By default, when you sign into Zendesk, your session remains valid as long as user activity occurs. Also, by default, a session will expire after 8 hours of inactivity.
- User activity is defined as when you click something explicitly in the Zendesk user interface, or when the application pulls information automatically in the background. Information pulls often happen to keep the Zendesk interface up to date, but pulls don't occur uniformly across all Zendesk pages.
- The Zendesk session expiration countdown starts when you close your browser or quit the browser tab where the Zendesk session is running. The countdown can also be triggered when you put your computer to sleep or turn it off. When the session expiration limit is reached, Zendesk terminates your sign-in session, and you have to sign in again to use Zendesk.
- An individual session is immediately terminated once you explicitly sign out of Zendesk.
There are other technical differences and edge cases, but the main idea is that if a user is active, they will never be signed out. If they are inactive, the session will last 8 hours by default.
A Zendesk administrator can customize the session expiration for team members and end users as part of our advanced authentication security policy. Reach out to your Admin if you have questions about the session duration.