Customize Status Field Values

As an example of a workflow that could make use of custom statuses, we offer remote, billable support. We also offer on site service visits. In both cases, we use the ticket to track work. Typically, this involves a technician working to solve the technical issue and an administrator coming in afterwards to handle invoicing and other duties.

I would love for the technician to be able to have Problem Solved status and then leave the Solved for the administrator. We've tried having the techs solve the issue and leave the ticket solved for the duration of administrative cleanup but the forced 28 day closing of the ticket sometimes presents a challenge due to trailing expenses.

+1 for custom statuses. My team works with different types of tasks (scheduled or planned tickets, questions, maintenance, vendor communications). Currently our main painpoint is our "open" queue is very bloated as it contains both actionable tickets (the requester has feedback to share) and scheduled updates which are ready but we are unable to push into production yet as the appropriate scheduled time hasn't passed. These tickets are in "open" because they require an action at some point in time, by the agent. We already utilize "pending" exclusively for any ticket type that is waiting for client feedback, and "On-Hold" for vendor communication or waiting for a company product release. So an additional status, or being able to customize/add additional statuses, would really help us with organizing our queue and correctly applying SLAs.

Another issue which would be resolved with an additional status, is for SLA triggers. Currently our SLA breach reports are not accurate, as we have SLA timers for all open tickets (to ensure we're responding back to our clients), although we do use tags and at times manually modify the ticket urgency to reset or remove the SLA, there isn't an encompassing way, it seems, for us to maintain SLA breach reporting when our scheduled tickets continue to show a breach (scheduled tickets could range from hours, weeks or months before they are closed out).

+1 For custom statuses.

Several issues can be addressed using this feature.

1. Better visibility for the agent and customer about the current state of the ticket (fx. work-in-progress)

2. Ability to set the triggers between each state:
Currently we sometimes send tickets acting a customer but our role in zendesk is Agent. Replying to mails as an agent will not trigger state changes in the same way as a End-use will, this is very confusing for people with a double role (Currently we have a trigger in place to address this issue, but would be easier if it was definable for all "hardcoded" state changes. (fx. a end-user will set a ticket to open using a mail reply, an agent will not)

3. Locate tickets with newly updated information
If I have a view with say 50 tickets all in the open state, meaning the Agent / Company is working on them, maybe we are implementing a feature or fixing something for the user. If the user adds value to the ticket, it will still just be open, aka I can't identify the ticket as an agent where changes has occurred on behalf of the user.

I would have to compare the updated timestamp and updated by an remember it since the last time I checked to see if any of my 50 tickets that are open have been changed. This is unpractical and would be addressed with a state like "working" or "in-progress" in a fx. green color. If the end-user adds value the ticket changes back to open and it's easy for the agent to identify it on the list and take the appropriate actions.

Currently to address to issue in-house we use Zendesk in reverse meaning of Pending and Open. Open means the end-user just replied and the agent has to do work. Pending means, the Agent has seen everything the end-user has sent and now a team or other agent is working on the ticket until it's completed. (This confuses people who uses the customer portal, since all tickets are asking for a reply from them)

I see that we can't change the statuses, but is there anyway to remove what we don't want people to see? I have a group of users that need visibility on the open tickets of an organization, but they do not need to see the "awaiting response" status. Is this at all possible?

Another vote for this feature.  This is really critical!  Need ability to edit/rename statuses as well!

Also, it would be nice not only to have the ability to modify statuses but also to multi-select them. 

For instance, we would like to be able to select Open and Awaiting your Reply at the same time.

Disappointing that this isn't available yet.  The lack of this feature limits the ability of Zendesk to support the processes of a business which are often more complex than 3 statuses can describe.  I've worked with other systems in the past and custom statuses allowed us to manage a ticket over it's journey through multiple departments.  

I don't believe that the custom fields are a 1:1 replacement for this as others have mentioned.  Especially since you can't require a value in those.

This has come up as a need for our company, as we roll out Zendesk to more internal departments.

Just the ability to change the wording of existing statuses - "Pending" to "Pending User Response", and "On-Hold" changed to "Waiting on Third Party" would help us eliminate a lot of training and re-training time. We have agents who use "On Hold" for every open ticket even though they've been trained otherwise; if we could put our expectation right on the button, that would help us all get and stay on the same page.

We understand that this suggestion is extremely valid. In addition, it would be important to be able to define what these statuses would look like for customers by defining the behavior and label presented internally to agents and externally to customers in the help desk.

This would be a great functionality to have.

We are working with a system in which we will put the tickets on solved when we have the issue fixed, so the customer (end user) can have a specific amount of days before the ticket will close. 

However, this is not working because closed tickets are also shown as solved for the customer. 

Is there a possibility that these closed tickets can also be shown as closed for the customer. 

I would like this feature as well.

I use ZenDesk for a legal department, and a "DORMANT" status type would be very helpful.

+1 On this feature. We would like the options for more transparency to our end users on the status of their ticket. We would like for the end user to at least see the same status as our internal agents. We rely on outside vendors to complete some customer tasks so the On Hold status in particular lets our agents know a vendor is on their way but the end user does not get this information and may sometimes interpret the open state to mean that no one is working to address their issue. 

+1 - we really see the benefit of this as well! Cant wait to see this implemented. 

+1.

I understand that a lot of the logic processes are based around this field, But this has been requested for such a long time that I would have liked to see it looked at sooner. Heres hoping it is available soon.

We want to be able to have an Escalated status (or several). This need has come from a client who wants more clarity around what is happening with the issue. This would be reportable and visible to the end-user through the portal. It's this last need that necessitates using a status.

Hello all

Whaoo ! A request open 10 years ago, 93 comments, and the answer I got when I open the same question is " it's technically a very heavy lift and therefore difficult to prioritize". Honestly 10 years ago other tools were already doing it; This is a major pain for our projects. See you in 10 years on thsi one again !

Thanks all contributors for pushing on this one.

I honestly can't believe this is still a thing we have to request, but here's my +1 to throw on the fire.

Configuration of Status "Pending" and "On-hold" need to be visible to end-users (clients)

Make client-facing statuses editable so we can decide what wording displays to them.

If it is transparent and shows Closed they know they need to create a new request as that one cannot be reopened.  

Also, changing New to Awaiting Agent engagement instead of Open and adding Outsourced for Awaiting Third Party.

This is still a very much wanted feature.

We have been using Zendesk as an internal ticket platform for years, but we are considering moving elsewhere once we start using Zendesk for our external support since this feature is yet to be implemented.

Hi, we have developed that free app that won't solve the issue but at least minimize the impact :

https://www.zendesk.com/apps/support/advanced-workflow/?source=app_directory

It add a custom fiields with sub status. 

i'm like... whaaat?

we've just moved from Happyfox to Zendesk because our It-service desk is expanding.
To our horror we find, that simple custom status settings aren't availeble??

Must say i'm quite dissapointed already ...  :-(

DEFINITLY an upvote for this ... and yes people have been asking for minimum 3 years for this...
politly said, get your fingers out and start programming ...

@Anders Juul Jensen

That's not how it works around here. The feature request has to be 10+ years old first. ;)

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All joking aside I do not believe this is likely to be implemented any time soon.

Therefore, I have gone through the process of manually adjusting some of the current statuses to get an effective extra status or two. That is one of the User Tips and Tricks I am planning on writing up. I will post it here once I have finished it. 

I have separated the "Pending" Status into 2 effectively different statuses. The first is where the "Pending" Status repeatedly pokes the customer for a response and the second is where it matches the first but also closes the ticket if they do not respond after 7 days.

I have also separated the "Solved" Status. This allows us to set a status of solved but the ticket will reopen at a future date. 

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I am providing a link to the User Tips I have written and the ones to come for those that would like to follow the post in the meantime. 

https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360044286213-Ranking-Tips-to-be-written-up