| Announced on | Rollout starts | Rollout ends |
| October 17, 2022 | October 17, 2022 | October 28, 2022 |
A Macros keyboard shortcut is now available by typing “/” in a ticket’s comment and then selecting the macro you want to use from the list. Your first macros appear in the list and you can search for the macro you want to use by beginning to type its name. To exit the macros search menu, press Esc.
See Applying macros with a keyboard shortcut.
This announcement includes the following topics:
- What is changing?
- We'd love to hear from you
- Why is Zendesk making this change?
- What do I need to do?
What is changing?
Applying macros is now completely keyboard accessible. You can save typing time by applying a macro to a ticket with just a few keys.
If you have chat or messaging channels activated and shortcuts created in your instance, both macros and shortcuts appear in the list and can be applied.
Macros can also still be applied from the Apply macro menu at the bottom left of the ticket page.
We’d love to hear from you
Please let us know how you’re using this new feature, what’s your impression of it, and how we can improve this experience! You can learn more about the macros keyboard shortcut and post your feedback here on our Community site. Thank you!
Why is Zendesk making this change?
This new feature provides another way to apply macros without needing to leave a ticket’s comment field while composing a response, saving a couple of clicks and time it takes to compose messages.
What do I need to do?
Macros keyboard shortcuts are activated by default for all accounts that have Agent Workspace enabled. If you want to deactivate this feature, see Activating and deactivating macros keyboard shortcuts.
18 Comments
Looks like we're having a problem with this update. The shortcuts that were created in the chat for use in Messaging are not bringing the Chat placeholders as usual.
Hey Zendesk team,
Two questions:
Hello Prática Klimaquip - Can you please raise a ticket with Zendesk advocacy team so that we can look into this issue?
Edit: Thanks for raising the ticket. The fix should be out by tomorrow.
Hey Rafal Stalewski - This will not be released for Zendesk Sell, it's only Zendesk Support level feature for now. I'll definitely pass your feedback to the team.
So pretty much like the Chat Shortcuts right?
Great work! Can't wait to use this new feature!!
Yes, pretty much like Chat Shortcuts. :)
Thanks, Gidon Kessler. Appreciate it!
Amisha Sharma
This doesn't work on non-chat tickets. Has it been rolled out to all customers? Nothing happens when we type "/" into the text box.
Hello Jay Kershner - The rollout concludes on October 28th. It hasn't been rolled out to everyone yet.
Hello Prática Klimaquip - We just released a fix for the placeholders bug. Please let us know if you're still facing any issues. Thanks!
Feedback from our Chat team
Since this introduction they are now missing chat shortcuts when typing / as it now only shows the top 4 used shortcuts (it used to show a lot more). They are aware they can type the shortcut eg /e for end shortcut but it involves them remembering the shortcut and typing extra letters so overall they were not pleased with the change.
However I can see how this would be very useful to our non chat ticket teams
Hello Richard Harris - Thanks for your feedback. When you insert /, only 4 shortcuts show up, but as you type a character, upto 10 shortcuts which have that character should show up. For a shortcut named "end", if you type /e or /n or /d, it should show up as long as there are not more than 10 shortcuts more relevant to what you're typing.
Your feedback is very valuable for us and we will take it into account to improve this experience. Please do keep engaging. Thanks!
Amisha Sharma Thanks. Sure would be nice if we got a specific notification when new features/functionality is rolled out to OUR instance. Surely ZD knows when this happens, and a specific notification would be a much preferred CX, so that we can test/validate and notify our users accordingly.
Hi,
It would be useful to have the option to turn off this functionality. Why? Because shortcuts are specifically created for the Chat channel and we never use Macros while chatting with the customer through this platform.
In our use case, we have different tonality and the length of the text differs so it doesn't make sense to have macros in Chat.
Our agents often paste or type out a filepath from a Linux server in a ticket note. Since the macros keyboard shortcut has been rolled out, I have received complaints from at least 5 agents regarding this. One agent mentioned they ran into a situation where just pasting notes into the ticket (the note contained a filepath) triggered the macro popup. We would like to have the ability to either turn off this feature or workaround the problem somehow.
I did bring this feedback up before in ZD chat -> ticket 10928105.
Hi Kyle,
From the article: "If you want to deactivate this feature, see Activating and deactivating macros keyboard shortcuts."
Hi Lisa,
I'm not sure how I missed this, my apologies. Thank you for the quick update.
Hello,
Just to let you know that sometimes the shortcut bugs. There are people who start writing the shortcut quickly and the macro applies itself, without the button ''Enter''. Also, when this happens, the changes are not complete in the ticket. For example, the description of the ticket is displayed, but the automatic assignment is not done and some fields do not change, as the macro is supposed to do.
Thanks for reaching out with your findings. I just wanted to let you know we're creating a private ticket on your behalf to investigate the unexpected behavior you're seeing with the macros keyboard shortcut.
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