How to update ticket fields in Zendesk

Ticket fields are the unsung tenets of good customer support. They're used to categorize tickets, identify products and faults, store customer information, hold data for retrieval, and to help build end-of-quarter reports. 

Despite their importance, ticket fields are often underused if there's a lot of them. Agents often have to remember to set them manually, which can lead to errors.

Follow this guide to set your Zendesk ticket fields automatically using the Zendesk: Update Ticket Fields steptype.

Title

This will appear when the step is being run in Sidekick, and helps provide instruction to the agent. For example, if you want to update a products serial number ticket field, you can use the title "What's the serial number?".

If the Automatically Run Step? box is checked (see below) instructions to the agent are unnecessary, so we recommend describing what this step is doing in the background with an ellipsis (...) at the end. For example, "Adding serial number to ticket field..."

Automatically Run Step?

This checkbox will make the entire step run automatically. This is useful when you want to speed up a flow that doesn't need manual inputs. However, be careful with this checkbox since it will run the step on its own without an agent double-checking anything.

Also, if you have any fields checked as Manual (see below) they will be ignored if the entire step is set to run automatically.

Enter Values

This is where the magic happens. Here's what the different columns do:

• Order column
  • This arranges the order of the ticket fields if and when they're presented to the user. To move a field up the list, choose a lower number, and conversely if you want a field lower down the list give it a higher number.
• Zendesk: Field Name
  • Here you select from a dropdown menu which Zendesk ticket field you want to update. Standard and custom fields are supported.
• Value
  • This is what you want to write in the corresponding ticket field. Depending on the field type, you can enter text directly, select from a dropdown, or check a box. 
  • You can also use the ➕ button to pull in a variable from another Zendesk field or from another system entirely, as long as you've set up that separate integration in FlowEQ.
• Hidden?
  • Checking this box will hide this field so that it won't appear in Sidekick. This is useful when you know what the value should be already and the agent doesn't have to double-check/edit this field each time.
• Manual?
  • This will make the field editable to the Sidekick user. This is perfect if you want the agent to type in a value manually, like a product serial number or SKU.
• Required?
  • If checked, this field will require a value written to it before the Sidekick user can proceed with the flow. That field value can be written by hard coding it in the step configuration, by writing a variable from another system, or by the agent entering data manually. It doesn't matter how the data is written to the field as long as it's not empty.
• Trash can
  • Use this red icon to delete an unnecessary field.

Note: If none of the Hidden?, Manual?, or Required? checkboxes are checked, the field values will be shown to the Sidekick user as read-only.