You can simply and effectively streamline your workflow by creating macros for support requests that can be solved with a single, standard response or action. This saves agents the time and effort of manually responding to multiple customers with the same issue.
This article contains the following topics:
- About macros
- Creating personal macros for tickets (agents)
- Creating personal or shared macros for tickets (administrators)
- Adding formatting and inline images to macro comments
- Adding attachments to macro comments
- Adding an alternate plain text version of a rich content macro comment
- Using placeholders in macros
Related articles:
About macros
A macro is a prepared response or action that an agent can manually apply when they are creating or updating tickets. Macros contain actions that can update ticket properties.
Unlike triggers and automations, macros only contain actions, not conditions. Conditions aren't used because nothing is automatically evaluating tickets to determine if a macro should be applied. Agents evaluate tickets and apply macros manually as needed.
Macros can perform tasks. For example
- Add comment text
- Update ticket fields
- Add or remove ticket tags
- Add followers
- Change the assignee
- Set the ticket subject
- Add attachments to ticket comments
- Start side conversations
There are two types of macros: personal macros (created by an agent or administrator for their own use) and shared macros (created by an administrator for multiple users).
Creating personal macros for tickets (agents)
Although only administrators can create the macros that are shared by all Zendesk Support agents, agents can create personal macros for their own use. A personal macro can only be used by the creator but is visible to admins in Admin Center.
You can create macros from scratch, as described here, or you can create macros based on existing tickets.
The following video gives you an overview of how to use macros to respond to tickets faster:
Use quick responses with macros [1:40]
To create a personal macro for tickets
- In Admin Center, click
Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Macros.
- Click Create macro.
- Enter the macro name, and add actions for your macro as described in Building macro action statements.
- Click Create.
Your personal macros are added to the list of available macros.
Creating personal or shared macros (admins)
A macro is a prepared response or action that an agent can apply to a ticket. Macros contain actions that can update ticket properties.
Admins, and agents in custom roles with permission, can create shared macros to be used by all agents or groups of agents. The maximum number of shared macros per account is 5,000. Admins and all agents can create personal macros for their own use.
A personal macro can only be used or modified by the creator but is visible to and can be cloned by admins. For example, if an agent creates a personal macro that could be useful to other team members, then an admin may want to clone it and recreate it as a shared macro.
Admins can create shared macros, and can modify all shared macros, regardless of who created them.
You can create macros from scratch, as described here, or you can create macros based on existing tickets.
To create a personal or shared macro for tickets
- In Admin Center, click
Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Macros.
- Click Create macro.
- Enter a Macro name.
- (Optional) Enter a macro Description.
- Select who can use the macro from Available for:
- All agents, all agents
-
Agents in group, specified groups
(Suite Growth and up or Support Professional and up only)
- Me only, the macro creator
- Click Add action, then select an action and complete the additional field. See
Building macro action statements.
For the Comment/description macro action, you can add formatting, images, and attachments.
- Click Add action again to add another action.
- Click Create.
The macro is created.
Adding formatting and inline images to macro comments
You can add styling, formatting, and inline images to the Comment/description macro action.
To add formatting to your comment
- In the text field, enter the content you want to appear in the macro.
- Use the formatting options in the toolbar to format your content.
Toolbar button Formatting Heading Bold Italics Underline Text color Background color Bulleted list Numbered list Decrease indent Increase indent Link Block quote Code Code block Horizontal line
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Now you can add a plain text version of your rich content macro comment, if you want. The plain text version will be intelligently applied in channels that don't support rich text formatting.
To add inline images to your comment
- Drag and drop an image from your computer into the comment window, or paste a copied image into the window by right-clicking and selecting Paste or by pressing Ctrl or ⌘ + V.
Adding attachments to macro comments
Comments in your macros can also contain up to five file attachments.
The maximum file size for a single linked attachment is 50 MB. For more information, see Attachment size limitations.
To attach one or more files to a comment
- Under the text field, click Attach files.
- Browse to the file you want to attach.
- Select the file, and click Open.
The file is added to the ticket.
Adding an alternate plain text version of a rich content macro comment
If you added styling, formatting, or inline images to the Comment/description macro action, you can add an alternate plain text version, if you want.
The plain text version will be intelligently applied in channels that don't support rich text formatting. These include the Zendesk mobile app, Zendesk SMS, messaging channels in the Zendesk Agent Workspace and in the standard agent interface, and any app installed from the Zendesk Marketplace.
- In the macro, under the rich content version of the comment, select Include plain
text fallback.
- In the pre-populated version that appears, make any modifications needed to create the
plain text version of the macro comment.
Using placeholders in macros
The macros you create for tickets can include placeholders to help personalize your ticket responses.
Be aware of the following when applying macros with placeholders:
- When you apply a macro with placeholders to a Problem ticket, the placeholder is rendered when the macro is applied, not when the ticket is submitted. This can produce unexpected results. For example, if you send an email response to a Problem ticket using a macro that contains the {{ticket.requester.name}} placeholder, the ticket requester's name is sent to all linked tickets, not just the ticket associated with the requester. To prevent this from happening, add an escape character (\) in front of the placeholder. For example, \ {{ticket.requester.name}}. In this case, the placeholder is not rendered until the ticket is submitted, which will show the correct name to each user who submitted a ticket linked to the problem.
- When you apply a macro that has a placeholder with multi-line content, the line breaks are removed in the comment. This is visible in the composer before the comment is submitted.
69 comments
Kate Horner
@Riah Lao https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408844187034/comments/5110729427354
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If you toggle back to private, the message would still be there and you could copy paste but it won't automatically. I noticed that too. You can edit your macro though to be set for public comment.
Just add an action to your macro.
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Chris Hynes
Looking in the keyboard shortcuts, it says ctrl + alt + m maps to "Open macro box". I would expect this to open the "apply macro" box at the bottom of the screen and allow me to start typing a macro name to find it. But nothing seems to happen.
Am I missing something here?
0
Colleen Hall
Hi Chris Hynes,
Thank you for your question! I confirmed with our product team and the ctrl + alt + m keyboard shortcut should open the apply macro box. Make sure that you have your cursor in the composer before typing the keyboard shortcut.
If you have Agent Workspace enabled, you can also apply macros with keyboard shortcuts by typing a slash "/" in the composer. See Applying macros with a keyboard shortcut for more information.
If you continue to experience this issue, please let me know and I will open a ticket for you so we can investigate further!
Thank you!
1
Chris Hynes
No, ctrl + alt + m doesn't work for me. Strange, I wonder if there's something about our instance -- I recall it not working when I tried in the past either. File a ticket if you could -- be good to figure that out.
I am able to do the "/" shortcut in the composer to do an inline macro, so at least that's a workaround for now.
0
Colleen Hall
Hi Chris Hynes,
I'm sorry to hear that it's not working! I've opened a ticket for you so that we can look into this and get this figured out soon.
0
Zac Garcia
Hi Chris Hynes - sometimes, apps installed on your computer (or custom keyboard shortcut combos set in the operating system) can interfere with the Zendesk keyboard shortcuts. Settings in the operating system and native apps almost always take precedence over browser apps. It's mentioned here but we'll work on making that knowledge more visible and easily discoverable!
0
Chris Hynes
@Zac -- yep, that's exactly what it was. After some research I traced what was causing it -- Nvidia's software takes Ctrl + Alt + M by default: https://superuser.com/questions/1282799/what-is-preventing-ctrl-alt-m-from-reaching-intellij-on-windows-10
So that shortcut likely doesn't work for anybody with an Nvidia card. You don't think about it because those keys are typically only used inside full screen games, but apparently Nvidia's handler eats the keys all of the time even if a game isn't running -- with no indication that the key was pressed.
As soon as I disabled that overlay on Nvidia's settings, Ctrl + Alt + M started working on Zendesk! 👍
0
Jared Pease
I would truly like to see a more capable editor for macros. I would like the ability to add color to text, inline images and text alignment (left, right, center)
1
Zachary Drake
I'd like to make a macro that adds both a private comment for internal use, and a public comment that is sent to the requester. For example, I'd like one Macro "XYZ issue" to add the following comments to the ticket:
Public:
"We are sorry you are having trouble with XYZ. We are working on fixing it for you."
Private:
"To fix the customer problem with XYZ, go to our internal documentation <here> and follow the XYZ debugging procedure. Make sure not to expose sensitive issue ABC to the customer."
Is this possible?
0
Jared Pease
I too would like to be able to have both an internal comment AND a public comment. I am seeing this doesn't seem possible from my attempts.
My reason is that I would like the public comment to be seen by the customer and the internal comment to be tips, procedures, or a note that would assist the customer support rep who was working on that specific issue the macro addressed.
Is there any way to pull this off?
1
Gabriel Manlapig
At this time, we don't support putting a public and private comment at the same time with macros. You will only be able to add one comment at a time, either internal or public.
I've marked this conversation as product feedback for review, which means that your input will be aggregated as a part of our Voice of the Customer program that provides customer feedback to our product development teams.
In addition, 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.
1
Darren Taylor
Anyway to have a macro prepopulate the company/organisation name field? Saves us from having to write the company name each time.
0
Gabriel Manlapig
Macros actions are typically pre-defined inputs, which corresponds well with a dropdown field composed of a set of defined options to select from. I can imagine, it would be incredibly helpful to be able to use Macros to pre-populate Organization / Company text field.
I would recommend you to leave Feedback in our Community. Our Teams are frequently looking through the posts in order to get ideas on future additions to the Software. The more a votes a post gets, the higher the chance that the feature will be added in the future.
Thank you!
0
Valeria Amato
What is the difference between "Add Tags" and "Set Tags" when creating or editing a macro?
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Gabriel Manlapig
The Add tags action in both triggers and automations allows you to add one or more tags to the existing tags that are already assigned to your ticket.
The Set tags action removes all existing tags and replaces them with the tags you select in your business rule actions.
For reference, please see this article: What is the difference between Add tags and Set tags in business rules?
I hope that helps. Thank you!
0
Aoife O'Neill
What does the optional description field do? Can agents see it when they preview macros in tickets?
0
Colleen Hall
Hi Aoife O'Neill,
Yes, that's correct! The description displays when an agent previews a macro. For more information, please see Previewing macros.
0
Carly Files
It would be useful to include cc's for non-agents in macros. This would help our team make sure all of the client's team members are included on tickets. We often have requests from clients to do this and automating the process would make it easier to manage.
0
Faruk Karalija
I don't have the option to create my own macros.
When I go to the Agent's toll it not offering me option Macros.
The only option that is applicable is View.
Is it removed by Zendesk or something else is wrong?
Please advise.
0
Joyce
As your question requires us to check your account permission, I created a ticket for you and we will continue to assist via email.
Thanks!
0
Hanna C.
Are we able to add the value of the custom field to the macro in comments?
When attempting {{ticket.ticket_field_<code>}} it doesn't seem to work.
It is not a good idea to have twelve macros that are identical, only varying the name of the product.
0
Joyce
You can use the custom field placeholders to add a custom field value in your macro comments. The following placeholders are the ones you can use depending on the ticket field type:
{{ticket.ticket_field_<field ID number>}}
{{ticket.ticket_field_option_title_<field ID number>}}
{{ticket.ticket_field_<field ID number>}}
Note: The
{{ticket.ticket_field_option_title_<field ID number>}}
placeholder displays the title of the selected options while{{ticket.ticket_field_<field ID number>}}
displays the tags associated with the selected options.You can also visit the article Using Placeholders for more information.
Hope this helps!
0
NJ Ohayas
If a macro was created by a specific person who has since left the company. Is it possible to see the macros he made? How?
Are those macros still available if his user in Zendesk is disabled? or will it be removed?
0
Noly Maron Unson
Hi NJ,
Shared macros will not be deleted and can still be used by other agents but personal macros will be permanently deleted if you delete or downgrade an agent.
Hope this helps.
0
Chris Gregory
With regard to the attachments functionality, once an agent adds file to a comment on a macro, is that stored on the Zendesk platform, or does the file need to remain static in the local directory at the point where it originally attached?
0
Noly Maron Unson
Hi Chris,
Attaching a file to macros will save it in Zendesk and the file does not need to be present in your local directory as long as the macro is already saved.
Hope this helps.
0
Patrycja Walencik
Hi All,
We're currently working on enhancing our features at Zendesk, and one area we're focusing on is identifying and managing duplicated macros. Your insights and experiences are invaluable, and we would greatly appreciate your input.
We're interested in understanding your experiences with duplicated macros. Could you provide us with examples of duplicated macros that you've encountered?
To aid in this, we kindly ask for the following:
Screenshots of 2 or more macros recognized as duplicates indicate which one was deleted or archived and why. Understanding why these macros have been recognized as duplicates and what factors influenced these decisions would be incredibly helpful. Additionally, we'd like to know which factors you consider when deciding which macro should be retained and which one should be deleted.
Please note that your privacy is our utmost priority. To ensure this, we ask that you send this information directly to me at patrycja.walencik@zendesk.com rather than posting it publicly.
We look forward to your insights and thank you in advance for your valuable contribution to this feature development.
Best,
Pati
0
Vinny Quinn
I have created a few macro's for responding to frequent queries. However, only 14 are visible to the agents. It is active, and set to All Agents. Any ideas what could cause this?
0
Ivan Miquiabas
Thanks for reaching out! Can you confirm if those macros are Shared or personal? Also, can you share a screenshot of where agents are seeing this?
Cheers
0
Alex Wang
Hello ZD Team,
I'm an agent and when I try to add macro using this “create macro” button here and follow the steps and hit “create”, it always shows “macro created” but I'm not able to see it anywhere in my macro list. Am I entering the wrong site? I'm not able to see “personal macros” as an option here.
Thank you!
0