Ticket layouts control the look and feel of the ticket interface. Admins can create custom layouts to support different ticket workflows for agents. You must have a Professional plan or above to create custom layouts.
Custom layouts with layout builder go beyond ticket forms by allowing you to specify which components are included in a ticket and control the location of where the components appear. Components include ticket conversations, ticket properties (fields), customer context, third party apps, and more.
This article provides an overview of how you can use layout builder to create custom layouts and improve agent efficiency. You must have the Zendesk Agent Workspace activated to create and manage custom layouts.
This article contains the following sections:
- About Support ticket layouts
- About layout builder
- About contextual workspaces
- Plan requirements for custom layouts
Related articles
About Support ticket layouts
By default, the Zendesk Agent Workspace includes a standard Support ticket layout that provides the framework for the basic components of a ticket. This layout includes ticket properties (fields) on the left side of the ticket, ticket conversations in the middle, and a context panel on the right.
Standard ticket layout
With layout builder, you can use an intuitive layout interface to create and apply custom layouts to the ticket interface. You can rearrange ticket components within the ticket framework, add new components, and change component sizing. You can also control what data appears in a ticket component and change the ticket conversation flow.
Example custom layout
![](https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/custom_layout_annotated.png)
You can create and save multiple layouts in your account and use them for different situations. For example:
- You can control which apps appear in the context panel and change the order in which they appear.
- If your agents work with a lot of custom applications, you may prefer to move popular apps out of the context panel and into the middle of the ticket interface, so they are easier to access.
- If your agents spend a lot of time managing ticket properties, you can move ticket properties nearer to the context panel.
- You could create a custom ticket layout for Returns that includes Apps specifically created to help agents manage returns.
You will be able to apply a custom layout based on certain ticket conditions or even use one as the default ticket layout for your account. You can create up to 20 custom layouts for your account.
Customers with Enterprise plans can have more than one custom layout active at a time and use them with contextual workspaces. Customers with Professional plans can have one active custom layout and apply it to the default ticket layout.
Changes you make to a ticket layout do not prevent agents from resizing the context panel or the ticket properties panel when they work on tickets.
About layout builder
Custom layouts are created using an intuitive layout builder with access to predefined layouts and a drag-and-drop component library. Layout builder enables you to pick which components to include in a ticket, then you can arrange and resize them. You have the power to create the exact layout you need.
Layout builder includes a canvas on the left for arranging and resizing components and a component library on the right for adding components. Layout builder enables you to customize both the main ticket interface and the context panel. For more information, see Creating custom layouts to improve agent workflow.
About contextual workspaces
On Enterprise plans, you can use contextual workspaces to control which custom layouts your agents see. Contextual workspaces enable you to create customized ticket workflows based on a series of conditions. Working in conjunction with your contextual workspaces, you can dictate which custom layout to use based on the product brands, agent groups, and ticket forms that you define in a contextual workspace.
Once you create a custom layout, you can assign it to a conditional workspace. This enables the workspace and the layout to work together to make sure your agents see the right ticket layouts at the right times. For more information on contextual workspaces, see Setting up contextual workspaces.
Plan requirements for custom layouts
Custom layouts are available in Professional plans and above. The majority of custom layout features are supported on both Enterprise and Professional plans, For example, both plans have full access to layout builder and both plans can configure the conversation flow and composer location in tickets.
There are some restrictions on Professional plans that don’t exist on Enterprise plans. The restrictions occur because contextual workspaces are not available on Professional plans.
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Enterprise and Professional plans can create up to 20 layouts.
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Enterprise plans can use contextual workspaces to have multiple layouts active at the same time.
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Professional plans can have only one active layout, set as the default ticket layout.
43 comments
Lisa Kelly
Thank you, Jihoon,
Support for multiple simultaneous layouts applied to contextual workspaces is definitely on our roadmap.
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Landry Norman
Does anyone know how agents that do not have access to certain apps would see the layouts? For example one of the columns has 2 apps that these agents don't have access to, would they see a blank column or would it just not display?
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Rebecca Weifenbach
Agree, multiple layouts at one time is necessary. If employees don't have access to an app the layout options are limited without applying group level Layout settings. Any idea on timing?
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Paul Von
Jihoon Lee (이지훈) Rebecca Weifenbach - Thanks for the feedback! Good news is, this is exactly what the team is going to be tackling with the EAP now out the door. We'll be connecting Layouts with Contextual Workspace so that different layouts can be triggered for a specific group, ticket status, or any other condition that's already in Contextual Workspace.
We are tentatively targeting a release of this functionality by the end of June 2023. Will keep folks posted once that timing becomes solidified and we can provide a more precise date.
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Michael
Is control over what fields and order on the ticket area on the roadmap?
For example,
As an Enterprise organization, there are the type of requirements I frequently get.
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Paul Von
Landry Norman in the case that a custom layout has an app that a particular agent doesn't have access to, the placement of that app would be maintained within the layout, but it would show the agent an error icon with the message "this app is no longer available".
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Paul Von
Hi Michael, appreciate the question! That functionality is maintained by another product team who owns all things related to ticket fields and forms. I'll pass along that feedback so they can intake it for future consideration.
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Landry Norman
Paul Von that makes this feature unusable to us until contextual workspaces are integrated
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Paul Von
Landry Norman the development for hooking up contextual workspaces to layouts is underway. We are tentatively targeting that release for the end of June, and look forward to announcing a more exact date once the enhancement is closer to release ready!
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Mistyamber Reynolds
Other than setting a custom layout as the default, how do we apply them? I'm not seeing that in documentation. I can't set a layout at the group, view, or trigger level so how do I use it?
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Lisa Kelly
Mistyamber,
See Paul's comment immediately above your question. For the current EAP, you can only use a custom layout if you apply it as the default. But, we are working on the ability to use contextual workspaces to apply custom layouts. Once this feature is available, we will update the documentation. Stay tuned.
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Lydia Forsyth
Can we have different default layouts per brand in our Zendesk? Thinking it would be cool to customize per brand we have.
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Paul Von
Hi Lydia Forsyth! Once we ship our next release for custom layouts with Contextual Workspace, Brand will be one of the conditions that you can choose to trigger a custom layout within the ticket UI. We are currently targeting this next release around the end of June 2023.
My recent post in the Layout Builder EAP community touches more on this topic and has a full list of the conditions that will be available for you to set custom layouts against: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/5706915959578-Upcoming-summer-release-of-Layouts-Contextual-Workspaces-will-allow-application-of-multiple-layouts
1
Carlota Bergillos
Hello,
In the standard layout the width of the columns is smaller that in the custom layouts that we can build. Is there a possibility to remove the limit of the width in the custom layouts so we can narrow them a little bit more? Specially the context panel.
Thank you!
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Paul Von
Carlota Bergillos thanks for the feedback! Improving the column and row sizing behavior within Layout Builder is being tracked as a backlog item for further evaluation in terms of technical feasibility and delivery timeframe.
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JJ Miclat
Hey folks!
Extending a warm invite for everyone on this thread to join us on Tuesday, November 14th at 11 AM CDT for our live PM Roundtable on Layout Builder community event, where you'll get to live chat with Paul Von, myself, and other PMs looking after customization at Zendesk.
We'll be going over the 2024 roadmap and long-term vision of Layout Builder, in addition to our customization strategy around Agent Workspace.
We'll then open it up to the floor for discussion on any questions regarding Layout Builder, feedback on the current state of the product, feedback on our roadmap, feature requests regarding Agent Workspace customization that you would like to see us bake in, sharing best practices around creating custom layouts, and so much more.
We'd love to see y'all there!
Cheers,
JJ
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Tatiana Christensen
Hello, I hope this is the right place to ask about this.
We have activated a custom layout, and it's set as default, and it seems to be working well.
BUT, when creating a NEW ticket, the custom layout is not applied.
Our reply field is on top in the custom layout, so it's confusing for the agents that on new tickets, the reply box is at the bottom.
Please share if we are missing something in the set up or if you can work on resolving this.
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Paul Von
Hey Tatiana Christensen! Glad to hear that you are giving Layout Builder a go.
What you are seeing is expected behavior as custom layouts are not supported on the new ticket page at the moment. That said, we can understand how it could be confusing for agents to have a variance in experience working on a new vs. an existing ticket if the reply field is in different place. We'll take your feedback into our backlog and evaluate how we can improve the experience in the future. Thanks for notifying us!
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Nora
Is the Layout Builder in the Admin center? I am not seeing it
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Lisa Kelly
Hi Nora,
Thank you for your interest. The feature is still rolling out. See the Announcement for details. Also, you have to have an Enterprise (or Enterprise plus) plan with Agent Workspace activated to see the Layouts page in Admin Center and create custom layouts
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Stephen Senez
Would be really nice if we could make the customer context app two separate apps. One containing the customer context and the other containing just the interactions.
We are using an app in our layout that makes the customer context portion superfluous and would love to see the 'Interactions' without needing to scroll past the customer context portion.
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Paul Von
Thanks for submitting the feedback Stephen Senez regarding splitting customer context into more discrete sub-components! I'll pass this onto the team that owns the customer context component for future consideration.
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Thomas Lang
We used to be able to drag each column and resize them and it would stick every time I refreshed or logged back in. Now with the custom layouts, do I have to adjust it upon every refresh? Is there a setting missing or is this a known issue?
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Debbie
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for providing this feedback. I would like to understand more about the issue that you are encountering, so I will open a ticket on your behalf and I will reach out to you there so we can discuss it further.
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Johannes Garske
Could you please fix the bottomline?
It is really big, especially on small screens and it is way too big for the functions.
Also the macros should be displayed under the textfield, because this is the place we need them.
Thanks!
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Debbie
Hi Johannes,
Thank you for providing this feedback. In order to understand more about the issue that you are experiencing, I am going to open a ticket on your behalf and I will reach out to you there so we can discuss this further.
1
Debbie
Thanks again Thomas Lang for providing your feedback here on this post. After investigation of your reported issue regarding inconsistent resizing of fields, I just wanted to confirm that we have released a fix that should now resolve this behaviour going forward. If the issue happens to be encountered again, please do let us know and we can take another look into that.
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Debbie
Hi Johannes Garske I can confirm that it is expected behavior for the bottom bar that contains the macros and ticket submission button to span the entire width of the workspace when your account is on Agent Workspace. In terms of Layout Builder, the customizable area of the ticket page does not include macros or the ticket submission button at the moment.
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Rhonda Green
If we change the default layout away from the standard, how long does it take to propagate through the system? We did this about one hour ago and it is still not showing up?
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Paul Von
Hi Rhonda Green! Once a custom layout is created and applied as the global default for your agents, the changes should be immediate for your instance.
May you please confirm that on the Layouts page, the custom layout you want to set as the global default displays the "Default" tag next to the layout name?
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