What's New quarterly roundup: November 2022

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Check out what's new in the last quarter:

• Make it easy for your customers
• Set your teams up for success
• Keep your business in sync
• Sell smarter, not harder
• Coming soon

Make it easy for your customers

• The Slack Direct Messages channel lets end users create Support tickets by sending a direct message to a handle within Slack. These tickets are then managed by teams in Zendesk, as with other messaging tickets, using triggers, automations, and macros. See Slack Direct Messages for messaging.
• In the Support mobile app for Android users can now activate the new agent experience. This new experience supports Agent Workspace and conversational messaging. There's also an updated ticket view, with two tabs: Conversations and Details. From these tabs, you can reply to requesters and tickets through any channel, update ticket properties, and more.
  Download the latest version from the Google Play store to get the new agent experience. iOS users will be able to access the new experience later this year. See Working with tickets in the Support mobile app.
  
  
• Two new messaging bot step types are available:
  
  • Ask if question resolved provides a way to capture end user data to measure how well each answer is performing, and indicates which answers can be refined and optimized.
  • Ask for details uses custom ticket fields to capture customer data such as name, email, and any other information that can help direct the rest of the conversation.

  See Understanding the bot step types.

• Redaction for messaging conversations is now supported in the Zendesk Agent Workspace. You can redact, or remove, sensitive information found in messaging tickets so that your account stays secure and compliant. See Redacting ticket content.
• You can now clone and delete your messaging bots. Using the new options menu on the Bots page in Admin Center makes bot creation and management easier. See Cloning a bot and Deleting a bot.
• Add tags to tickets created via messaging conversations as part of the "Transfer to agent" step in your answer flow. You can use tags for ticket routing and business rules, such as automations and triggers. See Understanding answer flow step types.
• Authenticated messaging end-user IDs are displayed in the user's profile in Agent Workspace. Once they have been authenticated and their identity has been verified with Zendesk, the end user will not be prompted to provide their name or email address by the messaging bot in the default messaging response.

  

• Determine whether customers can attach items to messaging conversations. Admins can remove the option to add attachments in the Web Widget. Attachments are allowed by default. See Configuring the appearance of the Web Widget.
• Automatically add tags to messaging tickets. Admins can choose to add tags to a messaging ticket as part of the Transfer to agent step in Flow Builder, then use those tags for ticket routing, triggers, and other business rules. See Understanding answer flow step types.
• Add curved borders to the Web Widget. Admins now have the ability to curve the edges of the widget frame to various degrees with a slider in the widget appearance settings. See Configuring the appearance of the Web Widget.
  
• Customize the bot fallback response. Admins can change the behavior of the default fallback response, which is triggered when the bot can’t find a suitable answer to the customer’s question or comment. Admins can write an initial text response and attach up to six answers to present to customers.  See Building a bot using answers.
• You can no longer send outbound text messages to recipients in Russia. For more information about available text numbers, see Zendesk Text number availability and pricing.

Set your teams up for success

• Add images to content blocks using the new image gallery. You can now insert images into content blocks by either dragging and dropping the image into a content block, or by inserting it into the new image gallery and placing it from there. Once you add the image to the content block, you can use the new tools available to resize the image and add ALT text to improve accessibility. You can also use the new image gallery to replace outdated images in all content blocks where it is used, or to permanently delete the image. See Inserting images in articles and content blocks.
  
• Apply content tags to articles and posts to allow end users to view all related content with a common tag on a single search results page. Content tags are words or phrases that summarize the key ideas or concepts of tagged content.
  The tags appear in the "Related to" section at the bottom of an article or post. End users can click a content tag in an article or post to open a search page with links to other articles and posts that share the same content tag. See About content tags.
  
• Intelligent triage and smart assist are available for select retail and e-commerce organizations. Intelligent triage and smart assist are two AI-powered features that work together to automatically detect and display helpful context about customers’ tickets, along with recommendations on what agents should do next. See Intro to intelligent triage and smart assist.
  
• Omnichannel routing with unified agent status enables you to direct tickets from email, calls, messaging, web form, and API to agents based on their availability, capacity, and the ticket priority. Using omnichannel routing means that important tickets can be assigned to the agents who are most available to work on them, and agents can set a single status for all channels. See About omnichannel routing with unified agent status.
• The Explore live dashboard now shows capacity info if you use omnichannel routing.This information helps supervisors balance workloads across teams. See Seeing live agent status and activities.

  

• New trigger conditions and actions are available, expanding what triggers can do. Now you can set up triggers to fire if the requester is a light agent, if the ticket has attachments, or if anyone is CC’d. Additionally, trigger actions can now update text and numeric custom fields. See Trigger conditions and actions reference.
• You can now create content blocks from outside the article editor. Prior to this release, you could only create content blocks from within an article. Now you can create content blocks using the Add menu in your help center or Guide admin. See Creating and inserting reusable information with content blocks.
  
  
• You can now embed videos in your content blocks. Prior to this release, you could only add text to content blocks. Now, you can either use the menu or paste the URL directly into the text to embed a video. See Inserting videos in articles and content blocks. The following providers in your content blocks:
  • Youtube
  • Vimeo
  • Wistia
  • JWPlayer
  • Brightcove
  • Vidyard
  • Loom
  • Microsoft Stream
• We've added a Filter button to your views. The button enables you to add additional filters to an existing view to narrow your list of tickets without creating a brand new view. See Managing your views.
  
• You can edit tables directly in the Agent Workspace composer instead of returning to a separate application to do the work. Changes you can make include updating content, adding or deleting rows and columns, and merging or splitting cells. See Editing tables in the composer.

  

• You can now sort your list of customers on the Customers page by name and last updated date. The new Last updated column replaces the previous Created at column. See About the Customers (end users page).
• You can now export your list of suspended tickets to a CSV file. Exporting the suspended ticket list lets you use your own spreadsheet software to sort, filter, and view all your suspended tickets on a single page. See Using export to analyze suspended tickets.
• General API introductory material now resides at the top level of the API Reference page, making it easier to find and use. Previously, this information was under the Support (Ticketing) API.  See the API reference introduction.
• Agents can submit article requests directly from the knowledge section in the context panel. An agent working on a ticket can identify missing information in the knowledge base and immediately create a ticket in the knowledge section of the context panel without interrupting their workflow. A new ticket is created with the description of the request and an optional link back to the ticket the agent was working on when they initiated the request. See Creating articles in Knowledge.
  

  

• Admins can now sort the organizations list by Name and Last Updated date. For customers on Enterprise and Enterprise plus plans, agents in custom roles with permissions can also access the organizations page and sort the list. See About the Organizations page.
• The new macros keyboard shortcut enables agents on Agent Workspace to search for and apply a macro by typing “/” in a ticket’s comment. For customers with Chat activated, both macros and shortcuts now appear in the menu when typing a "/". Using keyboard shortcuts can save you typing time by applying a macro with just a few keys. See Using macros to update tickets.
  
  
• Suggested macros are now available for the Mobile SDK and the Channel framework. By expanding coverage to these additional channels, agents will be offered relevant macros in even more of their customer conversations. See Using suggested macros.
• @Mentions have a new look in the Agent Workspace ticket composer. When you successfully @mention someone in the composer, you see a yellow highlight and bold text. If there is an error when you @mention someone, the highlighting disappears. See Using CCs, followers, and @mentions.

  Successful @mention in the composer	Unsuccessful @mention in the composer

• You can view Zendesk help center articles directly in the Help panel. Previously, you had to open the articles in a separate window. Now you can view article descriptions and instructions side-by-side with the product interface.
• The updated Guide search settings experience provides dedicated pages for managing your search sources, search crawlers, and search filters.
  
  
• Search sources provides an overview of search sources and includes a new workflow for including additional help centers, external content, and communities in your search. See Managing search sources.
• Crawlers enables you to manage the external websites you’d like to surface in your help center search. See Managing search crawlers.
• Search filters enables you to manage the search filters end users use to narrow their results on the search results page in help center. See Managing search filters.
• Run in Postman button added to our API endpoint introductory pages for you to download that endpoint's collection and try out different requests to learn how the API works. See API Reference.
• Additional filters are available for views to help you further narrow your list of tickets. You can now filter your views by additional attributes, including assignee, brand, channel, and more. See Managing your views.
• Create webhooks for user and organization events. Admins can now invoke a webhook based on user and organization events in Zendesk Support. Prior to this release, you could only invoke a webhook using a trigger or automation. See Creating webhooks in Admin Center.

Keep your business in sync

• A custom agent role can now include permissions to manage only automations instead of all business rules. See Creating custom roles and assigning agents.
• You can grant permission to manage skills to custom roles separately from other business rules. Skills now join triggers, automations, and SLAs as a standalone business rules permission for custom roles. Access to business rules analysis can also be granted separately. See Creating custom roles and assigning agents.
• You can now grant permission to manage SLAs to custom roles separately from other business rules. This is part of an ongoing effort to offer more granular control of business rules management. SLAs now join triggers and automations as a standalone business rules permission for custom roles. See Creating custom roles and assigning agents.
• Zendesk's new Zoom integrations allow you to resolve customer inquiries faster, simplify workflows, and deliver more personalized service. See Zoom for Zendesk.
  The new Zoom integration consists of two parts:
  
  • A new app within Zoom’s app framework, which shows the full customer context within Zoom and allows agents to create and update tickets within Zoom Meetings
  • A new app within Zendesk, that allows agents to schedule and launch Zoom meetings from Support.
• The new team members page makes it easier to manage your team with new filtering, sorting, and license seat information. It also sets the foundation for future features such as bulk team management (group membership, product access, and roles), import and export of team member data, advanced filtering, and improved integrations. See About the Team members page.

  

• You can now see the number of agent seats you have remaining in your account on the team members page. This count provides you with advance warning when you're about to run out of licenses and need to buy more. See Monitoring your agent seat count.

  Seats remaining, Zendesk Suite	Seats remaining, multiple products

• You can customize default search filter settings for Knowledge in the Agent Workspace. Prior to this release, search results were filtered by ticket brand and requestor language by default. Now, Guide admins can customize default filters for Knowledge that are shared across the account. Default filters are applied when agents open the Knowledge section of the context panel, but can still be removed or modified by users performing searches. See Configuring the context panel in the Zendesk Agent Workspace.
  

  

• You can now drill into Talk work items on the Explore live dashboard. The drill-in window shows which call an agent is working on, along with important call details. See Seeing live agent status and activities.

  

• A new prebuilt messaging dashboard and dataset in Explore help you monitor agent performance and customer satisfaction across all messaging channels, including web, mobile, and social messaging channels. The dataset enables you to build your own custom reports on messaging activity. See Analyzing your messaging tickets and Metrics and attributes for Zendesk messaging.

  

• For eligible accounts, you can upgrade your account to a higher-level plan and try it out before purchasing. This test-drive enables you to work with additional features in a higher plan before making a final decision to purchase. See Trying out a plan upgrade. 

  

• You can now compare plans as part of a Zendesk Suite trial. This enables you to find the best plan to meet your needs well before you decide to purchase. See Introducing Zendesk Suite trial tasks.

  

• Customers with expired trials will see a new resources page with lots of information to help make a buying decision. You can compare plans, talk to a Zendesk representative, review demos and customer success stories, and more. See Buying Zendesk Suite with a trial.

  

• Customers with Zendesk trial accounts can get a Zendesk plan recommendation before they purchase. By answering a few questions about your business, Zendesk will help you determine which plan is best for you.  See Discovering which plan to buy.
  
• You can resume your purchasing selections for a trial account. If you exit the shopping cart before you complete a trial account purchase, Zendesk will notify you. Click See selections to reopen the shopping cart and complete the purchase.
  
• The Explore live dashboard is now available on Professional plans.This dashboard allows you to see important information about your Zendesk products in real time, in one place. On Professional plans, the dashboard is read-only. See Overview of the Explore live dashboard.

  

Sell smarter, not harder

• Use three types of custom fields to create sales triggers for deals in Zendesk Sell. These include: a Number field, a Dropdown menu field, and a Single line text field. You can also apply nullifying conditions to avoid triggers looping. See: Creating Sell sales triggers.
• One quick actions menu. Sales reps can now use the Sell multi-channel composer to update and write emails, notes, and SMS text messages. See About using email in Sell, Using calls and text in Sell, and Working with notes in Sell.
• Improved readability for the deal attributes column on deal pages in Sell. The field label now displays above the field values and is consistent with other Zendesk features.
  

  

• Improved readability of contact attributes in Sell. In the contact attributes column on your contact pages, the field labels now display above the field values for both person and company contacts. This visually aligns Sell Contact pages with Sell Deal pages. The functionality remains the same. See: Improved readability of contact attributes in Sell. 

Coming soon

• A number of rich message types will be delivered throughout Q4 2022, and continuing into Q1 2023. This rich content will be supported in Flow Builder, and can be used in your answer flows to create more dynamic bot messages. The rich message types in development include images and gifs, an emoji picker, button link, and carousels. See Upcoming Flow Builder features for more information.
• Admins will be able to more accurately measure bot performance and use that information to improve conversational interactions with customers. These metrics will be displayed in the Zendesk Explore dashboard. These new metrics include answer level reporting and resolution feedback reporting. See Upcoming Flow Builder features for more information.