With Explore, you'll often want to create reports based on the channel from which a ticket was created. Channels are the means by which your customers create support requests and how you engage with them.
The channels you see will depend on the channels you have installed. For example, if you haven't set up Facebook integration with Zendesk Support, you won't see the Facebook channel.
Use this article to learn how to view the channels you can report about in Explore, and to learn how channel names will appear when you create reports that use them.
To learn more about channels in general, see About Zendesk Support channels.
This article contains the following topics:
How to view ticket channels in Explore
Use this simple report to see the names of all ticket channels you have used and the number of tickets assigned to each channel. If you need help creating a query, see Creating queries.
To view your ticket channels
- In Explore, open a new query using the Zendesk Tickets dataset.
- In the Metrics panel of query builder, add the Tickets metric.
- In the Rows panel, add the attribute Ticket channel.
You'll see a table that looks similar to the example below:
Support channels in Explore
The following support channels are available in Explore reports. The channels that are shown will vary depending on the channels you've configured.
| Ticket channel | Displayed in Explore as | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Any channel | Any channel | Tickets created from third-party Zendesk integrations. |
| Web service (API) | Api | Tickets generated or updated from the Zendesk API, for example:
|
| Chat | Chat | Tickets created from a Zendesk Chat session. |
| Closed ticket | Closed ticket |
Tickets created by replying to closed tickets, also known as follow-up tickets. This channel value can be returned in Explore only for the Update channel attribute in the Updates history dataset. (The Ticket channel attribute in the Support datasets returns a value of Web for all follow-up tickets.) |
| Messaging | Messaging | Tickets generated from a web messaging conversation. For more information, see About messaging. |
| Tickets originating with an email request. | ||
| Facebook message Facebook post |
Tickets generated from Facebook posts and messages. | |
| Forum topic | Forum | Tickets originating from a community post. |
| Help Center post | Help center | Tickets that were created from a community post in the help center. |
| Mobile | Mobile | Tickets originating from a Zendesk mobile app. |
| Mobile SDK | Mobile SDK | Tickets generated from a custom app using the Zendesk Mobile SDK. |
| Text | SMS | Tickets originating from a text message. |
| System | System | Tickets created by Zendesk Support. Examples include tickets created by importing from another application. |
| Twitter Twitter DM Twitter Like |
Tickets originating from a Twitter mention, DM, or like. | |
| Phone call (incoming) Phone call (outgoing) Voicemail |
Voice | Tickets originating from Zendesk Talk calls and voicemails. |
| Answer Bot for Web Widget | Answer Bot for Web Widget | Tickets created from Answer Bot's Article Recommendations feature in the Web Widget (Classic) that led to a ticket being solved. |
| Web form Web Widget |
Web | Tickets originating from a Support web form, the Support agent
interface (created by an agent), or the Web Widget. For the Ticket channel attribute in the Support datasets, follow-up tickets are also shown in this channel regardless of how they are created. (The Update channel attribute in the Updates history dataset can return a value of Closed ticket.) |
| Social messaging |
|
If you're using the Zendesk Agent Workspace and add a social messaging
channel, these appear as ticket channels you can use in your Explore
reports. If you're not using the agent workspace, you can use tags associated with each channel in your reports. For help, see Monitoring your social media channels. |
For more information, see About Zendesk channels.
13 Comments
Hi All
Just struggling to exclude Follow-up tickets from a query.
It seems that Follow-up tickets have no identification apart from their Update Channel being 'Closed Ticket' that can be used to exclude. I don't believe 'Update Channel' is accessible in the regular Support: Tickets [default] dataset.
Using the Support: Ticket updates [default] dataset, I have created a query and added the 'Update Channel' attribute to the query and excluded 'Closed Tickets'. Which seems to work....however, when I look at the results, some follow-up tickets still exist in the query and are not excluded.
After cross checking with the actual ticket ID in Support, these tickets sometimes have an Update Channel of 'Merge' or 'Rule'...so I'm having trouble finding a way to filter out these tickets....they seemed to have started from a follow-up, but then are merged or are somehow affected by a Rule (API).
Does a ticket Update Channel change over time? If so, is there a way to combine the Update Channels 'Closed Ticket', 'Merge' and 'Rule' as long as the ticket at least has 'Closed Ticket' as an Update Channel?
Or is there some very simple way (as I thought there would be) to exclude Follow-up tickets - I could be getting confused :)
Many thanks for any help.
Chad
Hi Chad,
You are correct that the Update Channel attribute is only available in the Ticket Updates dataset, and not the Tickets dataset.
If you were planning on using the Tickets dataset, we would recommend creating a trigger that tags follow-up tickets upon creation (e.g. Channel = Closed ticket). That way you will be able to effectively identify (and include/exclude) those tickets in the Tickets dataset using the associated tag(s).
As for the Update Channel changing over time, the attribute simply corresponds to the specific channel associated with the particular ticket update (a ticket could have numerous updates throughout its lifecycle). If you wish to combine multiple values (Merge, Rule, etc.) into a single value (Closed Ticket), you could check out creating a Group attribute in Explore (https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022184334#topic_epc_gw1_fv).
Warm Regards,
Eric G. Gao | Technical Support Architect | Zendesk
@...
We have managed to create real conversations within flow builder, leading customers to the answer they need, without, in most cases, suggesting answerbot articles. But in Explore flow builder is not a channel neither can it be specified from the Messaging channel or Web form or Web Widget report options.
Therefore it would be of great value to be able to report on the 'was this useful' button in Flow builder? So we can really see the impact that Flow builder has on our (decreasing amount of) incoming tickets.
So I need to know how many times flow builder was used/opened, preferably also see what choices (customized flow with options) customers made (their flow through flow builder) and in the end see if the solution that was presented was helpful (reporting on eg. the pre set feedbackflow, 'was this helpful', would help).
The only reporting I can do right now is on how many tickets are received from flow builder when the given solution/answer was not helpful. What we need is to see how many times and in what flow or answers flow builder was helpful in providing the right answer. That would really help us to improve.
At this time I can only track the articles suggested via flow builder and whether they were helpful or not, which is not representative for our use of flowbuilder, since we are providing text answers after the customers has chosen his question from the presented options.
Hi Ingrid,
Thanks for sharing this with us, and glad to hear Flow Builder is working well for you! For visibility, would you mind posting this feedback in our Feedback on Explore topic (ideally using this template to format your feedback)? That way, other users can upvote your suggestion and add their own use cases in the comments. Thanks!
Am I missing something or is it not possible to distinguish between Web Widget and Web Form as channels within Explore, even though they are recognised as separate channels in Support?
I'd really like to know how may of our tickets are coming specifically through the widget compared to the web form.
Hi David -
Because the web widget is just 'widgetizing' the web form, both of these would be considered as coming through the web channel for reporting purposes. That said, you may be able to use Google Analytics to track this activity more closely, as described in this post. Hope this helps!
Brandon
For our business, tickets created via web forms are very different than tickets created by an agent within the support interface. We understand we can pull a metric for these tickets in Explore, but we have a gap where we cannot build a view to find these tickets within the support interface, which would help is in organizing our open tickets. I created a Community Post to explain this: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4480929793690-Designation-for-Agent-Created-Tickets-within-Channel
Hi,
How does ticket sharing affects the efficiency metrics?
E.g when I receive a ticket via ticket sharing, what is the first reply time median that is calculated? Does it calculate it from when the requester of the original ticket received it? Or from when the counterparty that shares the ticket with me has shared the ticket? For context, I want to measure our first reply from when it was shared with us, and not from when the ticket was created initially.
Thank you!
Here is a scenario: The customer calls to ask a question. Many times we need to email information to the customer after the phone call. How would I determine, say for the month, the number of initial voice calls that are followed up by an email response?
I hope all is well! The channel creation of the ticker will not be changed, even if you change the communication channel on the same ticket, in this case, to email. If you want to report on those tickets, you can add a TAG such as "change_to_email", either manually or via macro when serving those tickets, and report on tickets that have the TAG. For more information, please check Reporting with tags.
I hope this helps!
Hey Liz,
Building on Gabriel's response, you can also track ticket updates through the Update History dataset. The attributes Ticket ID & Update Channel should give you the data you're looking for.
Brandon
There are some Channels listed in 'Update Channel' that are not listed in this article, e.g. Batch, Rule, Sample ticket etc Is there are more comprehensive article that contains ALL the channels? I cannot seem to find it.
I assume Mail is actually Email, however when I select Mail on the report it shows '0' tickets...??? Why is that?
Hi Shelley,
The other channels that you noticed to be missing in this article but are included in the Update channel attribute pertain to channels that initiated the ticket updates. Using the Update channel attribute will show you the specific channel associated with a particular ticket update (and a ticket could have numerous updates throughout its lifecycle).
While the channels that are being referred to in this article are the channels that initiated the ticket creation or the channels that are included in the Ticket channel attribute. I hope this helps! Stay safe!
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