Announcing improved channel switching logic in the Agent Workspace

Announced on	Rollout starts	Rollout ends
July 17, 2023	July 17, 2023	July 25, 2023

Zendesk is pleased to announce some improvements to our channel switching logic when opening tickets in the Zendesk Agent Workspace. This change helps to ensure the right channel is automatically selected in the ticket composer, which reduces the time agents need to reply to customers. 

The new channel switching logic applies to messaging, chat, and talk tickets. Other ticket types, including email, are not impacted. The new channel switching logic only applies when agents open  tickets. it isn’t used if the ticket is already open.  

This article includes the following sections:

• What’s changing? 
  
• Why is Zendesk making these changes?
• What do I need to do? 

What's changing?

Changes to the channel-switching logic varies depending on which channels were used to create the ticket. It also depends on which default privacy settings are set in Admin Center. The default privacy settings in Admin Center apply to email, talk, and other channels, but not to messaging and chats. See Changing the default privacy of ticket comments.

Talk tickets

When an agent opens a talk ticket with the call ended, here are the results. The behavior changes depending on which privacy defaults for ticket comments are set in Admin Center.  

Situation	Condition 1	Condition 2	Result
Agent opens a talk ticket	The call has ended.	Set the composer channel to public is selected in Admin Center.	Composer shows Public reply.
		Set the composer channel to public is not selected in Admin Center.	Composer shows Internal note.

Chat tickets

When an agent opens a chat ticket, here are the results. Since chat is by nature a live channel, the privacy defaults for ticket comments that are set in Admin Center don’t apply. 

Situation	Condition 1	Condition 2	Result
Agent opens a chat ticket Note: The default privacy settings in Admin Center don’t apply.	The chat is active		Composer shows the Chat channel.
	The chat is inactive	The chat user has a known email address	Composer shows the Email channel.
	The chat is inactive	The chat user doesn’t have a known email address	Composer shows Internal notes.

Messaging tickets 

When an agent opens a messaging ticket, here are the results. Since messaging is by nature a live channel, the privacy defaults for ticket comments that are set in Admin Center don’t apply.  

Situation	Condition	Result
Agent opens a messaging ticket Note: The default privacy settings in Admin Center don’t apply.	The messaging channel has not timed out. It is still available. Note: Timeouts vary from 24 hours to 7 days, depending on the type of messaging channel.	Composer shows the applicable messaging channel. For example, WhatsApp, Facebook, Wechat, Messaging, and so on.
	The applicable messaging channel has timed out.	Composer shows the Messaging channel.

Any ticket, light agents

When a light agent opens any ticket, the composer shows Internal note. Light agents can only add internal notes, not public replies. This behavior has not changed. 

Why is Zendesk making these changes?

We’re making these changes to make sure agents don’t have to needlessly switch channels to reply to tickets. We want to make it easier for agents to reply to customers on their preferred channel.  

What do I need to do? 

If you have the Zendesk Agent Workspace activated on your account, you don’t need to do anything else. Your account will be updated automatically to include all these changes.