[Closed for comments] Customization of the dashboard

We have long defined which editors and groups can see which tickets / views. To found out in the end, that they can see over the dashboard all tickets :-(

It is a waste of this home dashboard page that we are not able to customize for the agents.  Please think about this.

It's very frustrating that after 3+ years and over 100 comments since I originally posted this, the ONLY thing that Zendesk has done to address this issue is to add the ticket number to the view.

Ok, and the column headers can be clicked to change sort order.  That's it.

I get 6 unchangeable columns with no ability to add others, and there still is no means by which to get a "Support Manager" view of my Zendesk, so see which tickets I need to address before they generate an escalation.  This isn't new functionality anymore, the interface has been in place for over 3 years.

Zendesk is the industry leader because the platform is flexible, but it's still sorely lacking in management and enterprise features and in key flexibility / customizability.  And the product manager hasn't visited this thread in quite some time, despite the continued steady trickle or remarks and "me toos" generated in this thread.

I think all of us who are still on Zendesk would love it if Zendesk would please start to address this issue, or at least let people know if it's on the product map, or never going to be.

I just don't understand why, with the ability to define custom views, why it's not possible to specify which view a particular agent uses as the default "dashboard" view? How hard can it be?

After reading these last messages, like I said before, I have to stand up for Zendesk. Because I work at a software company too, I know what it is like to promise, inform, develop and deliver.

When a certain feature is not present in the product, it doesn't mean that the complete product sucks. For instance, when a light in my car is broken it disturbs me at first. But after a couple of days I don't even see it any more. The most important thing is that the engine keeps on running.

If somebody from Zendesk is kind enough to answer one of the questions in this thread, do not use his answer as a weapon against him. If he says that Zendesk is developing the requested feature, then this answer is a service to inform you. If you keep using these answers to fight Zendesk, then eventually Zendesk will stop offering this service. Because everything they say to keep the customers happy will come back as a boomerang in their faces.

And besides, we are not the ones to judge about the complexity of our desired change. None of us are working at Zendesk so none of us is capable of doing such an assumption. 

If you are in need of a certain feature, you can either develop it yourself as an app, or you can either ask Zendesk to modify in their product. If you choose for the last option, it means that sometimes you have to wait.

And yes, that waiting sucks for me also the first few days, weeks or months.. But hey, as long as the engine keeps on running, right?

Remco,

Many of the commenters on this thread also work at software companies. The rest are business owners and Zendesk admins. Respectfully, I think almost everyone on this thread is aware of the SaaS development lifecycle and resource constraints. I've seen very few comments in this thread saying that the product sucks. Zendesk is an industry leader, and the product is easier to use and has a fuller feature set than nearly every one of its competitors - and that's exactly why we hold them to a higher standard.

I'm not sure how it's "holding it against them" to point out that the last update from Zendesk on these issues was more than a year ago, or that the underlying issues still remain unresolved after nearly 40 months, despite over 100 public comments asking for more flexibility. It's also fair to say that Zendesk has a history of letting these threads lapse without comment, and a failure to provide follow-up in the community channel.

The main issues here are:

1. This is basic functionality. There is no good reason why the default Zendesk view cannot be selectable. Customers shouldn't be forced into the default Zendesk dashboard view. And it's inconsistent - the dashboard view is the only view in Zendesk where the number of columns is fixed, where the columns are not selectable, where the default sort order and filtering cannot be set by the administrator. This is all basic functionality and basic requirements for a support desk - and the classic Zendesk interface supported it. The current interface (Project Lotus) does not, and in many respects was a step backwards since some of the functionality and flexibility inherent in the original platform was never incorporated into the new interface.

2. This is Zendesk's front door. This is the main screen that everyone sees, and it's the public face of the product every time it's launched. The dashboard should have a larger feature set and MORE functionality than other views, not less. To extend the analogy, Zendesk for the last 3 years has been a fancy house with an pink-painted aluminum storm door in front. All the other doors can be made of wood, or steel, and different colors, but the front door of the house only comes in one color, one material, and you can't control who has the key. Sure, it's a door, it works - but why can all the other doors be configured while the front door cannot?

I think that 100+ comments prove that this isn't just the griping of a handful of users. Your post appears to dismiss out of hand what are valid and legitimate criticisms of the product which remain to be addressed by the company.

I strongly urge Zendesk to review how they're implementing the dashboard and whether it's adequately serving their entire user base.

Yeah, I have to agree with Matt on this.

I've implemented and managed Zendesk at four different companies. All companies have been SAAS-based. Zendesk is an amazing platform and it has helped my teams provide amazing service to our customers. 

This one small missing piece of customization has been a huge struggle for us. As a leader my job is to provide clarity to my teams. I've had teams of 100+ and teams as small as 6. We've set up SLAs, we work to be as tight as possible around all things, including the views we've carefully configured so individuals know exactly what work is to be done. 

All of this carefully-crafted workflow falls apart every time my agents login, when the default page is every ticket in the queue and not the primary view for the agent. 

It isn't possible for me to love a company like Zendesk any more than I already do. I think a lot of us feel that way. They have an amazing team and I don't know how I'd manage without them. The product is world-class.

If and when this "challenge" is solved, it will be the equivalent of Christmas for us.

Love,
-Ben

Several months back we purchased "Lovely Views" by LoveStock and Leaf:  http://www.lovestockleaf.com/zendesk/zendesk-apps/lovely-views.html

This has been an excellent addition as we have multiple custom views and need to be able to see them all in one left menu.  Plus we can create multiple customized views to raise to the surface the hightest priority tickets.

Thank you Remco for your comment.  Zendesk has a great product.  In addition to the multiple features they are rolling out it is possible to pay the extra to have them develop either an app or other customization where the value justifies the investment.  Or, if you have a developer on staff you can build your own app using the Zendesk app builder resources.  Very powerful tool. 

Thanks for posting that link, Corrin - I'll definitely check that out!

It's always possible to get customizations which address most of the issues - I think a lot of my frustration is that I shouldn't have to pay for a customization to get basic functionality which should be built into the product.  I think Ben spoke well to that point.  Like Ben, I am an unabashed Zendesk enthusiast - I think it's the best product out there, and I recommend it to others every chance I get.  I just want my agents to see the information they need to do their job on the front page of the app, without having to click on a 3rd party product icon. 

Well said Ben and Matt,

I posted several months back the value a customized dashboard would have for us as we too are a Software as a Service organization and everything we can do to make this tool have value greatly impacts our ability to streamline our workflows.  As we are managing complex projects with Zendesk, tools like "custom checklists" and "sub tickets" (Lovestock and Leaf "Tickler" and "Fork") are attractive options and things I wouldn't expect all ZD users to need.  But I agree with your sentiment in that I would love to have this all built into the product.  So looking forward to more updates from Bob Novak and the ZD team.

I feel the same as Ben.  It will be like Christmas for us once the Dashboard is customizable.

Hi all,

I'm going to bravely wade in here. I've spoken with a lot of you and even met a few of you (hi Matt!) in person over the years. First and foremost, we are reading, and we are listening. It may not seem like that at times. It is easy (even for me; maybe especially for me) to get frustrated when we're not able to address all of the feedback and all of the needs in the product in the timeframes we want, but we are still committed to doing the best we can to give you the best product possible.

While the dashboard constantly comes up in internal conversations as a part of the product we need to improve, it is not immediately on the roadmap. That being said, we are increasingly spending a lot of effort going back and improving existing features, so I'm hopeful we'll do something incredible here in the future.

We will let you know when the status changes and start to plan great things. In the meantime, keep the use cases coming. One of the first things we do when starting a new project is combing back through these threads and reading each comment. They really do help.

Best,
Erin

I will be happy if you just add a column to see the SLA state in this dashboard. It does not make sense to see what needs my attention but not to know what requires more attention

Thanks!

I'd also just like to add that I've been struggling for some time with asking people to 'ignore the dashboard' and use our customised views. 

I'd question why features like Product Trays and Pathfinder (etc) are being prioritised over something absolutely fundamental? 

I love Zendesk but it is a little embarrassing to have to explain to a team of agents that they are incorrect in picking tickets up from the dashboard... I feel I can hardly criticize someone for working on the wrong ticket when they've picked it up from the most natural place. Why are we able to add fields yet not able to build this into the most fundamental workflow - I want to be able to highlight tickets but Zendesk is overriding me?

Some prioritisation on this is really required, please! 

Please oh please can we add the ability to update the layout/columns in the home page view? It's really confusing our agents!

Another +1

Stumbled upon this issue from 2013 and find it hard to believe this has not been addressed yet.

Why not have the ability to allow us to select which of our views is displayed on the dashboard??? Even as a software developer I have to say: this really should not be that hard, should it?

+1

I also have to tell agents to ignore the home page and only use the views... 

The home page dashboard would be a nice place to do the following:

1) Post specific widget reports you want the agents to see (SLA success rate?)

2) Set a default ticket view below the widget reports. Maybe the default would be 'Your Unsolved Tickets'

We've been using Zendesk for a little more than a year, and like it a lot. I have tried searching a few times to attempt to understand what data actually drives the dashboard -- and I agree, if you're going to actually have a dashboard it ought to be configurable. Otherwise, for gosh sakes just dump the dashboard, and replace it with a default view (which seems to be what the dashboard is).

Which is where my question comes up. Views are AMAZING. And the simplicity of creating a one-click bookmark that takes you right to the login page, then directly to your primary view, well, that's amazing too. I mean, that's my fully-configurable dashboard. 

And yet, I see a ton of complaining about the dashboard not being configurable, and while I generally agree it ought to be, or it's just a waste -- I couldn't find a single comment in four pages of comments as to WHY a bookmark to your own personalized and customized view doesn't work. Not one.

So... Can someone enlighten me by filling in the following blank (because I'm seriously interested in better understanding this):

"A one-click bookmark that takes me directly to the login page, and then right to my favorite view doesn't work for me, because _______________."

And, please don't answer that by saying it's a hack or a workaround; that's not an answer.

I'm really interested in why it doesn't work. Frankly, I hadn't even thought of it, and I think it's brilliant, and have immediately implemented it. But, I am certain I must be missing something, and am anxious to see that answered. Is there some specific function or group of function lost by jumping directly to a view?

Thanks! -DAVID

+1 to you David.

I especially like the way you do not ignore that the dashboard needs an update. Even more, I like the way you confront complainers about their complaining. 

Indeed, we also bookmark views and since the moment I ordered to do so, everybody was happy with the workaround. No more complaining ever since. 

I do agree that the dashboard needs more flexibility but for as long that is not going to happen, we have a small workaround by using one of the key features of ZD; views.

Thanks for your refreshing post :)

The issue is that this is a workaround, whether you like to call it that or not. I have also resorted to bookmarking views as I can't use the dashboard at all (and also, I have more personal views than can fit in the Views panel). 

We use Zendesk across our entire business, so our agents and workflows vary. It's an unnecessarily difficult task to have to explain to a large number of agents that they need to ignore the dashboard and instead use a view or a bookmark, so the issue is very simple. It does have an easy to access workaround, it's more an issue with the product/UX design of the product whereby users have to manually bookmark/ignore quite a central element to the product. It's also not an intuitive workaround - as you mentioned you hadn't initially thought of it - meaning that most users that are just getting familiar with using Zendesk will naturally look to the dashboard as the place to pick up requests. 

I guess if a Zendesk account is set up in a more simple manner, this probably isn't an issue at all - which therefore highlights this as perhaps a scalability issue. 

... because (as Samantha also mentioned) we have way more views than the left-hand Views panel can display. That means it is no longer a one-click operation to get to the desired view.

So Samantha and Jodi, another clarification. You say you have more views than the left-hand Views panel can display. How does that apply to the dashboard view? That seems more a weakness of the Views panel. How would making the dashboard configurable change that?

We also have more views than can be displayed, so we work with the team to identify the top views, and make sure they are visible in everyone's Views panel. Another enhancement I'd be in favor of is to make the Views panel configurable for each agent, so they can change the order for their login without affecting everyone else. Or, even just identify the use of the different views by that login, and push the most used view to the top of the list (ordering the rest), even giving the user the option to open the top view first by default.

Samantha, I'm sorry, but I don't buy the "because it's a workaround" -- I would buy "because I have to exit Zendesk, and go to the agent to set him or her up with the appropriate bookmark on their browser" (which is what you may have meant by that answer). I see that as slightly painful, but we end up training our agents at their workstations, anyway, and after configuring a custom view for them, adding the bookmark while we train them at their workstation takes about 10 seconds.

I also agree that the natural place to pick up tickets is the dashboard, but that is based on training an agent to login through the root login screen. By creating a custom view to be used by the agent or group, and bookmarking it, they bypass the root login screen, so it is still a one-click operation. Going directly to the custom view first takes them to the login page. After logging in, they go directly to the custom view.

Frankly, with the way the root login page now takes an additional step just to get to the dashboard by routing the user through the Help Center by default, the bookmark is much faster. In fact, if you LIKE the dashboard (and I rarely use it) you could bookmark that, and get there without the Help Center detour.

I'm really looking at the bookmarkability of custom views as being the same as a configurable dashboard PLUS configurable Views panel.

In a way, you could say Zendesk without providing these features exactly as we'd like them to be has still provided these features. I don't think I'll train another agent to login through the root login screen again. That is until the dashboard actually becomes useful.

BTW, I agree with most all comments about the configurability of the dashboard, and I ALSO agree that for most users the dashboard is the first thing they will see. I agree Zendesk is making a strategic error by not identifying the value of a fully configurable dashboard, and making that a development priority.

Thanks, again, for your responses.

I've never thought of the bookmark shortcut. I may use that while I wait. But why do we have to make this a discussion whether or not it is a hack/workaround or whatever? It lacks configuration. Period.

I think Olof, the complaint is that if the dashboard is the first thing our agents see, to not make it useful to them is a waste. I agree with that. And I also see that both for those who are power users and those who need something different than the stock dashboard, configuration is fully available through views and bookmarks, bypassing the dashboard altogether.

Basically, we're throwing away a non-useful element, and going straight to the useful ones. And since our client IS the browser, we're taking advantage of a built-in feature Zendesk offers.

So let Us set the index page. It's not that difficult.

So, we're talking about two ways to accomplish the same thing.

1. You bookmark the root login page (or type the lengthy URL). Zendesk takes you to the login page, routes you to the default Help Center page, where you select "Support" from the dropdown, and then go to the dashboard. For some reason most of us seem to agree with, this is a bad flow. You want Zendesk to allow you to set the index page. They do; with a bookmark.
2. You bookmark the page you want to go to. Zendesk takes you to the login page, then routes you directly to the page you want to go to. No detour through the Help Center or dashboard. I don't think it is necessarily useful for us to ask Zendesk to change their development priorities to add a feature we already have. I'd rather they rethink their strategy on providing something truly useful in a dashboard. Until they do, I'll bypass it altogether, and I'm happy it's a web app that allows me to do so.