Lovely Views User Guide

 

1 Overview

If you have a lot of Zendesk ticket views to manage, or you want to be able to sort by multiple columns from within a view, then you've come to the right place. Lovely Views does this and much more to provide a powerful enhancement to the Zendesk agent views functionality.

The standard views list in Zendesk shows an agent 12 shared views. To access the rest of the views, your agents need to click on "More", which is inefficient and takes them away from the views environment. Lovely Views changes this by listing every single view that is available to your agents. It also allows the views to be categorised into hierarchical folders to make the views more orderly and easy to find. This makes it easy for your agents to quickly access the views they require while always remaining in the views environment.

Lovely Views works with the Zendesk method of adding :: in between each view category when naming them. For example, Agents::Louis Armstrong::All Unsolved Tickets would provide you with the view you see in the screenshot for that particular agent with each level being displayed as a drop down collapsible menu.

Your agents can also conduct searches within Lovely Views and have the results presented within a view/table for bulk editing which makes the search much more powerful and efficient.

A brief description of the Lovely Views app is available at the following link:

www.lovestockleaf.com/zendesk/zendesk-apps/lovely-views.html

Lovely Views only works in the new Zendesk Agent view, sometimes referred to as "Lotus". If you are still using the classic Zendesk Agent view, then this app will not work.

This guide was written based on version 2.3.0 of Lovely Views PLUS. For a list of all changes made to Lovely Views PLUS, see this document:
https://support.lovestockleaf.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005311186

 

2 Using the Lovely Views app

The Lovely Views app is found in the navigation bar of Zendesk. It is the bottom icon in the picture below.

When you click on the Lovely Views icon you are taken to the app. The app has two main modes:

1. Hierarchical Views
2. Search

Following the main modes of operation are descriptions of the other features of Lovely Views.

 

2.1 Hierarchical views

The second (and main) mode of operation is the hierarchical views. Lovely views shows you all the views which have been configured that the user has access to. Admin users also have access to two special views for Suspended and Deleted tickets.

The views are grouped into hierarchies based on how the views are named. The hierarchy can be as deep as is required. Setting up your view hierarchy is discussed in a later section.

 

2.2 Search

Lovely Views includes a search feature. The "Search" box is always available on the top right. When you type in search terms and press enter it performs a search across all tickets.

Search results display in the right panel, similar to ticket listings in views. Your recent searches are displayed at the top of the left panel.

Clicking on the ticket id or ticket subject will take you to the ticket.

 

3 Working with the Views Panel

 

3.1 Overview

Below is a screenshot of how the left panel is organized. Each section has been colorized to make it easy to identify in the descriptions below.

Controls (dark pink)
At the top of the left panel, there are five icons.

From left to right those are:

1. Menu - Clicking will display a menu. The menu displays the version of Lovely Views you have installed and a shortcut to the User Guide (this document). 
2. Refresh - Clicking will refresh the list of views and update the ticket totals for each view. When the icon is rotating, new data is being loaded.
3. Expand All - Clicking this will expand all groups in the left panel
4. Collapse All - This does the opposite of Expand All. It collapses all groups
5. Minimize Panel - Clicking will minimize the left panel to give you more room to work with tickets. 

Recent Searches (blue)
Below the controls you'll find a group for recent searches. If you don't have any recent searches, this group won't be displayed. If you move your mouse over one of your recent searches, an X will appear. Click the X will remove it from your recent searches. Clicking 'Clear searches' will remove all recent searches.

Saved Searches (purple)
Next you'll find a group for saved searches. If you don't have any saved searches, this group also won't be displayed. You can delete individual saved searches the same way as recent searches (mouse over and click the X).

Private views (pink)
After searches, private views (i.e., views only available to the current agent) are displayed. By default, private views are placed in a group named "Personal". In the app settings, you can rename this group or display it at the end, after all other groups. You can also disable this group to have private views and shared views displayed together.

Shared views (yellow)
Next is the list of all the shared views available to the current agent. Both private views and shared views are grouped based on how each view is named. How to configure this is discussed later in the guide.

Misc views (not shown)
Any non-private views that aren't grouped, are put in a folder named "Misc". By default the Misc group is displayed at the bottom of the panel, after all other views. Like the private views group, you can also rename this group or change where it displays in the left panel.

 

3.2 Selecting a view

You can open a view by clicking on it's name in the left panel. The view will then be highlighted and the tickets in that view will be displayed on the right. Clicking on a ticket will open it.

If you have more tickets that can fit on a page, there are pagination controls at the bottom of the screen, the same as the standard views screen.

If you are in a ticket, and you got there by clicking on a ticket from Lovely Views, then when you close that ticket you should be returned to the Lovely Views app, rather than the standard views screen.

 

3.3 Refreshing Views

The left panel displays all views available to the current user.

In order for an agent to be able to do their job properly, it's important to have accurate and up-to-date information. Lovely Views does it's best to keep view data current, automatically. It does this in a few different ways:

• First, Lovely Views automatically asks for a list of all available view and their ticket totals, every 3 minutes (this frequency cannot be changed).
• Next, Lovely Views tries to listen for changes to tickets. If a ticket is updated and it's currently visible within Lovely Views, Lovely Views will request updated data for that view.
• Lovely Views will also request up-to-date view data when returning to Lovely Views after visiting another page within Zendesk.

This means view data is never older than 3 minutes. If a new view is created, it'll show up within 3 minutes. If a view is removed or deactivated, it will disappear at the longest, within 3 minutes.

View Count Refresh:

To the right of the name of each view, a number is displayed. This is the total number of tickets in each view.

While Lovely Views tries its best to make sure the view in focus has most up-to-date view count, the other views in the list may not have accurate count sometime.

This is because Zendesk applies cache on the view count, so that the count will not update even when there was changes to the view. This count cache is  based on the number of tickets, and the instance load at that specific time.

Narration given from Zendesk regarding about view count cache:

"...They're designed to help estimate view size. From a business perspective, accuracy becomes less relevant as view size increases.

To ensure quality of service, these counts are cached more heavily as the number of tickets in a view grows. For a view with thousands of tickets, you can expect the count to be cached for 60-90 minutes. As a result, the count may not reflect the actual number of tickets in your view... "

With Lovely Views, we constantly improve the app to reduce this "count cache gap" to help the agents have the most accurate number of view counts.

 

 

3.3.1 Manually Refreshing Views

You can also manually tell Lovely Views to request updated view data. You do this by clicking the Refresh icon at the top of the left panel. You manually request updated view data, Lovely Views re-requests the full list of views, ticket totals for each view and a ticket listing if a view is currently selected.

 

3.3.2 Refreshing a Single View

To request updated data for just one view, you can double-click on it's name in the left panel. This will clear out all cached data for that view and request new, fresh data.

 

3.4 Ticket Previews

If you hover over a ticket in the ticket listing in the right panel, additional information about that ticket is displayed in a "popover" window.

Ticket previews come in two different flavours within Lovely Views: regular and detailed.

 

3.4.1 Regular Previews

Regular previews look and behave very similar to the ticket previews you see when using the normal Zendesk views interface. The main differences are:

• All the ticket comments are displayed, instead of just the first and last comment. Comments are ordered oldest to newest.
• The preview stays visible as long as your mouse is over top of it.

 

3.4.2 Detailed Ticket Previews

Detailed ticket previews include a lot more information about the ticket, including more detailed user information, the channel the ticket was submitted via, tags, created and updated times and more.

Like "regular" previews, the detailed ticket preview will stay visible as long as your mouse is over top of it.

 

4 The Ticket Listing

 

4.1 Selecting Tickets

 

4.1.1 Making Ticket Selections

 

4.1.2 Selecting Tickets

You can select more than one ticket at once to take bulk actions. You can do that by clicking the checkboxes for all the tickets you'd like to take action on.

 

4.1.3 Selecting All Tickets

Clicking the very first checkbox on a page allows you to select all tickets on the page or de-select all tickets.

 

4.1.4 Selecting a Range of Tickets

You can quickly select a range of tickets by selecting a ticket, holding down the Shift key on your keyboard and selecting a second ticket. All tickets between those two will now be checked.

You can de-select tickets using the same process. Whether or not tickets are selected or de-selected depends on whether the second ticket it checked or unchecked to begin with. If the second ticket is unchecked to begin with, the tickets will become selected. If the second ticket is checked to begin with, the tickets will become unchecked.

 

4.2 Bulk Actions

When you select one or more tickets using their checkbox, a new toolbar appears at the bottom of the page. Depending on the rights the current agent has within Zendesk, they'll typically see four buttons: Clear Selection, Delete [n] tickets, Merge [n] tickets, and Edit [n] tickets.

 

4.2.1 Clear selection

The "clear selection" button un-ticks the selected tickets. 

 

4.2.2 Delete [n] tickets

The Delete tickets button allows you to delete all the tickets you've selected. Before the tickets are deleted, you'll be asked to confirm this is what you'd like to do.

 

4.2.3 Merge [n] tickets

The "Merge tickets" button allows you to combine two or more tickets together. When merging tickets, you are given two main options for how you'd like to perform the merge.

• Standard merge - This is similar to how the Zendesk ticket merge works. You select tickets and choose another ticket to merge them into.
• Custom merge - The selected tickets are merged into a new ticket. With custom merge, you can optionally choose to include comments from the affected tickets. 

Standard Merge
This is the same as merging tickets from the regular Zendesk views interface. The selected tickets are all closed and merged into an existing ticket.

When you choose Standard Merge, the first step is to choose a target ticket. This can either be one of the tickets you selected, or you can search for another ticket.

If you click 'Search for a ticket', you're presented with a search box. Enter a ticket id or a keyword or phrase. The results will only include valid un-closed tickets.

Clicking on a ticket will designate it as the target ticket that the other tickets will be merged into. Clicking on the ticket a second time will de-select it as the target.

Once a target is selected, the comment boxes will be shown.

The first textbox is the comment that will be added to the 'source' tickets. The comment is automatically generated based on the target ticket you choose, but you can customize it to your liking.

The second textbox is the comment added to the target it ticket, also customizeable. If you change the target ticket, both comments will be re-generate and any edits you've done will be lost.

You can also choose not to add a comment to either the source tickets or target ticket by checking the checkbox below the comment box. This will prevent the message from being added when the merge is performed.

Clicking the Merge Tickets button will start the process. A 'working' icon will display and when the process is complete, the popup will close and the view (or search results) will refresh.

 

4.2.4 Custom Merge

As mentioned earlier, 'Custom merge' allows you to bring along comments from the selected tickets. You can have it ask you if or how you'd like to do that, every time you join tickets. Lovely Views also provides an app setting to force all agents to use the same method. 

The screenshot below shows the custom merge dialog where the agent is given the choice for how to merge tickets. The agent can choose the primary source for where the new ticket gets the ticket data copied from.

The different join methods are:

1. Don't copy anything - Just what it sounds like. No ticket data is copied to new ticket.
2. Most recently updated ticket - Also what it sounds like. Ticket data from the most recently updated ticket is copied to the new ticket.
3. Roll up - Ticket data is copied from the least recently updated ticket, then it is replaced with data from more recently updated tickets.
4. [Ticket ID] - You can choose from the selected tickets which one you'd like to copy data from.

Like with Standard merge, the dialog also allows you to add a comment to both the original tickets, and the new ticket. The default message for the original tickets and the new tickets are shown in the screenshot, but can be changed by typing a new comment. 

 

4.2.5 Edit [n] tickets

Also referred to bulk edit, this dialog allows agents to make the same changes to multiple tickets. The Lovely Views bulk edit dialog works very similarly to the bulk edit dialog in the regular Zendesk views interface, including allowing you to apply macros to the selected tickets.

When fields are updated or changed, Lovely Views adds a small link above each field to allow you to easily reset it's value. To reset all changes, simply click the Cancel button. This will discard all changes and close the dialog.

To apply a macro, simply click the 'Apply macro' input and select a macro from the list. The changes will be applied to the form immediately. For macros that change the ticket status, the submit button text will update. To update the tickets without changing their status, you can click the arrow on the button and choose "Submit".

Changes (including changes from macros) aren't applied to tickets until you click the "Submit" button. After clicking Submit, it's safe to close the dialog. Tickets are updated in the background. Once the updates are complete, a notification will be displayed and ticket listing will refresh.

 

4.3 View settings

When you click on the view name at the top of the right pane where tickets are display, there's a dropdown menu. Depending on whether you're an admin user or a regular agent, the item in the menu differ. 

Admin users will see 'Edit View', 'Edit Group/Order By', 'Clone' and 'Show in standard view'. Non-admin users will only see the 'Show in standard view' option. 

Note: Due to limitations within the Zendesk Apps Framework, when you click on 'Edit View', 'Clone' or 'Show in standard view', the page is opened in a new browser tab. As soon as Zendesk removes these limitations, we plan on updating Lovely Views to open these links within the same browser tab.

When you click on the "Edit View" you are taken to the native Zendesk view editing screen.

When you click on the "Edit Group/Order By you are shown a modal screen where you can change the grouping and ordering of the view.

You can change the grouping to be a ticket field with the same options as a regular view. You can also change the ordering with up to three columns being ordered. The ordering works in succession. It orders by the first option, and when tickets which have the same first option, it then orders by the second option, and if the tickets have the same first two options then it orders by the last option. Standard Zendesk views only allow ordering by one field.

When you click on "Clone view" then you are taken to the standard screen for cloning a view.

When you click on "Show in standard view" it takes you to the same view in the regular Zendesk view.

 

5 Working with Searches

 

5.1 Search queries

Searches made within Lovely Views support almost all the same advanced search options that the regular Zendesk search interface does. The main difference is that results are limited to tickets only.

 

5.2 Search results

Search results are presented in a very similar way to ticket listings for views. The main difference is that the table columns aren't customizable. The columns included are: ticket id, ticket subject, requester, date created and date last updated.

 

5.3 Recent searches

As you perform searches within Lovely Views, the last 5 most recent searches are displayed at the top of the left panel. Recent searches are placed in a group that you can expand and collapse, similar to views you've grouped. If there are no recent searches, the group isn't displayed.

When you move your mouse over a recent search, a small 'x' will appear that allows you to delete individual searches. Clicking the 'x' will display a dialog asking you to confirm that you would like to delete the search. Click the 'Delete Search' button to confirm you'd like to delete it.

You can also quickly delete all recent searches by clicking 'Clear searches', at the bottom of the Recent Searches group. Again, you'll be asked to confirm that this is the action you'd like to take.

Note: Recent searches are specific to the computer and browser you performed them on. If you change workstations, switch to a different web browser or clear your browser history, your recent searches will no longer be available. This is something we plan on addressing is a future update.

 

5.4 Saved searches

Lovely Views allows you to save your searches. The results aren't saved, only the search parameters. This allows you to create complex search queries that you can easily reuse in the future. There's no set limit to the number of saved searches you can have.

To save a search, perform a search, click the dropdown menu on Search results at the top if the right pane, and select Save Search. A popup will appear where you can name the search.

There are two ways to delete a saved search. The first is the same as with recent searches. When you move your mouse over a saved search, a small 'x' will appear. Clicking the 'x' will display a dialog asking you to confirm that you'd like to delete the search. The second way is the same drop-down menu displayed above the search results in the right panel, that you used to save the search initially. 

Note: Saved searches are specific to the computer and browser you performed them on. If you change workstations, switch to a different web browser or clear your browser history, your saved searches will no longer be available. This is something we plan on addressing is a future update.

 

5.5 More reading

• Advanced Search Queries in Zendesk
• Zendesk Search Reference

 

6 Configuring the Lovely Views app

You can set the configuration options for the app through the application settings. You can access this by clicking on "Admin" (the cog icon). Next, click on the "Manage" item in the "Apps" section of Zendesk admin.

Once you are in this section you click on the cog icon for the app and click on "Change Settings" to edit the settings.

This will take you to an information page about the app. Click on App Configuration, to see the options.

This screen has the following options:

• Tickets per page: Lovely Views allows you to customize how many tickets are display on each page. The default value is 30, but you can set this to anything between 5 and 200. If set to a number outside this range, Lovely Views will use the closest valid number within the valid range.
• Enable 'enhanced' ticket previews: When enabled, ticket previews will use the "enhanced" layout to display additional information like assigned agent, date created, date updated, tags and more. Default: checked.
• Disable the 'Misc' folder: Checking this will hide the "Misc" folder. The Misc folder is the folder where views which are not categorized are placed into by default. Checking this option will leave categorized at the top level, outside of any groups. Default: unchecked.
• Rename 'Misc' folder: Lovely Views allows you to rename the "Misc" folder, if needed. For example for help desks who use a different language than English.
• Display the 'Misc' folder at bottom: If you tick this item, the "Misc" folder appears at the bottom of the list of folders. By default the "Misc" folder appears at the top of the list.
• Disable the 'Personal' folder: Checking this will hide your "Personal" folder. If this is hidden, your 'Personal' views will be grouped within the same hierarchy as other, shared views.
• Rename your 'Personal' folder: Like the Misc folder, you can optionally rename the "Personal" folder.
• Place 'Personal' folder at bottom: If you tick this item then your "Personal" folder appears at the bottom of the list of folders. By default your "Personal" folder appears at the top of the list.
• Additional view grouping separator: This option allows you to use another character (in additon to "::") to group views in folders. For example, you may want to use a forward slash in view names, to make them look more natural.
• Requester must be the same when merging tickets: If you'd like to limit agents from merging tickets from multiple requesters within Lovely Views, you can enable this option. When you select tickets from more than one requester, a warning icon appears on the merge button and the merge dialogs are disabled. Note: This only applies to Lovely Views. It's still possible for agents to merge tickets from more than one requester using the ticket merge function in the regular Zendesk views interface.
• Ticket join method: This is the method that the joined tickets are combined. The value can be one of "latest", "rolling", or "none", with the default value of 'latest'.
• latest: ticket data from the most recently updated ticket is copied to the new ticket.
• rolling: ticket data is copied from the least recently updated ticket, then it is replaced with data from a more recently updated ticket.
• none: no ticket data is copied to new ticket.
• Force join method onto user: This setting is used to control the join method for tickets. Some administrators do not want to give the users the choice of how the tickets should be joined. Ticking this option does not give the user the option of the join method, and uses the join method defined in the "Ticket join method" setting. If this is not ticked, then the agent gets to choose the join method (it defaults to the value of the "Ticket join method" setting).
• Agent comments are internal by default: When this option is disabled, Lovely Views will use your ticket settings in Zendesk when determining whether comments are public or internal by default on the bulk ticket edit dialog. As a safety precaution, some help desks may want bulk edit comments be internal by default. This option allows that. Note: Agents will still be able to add public comments, but they'll need to select that option.

 

6.1 Configuring views

The configuration of views is the key to how Lovely Views presents the views. Please note that if you change the views or add new views, then you must refresh the Lovely Views app to have it recognise the changes you have made.

You can access this by clicking on "Admin" (the cog icon).

Then click on the "Views" item in the "Manage" section.

For the view you'd like to edit, move your mouse over it until you see the buttons on the right-hand side of the row it's one. Click the circle with the three dots to reveal a drop-down menu. Choose Edit.

This will take you to the edit screen where you can change the title of the view.

Views should be named (or renamed) using :: (double colon) as follows for categorising views in a nested structure. The double colon :: is the same delimiter used by Zendesk for the drop-down menus. You can have as many levels of sub-groups as you require. The example below shows 2 levels of categorisation.

<Level 1 category name> :: <Level 2 category name> :: <View title>

In a more concrete example this could be the following.

Hardware Support :: Printers :: Open Tickets

To achieve the hierarchy for "Group1 / Is solved" you would have the following title.

Group1 :: Is solved 

To achieve the hierarchy for "Group1 / SubGroup / SubGroup2 / Is new1 and a bit longer for testing" you would have the following title.

Group1::SubGroup::SubGroup2::Is new1 and a bit longer for testing

Lovely Views will automatically set the groups and the hierarchies based on the View titles. You do not need to create any intermediate views for each level of the hierarchy.

As a more useful example, an admin would like to organise the following four existing views under two sections:

• Sally's Open Tickets
• Peter's Open Tickets
• Sally's Pending Tickets
• Peter's Pending Tickets

You could rename them as follows:

• Open Tickets :: Sally's Tickets
• Open Tickets :: Peter's Tickets
• Pending Tickets :: Sally's Tickets
• Pending Tickets :: Peter's Tickets

This will create Open Tickets and Pending Tickets as top level groupings.

Alternatively the 4 views can also be renamed as follows:

• Sally's Tickets :: Open Tickets
• Sally's Tickets :: Pending Tickets
• Peter's Tickets :: Open Tickets
• Peter's Tickets :: Pending Tickets

Which will result in Sally's Tickets and Peter's Tickets at the top level.

A view can also be displayed on the same level as a view category. For example:

• Department :: All departments New tickets
• Department :: Accounts :: Pending tickets
• Department :: Accounts :: Open tickets
• Department :: Infrastructure :: Pending tickets
• Department :: Infrastructure :: Open tickets

 

6.1.1 Restricting views to agent groups

Views restricted to a specific agent group on the standard Zendesk view edit page will also only be visible to agents in that group when using Lovely Views.

 

6.1.2 Personal views

Personal views will appear under a special "Personal" group. If an agent has two personal views named "Open change requests" and "Open support requests", those views will be listed under the "Personal" group, but only the agent will have access to them.

If in the options, you chose to hide the "Personal" folder, personal views will appear under the "Misc" group. 

Alternatively, if you'd like personal views to appear in other groups, you can rename them in the same manner as public views:

• Open Requests :: My open change requests
• Open Requests :: My open support requests

 

7 Frequently Asked Questions

This section contains answers to frequently asked questions about the Zendesk app or solution provided by Lovestock & Leaf. This will be constantly expanded upon as new questions and answers are posed.

 

7.1 Can you share views with only 1 agent (not yourself)?

Lovely Views respects the permissions you set for the view in the Zendesk settings. If you want to share a view with only one other agent, you will have to create a group for yourself and that agent, add both of your accounts to the group, and then share the view with that group.

 

7.2 Can an admin see the personal views of other agents?

As Lovely Views uses the standard Zendesk view permissions, an admin cannot see an agent's personal views.

 

7.3 Do you need to use subfolders for personal views for them to be personal?

Personal views are only visible to the agent that the view belongs to.

 

7.4 How do I change the order of the views?

The order of views and folders in Lovely Views is based on the order of views in your Zendesk settings. To change the order of views:

1. Click on the cog icon (admin), then in "Manage", then click on 'Views". This will take you to the views configuration screen.
2. On the right side of the screen, near the top, there's a button labeled "...". Click that and on the menu that appears, select "Reorder Page".
3. You can now re-order the views by dragging and dropping them into place. When done, click Save to finalize the order. 
4. Reload the page and return to Lovely Views. It should now display views in the updated order.

Note: The order of folders is based on the first appearance of the folder in the view listing. Other views are added to that group in the order they appear in your views list. For example, views named and ordered like the following:

Group1 :: View 1
Group2 :: View 2
Group3 :: View 3
Group2 :: View 4
Group1 :: View 5

... will result in the views being display like the following in Lovely Views:

Group1
     View 1
     View 3
     View 5
Group 2
     View 2
     View 4
Group 3
     View 3