Zendesk is a popular customer service software that allows companies to manage customer support tickets. With Zendesk, agents can view, prioritize, and respond to customer inquiries through a single platform. One of the most useful features in Zendesk is the ability to search for and find specific tickets quickly and easily.
There are a few different ways to search for tickets in Zendesk. In this article, we’ll cover the main methods for searching and filtering tickets so you can find what you need.
Searching from the Tickets Tab
The simplest way to search for tickets is directly from the Tickets tab in Zendesk. The Tickets tab shows you all of the active tickets in your account. At the top of the page is a search bar where you can enter keywords to look for specific tickets.
For example, if you wanted to find tickets from a particular customer, you could type their name or email address into the search bar. If you wanted to find tickets with a certain tag, you could search for that tag name. You can use basic keywords and phrases to search through ticket subjects, descriptions, comments, and other fields.
The search results will automatically populate below, listing all of the matching tickets. You can then click on any ticket to view it in more detail. The search results are continually filtered as you type to show the most relevant tickets based on your search query.
Tips for searching from the Tickets tab
- Use keywords from the ticket subject, description, comments, tags, or other metadata
- Quotation marks around phrases will search for exact matches
- Boolean operators like “AND” and “OR” can be used to combine keywords
- Add filters like status, assignee, and tags to narrow results further
Searching directly from the Tickets tab is a quick and easy way to find tickets in Zendesk. However, you may need to use advanced search operators to filter your results more effectively.
Using Advanced Search
Zendesk also has an Advanced Search feature that provides more options and control over your ticket search. You can access Advanced Search from the plus icon next to the main search bar.
In Advanced Search, you can enter keywords just like the simple search. But you also get additional filters to narrow your search criteria. These filters include:
- Status – Search by open, pending, solved, or closed tickets
- Assignee – Find tickets assigned to specific agents
- Group – Search within ticket groups
- Organization – Filter tickets by organization
- Tags – Search for tickets with certain tags
- Type – Filter by ticket type such as question, incident, problem, etc.
You can combine multiple filters to drill down on very specific types of tickets. For example, you could search for open tickets assigned to Agent A that are tagged as “Billing” issues.
Tips for using Advanced Search
- Use filters to narrow down big keyword search results
- Match keywords on specific fields like subject or description
- Optional “has” filter to search for tickets without certain criteria
- Use date filters to find tickets created within a time range
- Save common searches to reuse later
With Advanced Search, you have much more flexibility to construct complex searches and isolate the tickets you need.
Searching from Views
In addition to searching directly from the Tickets tab, you can also search for tickets from within Views in Zendesk.
Views allow you to create customized tables of tickets with filters and fields you define. For example, you may have a view showing only open priority tickets assigned to you. You can access views from the Views dropdown at the top of the Zendesk interface.
Any view you create will include a search bar at the top that you can use to search within that view. For example, if you search within your “Open Priority Tickets” view, it will only return results matching your search that also meet the view’s filter for open and priority tickets.
This is useful for narrowing down searches when you already have a filtered set of tickets showing in a view.
Tips for searching in views
- Create views to filter down to relevant tickets first
- Use the view search bars to search within those filters
- Results will match search terms AND existing view filters
- Use views to isolate ticket subsets before searching
Combining saved views and searches helps you quickly filter and find the exact Zendesk tickets you need.
Searching with the Zendesk Search Bar
In addition to searching for tickets directly, you can also search across all Zendesk content using the main search bar at the top of the interface. This includes searching through:
- Support tickets
- User profiles
- Organization profiles
- Article pages
- Forum topics
- Help Center categories
When you search from the main Zendesk search bar, it will return results across all content that matches your keywords. You can then filter the results by content type.
For example, searching for “billing” may return matching tickets, forum posts, articles, and users. You could then click on “Tickets” to filter down to just the ticket results.
Tips for using the main Zendesk search
- Broad keyword searches return results from all content
- Filter content types on the left side to narrow down
- Click a result to jump directly to the matching content
- Use quotes to search for exact multi-word phrases
The main Zendesk search provides a quick way to search across tickets, users, and multiple content types at once.
Conclusion
Zendesk provides several ways to search for and find the tickets you need quickly. Key options include:
- Searching directly from the Tickets tab
- Using Advanced Search for more filters
- Searching within views
- Using the main Zendesk search bar
Best practices include using multiple filters, precise keywords, and quotes for exact matches. Saving filtered views also makes it easier to isolate subsets of tickets to search within.
With all of its search capabilities, Zendesk gives agents the ability to efficiently locate customer tickets and respond to inquiries in a timely manner.