Restricting agent ticket access by brand (department spaces)

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Important: The department spaces feature is currently being rolled out. See the announcement for more information.

Important: With the launch of department spaces, Zendesk updated all enterprise accounts between October 22, 2024 and November 19, 2024 to ensure they had the latest information. During this period, agents in a downgraded state were treated as end users. If the update completed before these agents were upgraded, they lost access to all tickets. To restore access, an admin or agent with permission to manage brand membership must add the upgraded agents to the relevant brands.

If you support multiple brands, Zendesk allows team members (agents) to manage tickets associated only with their assigned brands. By assigning agents to brands, administrators can control which tickets agents can access based on their brand membership, ensuring focused support, enhancing data privacy, and promoting specialized product knowledge. Segmenting access to branded tickets this way is called department spaces.

If all agents are assigned to all brands, then department spaces is not in use, and brand does not control agent visibility of tickets. Removing agents from brands removes their ability to view, search, and access tickets with that brand.

Consider how removing access might impact your workflow, especially if you route tickets using omnichannel routing. If you don't want to use this feature, you don't have to take any action because team members are assigned to all brands by default. You can ensure team members are assigned to all brands by viewing their brand memberships.

Note: If you are currently using legacy Chat, messaging through legacy Chat, or legacy Talk, agents must be members of all brands. Do not use this feature to limit agent ticket access by brand. Messaging can be used with this feature if you're using omnichannel routing with the required configuration.

This article covers the following topics:

• Limitations
• Understanding brand membership
• Viewing team member brand memberships
• Adding or removing team members from brands

Related articles:

• Setting up multiple brands
• Multibrand resources

Limitations

• Restricting agent ticket access by brand (also called department spaces) cannot be used with the following:
  • Zendesk Chat
  • Legacy messaging through Chat
  • Legacy Talk
• If you're using omnichannel routing, special configuration is required if you want to restrict ticket access by brand.
• When using messaging with omnichannel routing, special configuration is required if you want to restrict ticket access by brand.

Understanding brand membership

You can assign team members to brands, which sets their brand membership. Team members can only view, search, and access tickets within their assigned brands. Assigning a team member to all brands gives them access to tickets across all brands. If they aren't assigned to any brands, then they won't have access to tickets. See Considerations for exceptions.

Initially, new team members are assigned to all brands and, therefore, will have access to all tickets. Administrators can control which tickets agents can access by removing them from the brands they shouldn't have access to. Admins are automatically assigned to all brands and can access all tickets across all brands. When a new brand is created, all admins are automatically added to it and cannot be removed.

A team member’s role can further refine their access. For example, a team member’s role might limit them to only tickets in their groups.

When creating and updating tickets, the Brand drop-down field in the Agent Workspace is limited to the brands for which the agent is a member. Agents in a custom role with permission can assign tickets to any brand, including brands they don’t belong to.

Considerations

• An upgraded agent initially belongs to no brands and, therefore, will have no access to tickets. You must add the agent to brands to give them access to tickets within those brands.
• Team members can be CC’d or added as followers on tickets outside their brand membership. When this happens, they will only have access to the specific ticket, not all tickets within that brand.
• If an agent in a custom role has permission to manage suspended tickets, they can manage the suspended tickets in their brands only, plus any suspended tickets without a brand.
• Tickets shared via a direct link are inaccessible if the agent isn’t a member of the ticket’s brand.

Viewing team member brand memberships

Brand memberships appear on the Team members page. You can also filter the list of team members by brand.

To view brand membership for team members

• In Admin Center, click People in the sidebar, then select Team > Team members.

  The brand associated with each team member appears in the Brand column.

If a team member belongs to multiple brands, click the +more link to view additional brand memberships.

Adding or removing a team member from brands

When you add team members to brands, they can view, search, and access tickets within their assigned brands. Removing a team member from brands removes their access to tickets within that brand.

You cannot remove admins from brands. Admins must be members of all brands.

Important: If you remove a team member from all brands, they will have no ticket access.

To add or remove team members from brands

1. In Admin Center, click People in the sidebar, then select Team > Team members.

   The team member page opens.

2. Search for the team members you want to update, then select them in the list.

   You can select one or many team members. Admins are members of all brands and will be excluded from any bulk operations.

3. Click Manage brand membership.

   The Manage brand membership link displays at the bottom of the page after you select team members.

   

4. In Add to brand and Remove from brand, select the brands you'd like to add or remove the team member.

   

5. Click Save.