experience for your agents. - On the Layouts tab, select a layout to apply to the workspace.You can apply one layout to a contextual workspace. If you don’t assign a layout, the default ticket layout is used.
Note: If you change the default layout on the Layouts page, the new default is automatically applied to any contextual workspaces that reference the default.
As you define the workspace, the Details tab shows a Preview summary of what the agent will see when they first open the ticket, including form fields, relevant macros, knowledge filters, apps, and layout.
- Click Save and activate. You are returned to the Workspace edit page, and the new workspace is added to the list.
Setting workspace conditions
On the Details tab, you can set the conditions that launch the workspace. Each workspace can include up to 10 conditions. For instance, in the example below, any incoming ticket using the Billing Issues form and routed to the Billing group will launch the workspace.
- On the Details tab, click the Add condition button under Assign workspace if ALL conditions are met and/or Assign workspace is ANY conditions are met.
- If you add conditions under Assign workspace if ALL conditions are met, all of the conditions must be true for the workspace to apply.
- If you add conditions under Assign workspace is ANY conditions are met, one or more of the conditions must be true for the workspace to apply.
- Select a condition from the Conditions drop-down list.
- Select a field operator.
A field operator determines the relationship between your condition and its value. For example, if you select the field operator Is, your condition must be equal to the value. Different conditions contain different field operators.
- Select a value. Each condition contains a unique value.
- Continue to add as many ANY and ALL conditions as needed to create the correct logic for the workspace.
Zendesk recommends keeping your conditions simple so they are easier to troubleshoot and maintain. If you include conflicting conditions, an error message appears.
About the agent experience
After the workspace is activated and the conditions are met, agents will see ticket features that match the workspace definition. For example, when a US customer returns a camera, the ticket might look like this:
22 Comments
Why limit the number of conditions? This is causing us some headache as we use the 'Form is Not' condition liberally.
Please extend the number of conditions to match that of other areas of Zendesk.
Are workspaces real-time features? Will workspaces update and show selected lists of macros/apps for the specific scenarios? Or after agent set the category of ticket for example?
Hi,
How can I select more than one ticket form per workspace?
I can see on the example screenshot that several forms have been selected, but when I try it doesn't give me the option to select more than one.
That's a great question. One good quote from this article is, "Workspaces are for recommendations, not restrictions."
When it comes to setting a ticket form in a contextual workspace, you will only have the option to select the ticket form that agents initially see when using that workspace. There is no option to limit what ticket forms agents see via contextual workspaces. In other words, agents will be able to see all 10 active ticket forms while working on a ticket.
I hope this information helps!
Hi Hervin,
Is there any plans in the pipeline to get more governance on restrictions. example - restricting certain forms and brands from being displayed. In as much as triggers auto assign, we see instances where agents change these fields unnecessarily.
Hi
Just wanted to confirm if contextual workspaces work with proactive tickets?
When creating a new proactive ticket, there are no conditions present (as the ticket doesn't "exist" until it's submitted), therefore Contextual Workspaces conditions won't fire. Hoping I've understood that correctly.
I couldn't find any reference to proactive tickets in the documentation.
Cheers
Chad =)
Hi Chad,
This is Tod with the Zendesk Customer Advocacy Team.
It's been too long! I hope you are doing well!!!!!
Regarding the inquiry about the Proactive Tickets and Contextual Workspaces, I have confirmed that it is not possible to load the details for a Contextual Workspace until the ticket already exists.
This is due to the fact that the Workspaces look at ticket conditions to determine which workspace should qualify.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Best regards,
Tod
Legend. Thanks so much Tod :)
Yes, as stated in the above article, you can create up to 500 active workspaces for an account and include up to 10 conditions per workspace. Hope that helps!
Hello,
I have tried to use contextual workspace to help my agents working with macros and boost productivity
We use hundreds of macros. Some of them are for one product (= one contact form), some of them are for another product.
I have filtered to display some macros only for a specific product but when I use the macro search all the macros are displayed. The ones from the other products that I don't want to see are displayed on the top...
Relevant macros section doesn't work as our agents want to use the search to search a specific macro among hundreds of macro.
Any tips ?
I don't find contextual workspace really useful for now...
Thanks
Hi Damien,
Have you tried using our macro suggestions feature? See Using suggested macros. It uses AI to suggest the most-relevant macros for agents.
Hi,
I have 2 questions below and hope to hear answers from Zendesk team.
Thanks,
Monika
Hi Monika,
To answer your questions
1. Yes, you can add multiple tags and the limit is not by tags but by the number of characters allowed in the textbox which is 65,536.
2. You have the option to select macros that you want to associate with the workspace and the selected ones will be the recommended macros but this does not mean that you are restricted to only using the macros selected, they are merely for recommendation. If you wish not to select any macros then it will simply not provide any macros for recommendation for that specific workspace.
Hope that helps.
Hi there,
I have an Enterprise account and hoping to transition from the default workspace to the contextual agent workspace, can I try it out in the sandbox before going ahead?
Great question! Yes you can test agent workspace in your Sandbox before enabling in your production account. You'll just want to navigate to your sandbox and follow these instructions: Activating and deactivating the Zendesk Agent Workspace
I hope this helps!
I belive the introduction to Contextual Workspaces is a bit misleading. Thinking about what you, Hervin, said in December 23, 2021 - the text in the intro is not correct:

"With contextual workspaces, agents only see the macros and forms they need for the ticket they’re solving."
From this I believed that setting a contextual workspace with a selected ticket form, would lead to the agents "only seeing that form", like the text says.
Sadly, that wasn't the case.
Hi Kristan,
Just to clarify. When an agent first opens a ticket, they should see the macros and form configured for the ticket they are solving. It doesn't mean they can't select another form or other macros as needed. I agree that the wording might be better. I'll bring this up with our UI team.
Lisa Kelly
You mentioned the agent being able to see other macros as needed. Will this continue to be the macros assigned to their group? I just don't want certain groups having visibility of other groups macros. And I think the wording should also be more clear on this.
Hi Naomi,
Yes, agents only see what they have permission to see. This has not changed. I adjusted the wording a little to make this more obvious.
I am able to create layouts, but I don't see an option to add a layout to a Contextual workspace
Is it the Layout tab that is missing on your Contextual Workspace page?
The
Layout
tab should be available when creating a new contextual workspace or when editing an existing one. Also, the layout you created will be visible in the Layout dropdown options.Joyce yes that option was missing - it is now available - it took a couple of days to show up for us. Thanks!
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