Zoho Desk: 2023 Feature Release - All New Zoho Desk with accessibility controls and exciting new features and enhancements

Zoho Desk: 2023 Feature Release - All New Zoho Desk with accessibility controls and exciting new features and enhancements

Redefining customer service experiences

I. New Generation Zoho Desk
The Zoho Desk UI has been enhanced with a more engaging, intuitive, and user-friendly interface. The new design adheres to an advanced unified component library and follows standard design guidelines.

The fresh Zoho Desk interface brings changes that provide support to agents with a range of easy-to-use and convenient options that save time and effort while increasing productivity.

Take a look at some of the elements of our new UI:

The Agent Queue now displays the agent's name first in the queue. Agents can work on assigned tickets right from this window. 


Tags can be edited and deleted from the Tag view in the left panel.


Work Modes provide an organized and clutter-free view. All work modes, including status, handshake, countdown, and priority are consolidated under the list views. 


Ticket status can now be changed right from the Queue view without opening the Ticket Detail view. 


Filters applied to quick search a record are now displayed as breadcrumbs to provide better context and facilitate better understanding.


Ticket Detail view now includes more functionalities:
  • Tags can be added from the info panel.
  • CCs can be added and edited from the info panel.
  • Color distinction differentiates between public and private comments.

  • Compact info bar holds more icons and displays extensions for quick access.

This is just a glimpse of some of the key changes incorporated into the new UI design.
Resources: Help documents 

II. Providing inclusive experiences

We believe that software should be accessible to all. This was our goal in building an all-inclusive interface to cater to our world-wide customer base. With this in mind, we introduce:
  • Accessibility controls that help users adjust, enable, or disable visual and display preferences to their liking. Users now have the option to:
    • Highlight critical information, such as Ticket ID, agent name, email address, and ticket owner in striking colors for prominence and cognitive appeal.
    • Underline links for quick identification.
    • Emphasize areas that a user should focus on with highlights and colored outlines around the text.

    • Optimize animations, motion graphics, and transitions by reducing motion or by allowing Zoho Desk to auto-adjust based on the computer settings. The screen jerks, page transitions, unwanted animations, and motions that can cause distraction and increase strain on the eyes can be mitigated substantially.
    • Use a reading mask to shine a spotlight on the text as you hover over it. Blur the background for distinction, less distraction, and better comprehension. 

    • Adjust display and layout with page zoom and font size and type. 
    • Set display preferences with new themes and night/dark mode. Switch between light mode, night mode, or auto-mode based on your surroundings.




  • Multilingual support for your Knowledge Base helps customers access self-service content in their preferred language. Your KB content can be translated and published in 50+ languages.

III. Introducing enhanced privacy and transparent management

Data is the backbone of a business and it requires secure handling. This year, Zoho Desk took big strides to enhance privacy and provide better data management options by introducing:

Data subject rights: In accordance with GDPR, Zoho Desk now provides a reliable and secure system to protect and process customer data. DSR protects two different rights: Right to Access and Right to Erasure. Refer to the help doc for more details.
  • Right to Access: Data subjects can request a copy of their personal data. In Zoho Desk, you can register a request and send a copy of the data from one or more modules. Data will be exported, and you can send it securely from your official email account.
  • Right to Erasure: Data subjects can raise a request asking the organization to delete their personal data. In Zoho Desk, you can take up this request and permanently delete the data from one or more modules.
Read receipts for emails: Emails sent from tickets will bear a green double check mark when they've been read by the recipient. This helps agents manage high-priority tasks, deadlines, follow-up conversations, and more. Check marks in different colors indicate whether CC or BCC recipients have read the email, the number of recipients that replied to the email, whether the email bounced or failed, and more. Read the help doc for more details.

Data Backup: A foolproof method for preventing data loss is to periodically back up your data. Zoho Desk now facilitates instant and scheduled backups. Data from the Tickets, Products, KB, Activities, Agents, Teams, and other modules can be backed up as and when needed. Refer to the help doc for more details. 

Other new features and enhancements

Aside from these updates, we have some exciting new features:

Auto-translation of your help center
To support your multilingual knowledge base further, Zoho Desk now offers auto-translation of your KB articles to multiple languages. The article, title, tags, SEO title, meta descriptions, and meta keywords will be auto-translated using tools such as Google Translate, Unbable, or Zia, based on their configuration. Refer to the help doc for more details.

Custom actions gallery for Workflow automations
Introducing custom actions to improve workflow automations. The new set of available actions includes: Assign Ticket, Add Comment, Send Email Reply, Share Ticket, Send Cliq Notification, Reply and Notify via Instant Messaging, and more. Refer to the help doc for more details. 

Idle timeout to improve agent productivity and optimize ticket assignment
Desk provides the option to set the maximum duration for which an agent can remain idle.  After that time, their status will automatically change from online to offline. Increase productivity and maintain better control over ticket assignment by choosing agents based on status. Refer to the help doc for more details.  

More functionalities added to Blueprints
Advanced configurations we've added to Blueprint include:
  • Strict mode: Agents can be restricted from performing certain actions, like editing fields, sending replies, leaving comments, and asking for approvals during a transition. These functions will be hidden from the ticket interface.
  • Dynamic transition owner: Users can assign transition owners for records as and when needed. The transition owners need not be necessarily from the same department that the record belongs to.
  • Save draft: Blueprints that are in progress can be saved as drafts so you can resume work at another time.
  • Additional fields provided during transition: During transition, "tags" is included as a field that can be updated by the agent.  Ticket sharing is also an available action. If the agents want, they can share a ticket with team members during the transition.
  • Transition draft: Save a transition until its finalized as a partial draft. During this stage, multiple transition owners can be involved in its completion. The draft will display the name of the person who drafted the transition and when it was drafted.
New set of marketplace extensions
Earlier this year, we introduced a set of new extensions aimed at enhancing Zoho Desk's performance. The new extensions are:

Zoho Campaigns integration
Experience the benefits of Campaigns within your help desk. Create mailing lists, add or remove customers from mailing lists, find out how many campaigns customers are part of, and more. Refer to the help doc for more details.

Broadcast email template
Create email templates for multiple departments at once, insert an agent's signature and default happiness rating within the template, provide profile-based access to the template, and more. Refer to the help doc for more details.

Related tickets by custom fields
Improve ticket resolutions by adding custom fields. Using these fields, agents can look up tickets with similar field values to identify similar problems, and provide quicker and more personalized solutions. Up to five custom fields can be added to a layout, and can display information such as ticket ID, ticket owner, status, and date/time created from related tickets. Refer to the help doc for more details.   

That's a wrap.
We're excited to share the new version of Zoho Desk with its inclusive functionality, improved automation, comprehensive privacy options, helpful extensions, and more.

The new features are now available for all users. Give them a try and share your feedback.

Regards,
Anumita Gupta

Book the date!
We will be hosting an exclusive webinar for the 2023 Release Features on 22nd December (Thursday) at 9pm IST. 
Kindly register using the link below. 













 











    • Sticky Posts

    • Zoho Desk Partners with Microsoft's M365 Copilot for seamless customer service experiences

      Hello Zoho Desk users, We are happy to announce that Zoho Desk has partnered with Microsoft's M365 to empower customer service teams with enhanced capabilities and seamless experiences for agents. Microsoft announced their partnership during their keynote

    • WhatsApp pricing changes: Pay per message starting July 1, 2025

      Starting July 1, 2025, WhatsApp is shifting from conversation-based pricing to per-message billing. That means every business-initiated message you send will count. Not just the first one in a 24-hour window. Pricing updates on the WhatsApp Business Platform

    • Live Webinar - Work smarter with Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace integration

      Hello customers! Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace are coming together for a webinar on 14th May, 2024. Zoho Workplace is a suite of productivity apps for email, chat, docs, calls, and more at one single place. Zoho Desk is closely integrated with a few tools

    • Apple iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 updates for Zoho Desk users

      Hello Zoho Desk users! Apple recently announced the release of iOS 17 and iPad OS 17. These latest OS updates will help you stay productive and efficient, through interactive and seamless user experiences. Zoho Desk has incorporated the updates to help

    • Zoho Desk Cheat Sheet For The Year-End

      Check out these Zoho Desk best practices to end this year on a high and have a great one ahead! #1 Set Business (Holiday) Hours - If you have limited working hours, please make sure you restrict your business hours or set them as holidays for the coming days. Let your customers know when you will, and won't, be available. #2 Update the Annual Holiday List - Check the holidays for the new year and update the holiday schedule. Usually, holidays from the current year will be carried over for the next

    • Recent Topics

    • How do I remove a data source from Zoho Analytics?

      I am unable to find a delte option on a datasource that i put in the system as an error. On teh web it refers to a setup icon but I do not see that on my interface?

    • Add Employee Availability Functionality to Zoho People Shift Module

      Hello Zoho People Product Team, Greetings and hope you are doing well. We would like to submit a feature request to enhance the Zoho People Shift module by adding employee availability management, similar to the functionality available in Zoho Shifts.

    • Bigin, more powerful than ever on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe, and watchOS 26.

      Hot on the heels of Apple’s latest OS updates, we’ve rolled out several enhancements and features designed to help you get the most from your Apple devices. Enjoy a refined user experience with smoother navigation and a more content-focused Liquid Glass

    • Really want the field "Company" in the activities module!

      Hi team! Something we are really missing is able to see the field Company when working in the activities module. We have a lot of tasks and need to see what company it's related to. It's really annoying to not be able to see it.🙈 Thx!

    • Delay in rendering Zoho Recruit - Careers in the ZappyWorks

      I click on the Careers link (https://zappyworks.zohorecruit.com/jobs/Careers) on the ZappyWorks website expecting to see the job openings. The site redirects me to Zoho Recruit, but after the redirect, the page just stays blank for several seconds. I'm

    • Is Desk Down?

      Across department - always an error. [Status Mode] - error [Table View and the rest] - working

    • We Asked, Zoho Delivered: The New Early Access Program is Here

      For years, the Zoho Creator community has requested a more transparent and participatory approach to beta testing and feature previews. Today, I'm thrilled to highlight that Zoho has delivered exactly what we asked for with the launch of the Early Access

    • Can the Product Image on the Quote Template be enlarged

      Hello, I am editing the Quote Template and added ${Products.Product Image} to the line item and the image comes up but it is very tiny. Is there anyway that you can resize this to be larger? Any help would be great! Thanks

    • How do I change the wording of the tile of SignForm?

      When my user opens a SignForm url, the title that is presented is always "SignForm signer Information" and a form is displayed asking for the username and email address. This can be confusing to the end user. How can I change the title at least (Or at

    • How to link tickets to a Vendor/Vendor Contact (not Customer) for Accounting Department?

      Hi all, We’re configuring our Accounting department to handle tickets from both customers and vendors (our independent contractors). Right now, ticket association seems to be built around linking a ticket to a Customer / Customer Contact, but for vendor-originated

    • Problem with CRM Connection not Refreshing Token

      I've setup a connection with Zoom in the CRM. I'm using this connection to automate some registrations, so my team doesn't have to manually create them in both the CRM and Zoom. Connection works great in my function until the token expires. It does not refresh and I have to manually revoke the connection and connect it again. I've chatted with Zoho about this and after emailing me that it couldn't be done I asked for specifics on why and they responded. "The connection is CRM is not a feature to

    • Automatic Matching from Bank Statements / Feeds

      Is it possible to have transactions from a feed or bank statement automatically match when certain criteria are met? My use case, which is pretty broadly applicable, is e-commerce transactions for merchant services accounts (clearing accounts). In these

    • Clone Recurring Expenses

      Our bookkeeping practices make extensive use of the "clone" feature for bills, expenses, invoices, etc. This cuts down significantly on both the amount of typing that needs to be done manually and, more importantly, the mental overhead of choosing the

    • Unify Overlapping Functionalities Across Zoho Products

      Hi Zoho One Team, We would like to raise a concern about the current overlap of core functionalities across various Zoho applications. While Zoho offers a rich suite of tools, many applications include similar or identical features—such as shift management,

    • Automation #7 - Auto-update Email Content to a Ticket

      This is a monthly series where we pick some common use cases that have been either discussed or most asked about in our community and explain how they can be achieved using one of the automation capabilities in Zoho Desk. Email is one of the most commonly

    • Ticket to article and Ticket to template

      Hello! I would like to know if it is possible (and how) to do the following actions: 1. To generate an article from a ticket (reply + original message) 2. Easy convert an answer to an email template

    • Is there API Doc for Zoho Survey?

      Hi everyone, Is there API doc for Zoho Survey? Currently evaluating a solution - use case to automate survey administration especially for internal use. But after a brief search, I couldn't find API doc for this. So I thought I should ask here. Than

    • Windows Desktop App - request to add minimization/startup options

      Support Team, Can you submit the following request to your development team? Here is what would be optimal in my opinion from UX perspective: 1) In the "Application Menu", add a menu item to Exit the app, as well as an alt-key shortcut for these menus

    • Creating Parent Child relationship in Accounts

      We have customers with multiple locations, I setup the HQ as an account, then I setup the different sites marking the HQ as the parent to that location. If I then do a Deal for one of the locations, is there a way to show by looking at the parent account

    • Kaizen #225 - Making Query-based Custom Related Lists Actionable with Lookups and Links

      Hello everyone! Welcome back to another post in the Kaizen series! This week, we will discuss an exciting enhancement in Queries in Zoho CRM. In Kaizen #190, we discussed how Queries bridge gaps where native related lists fall short and power custom related

    • WebDAV / FTP / SFTP protocols for syncing

      I believe the Zoho for Desktop app is built using a proprietary protocol. For the growing number of people using services such as odrive to sync multiple accounts from various providers (Google, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, etc.) it would be really helpful

    • CRM x WorkDrive: We're rolling out the WorkDrive-powered file storage experience for existing users

      Release plan: Gradual rollout to customers without file storage add-ons, in this order: 1. Standalone CRM 2. CRM Plus and Zoho One DCs: All | Editions: All Available now for: - Standalone CRM accounts in Free and Standard editions without file storage

    • Non-responsive views in Mobile Browser (iPad)

      Has anyone noticed that the creator applications when viewed in a mobile browser (iPad) lost its responsiveness? It now appears very small font size and need to zoom into to read contents. Obviously this make use by field staff quite difficult. This is not at all a good move, as lots of my users are depending on accessing the app in mobile devices (iPads), and very challenging and frustrating. 

    • [Free Webinar] Learning Table Series - AI-Enhanced Logistics Management in Zoho Creator

      Hello Everyone! We’re excited to invite you to another edition of Learning Table Series, where we showcase how Zoho Creator empowers industries with innovative and automated solutions. About Learning Table Series Learning Table Series is a free, 45-60

    • Learner transcript Challenges.

      Currently i am working on a Learner Transcript app for my employer using Zoho Creator. The app is expected to accept assessment inputs from tutors, go through an approval process and upon call up, displays all assessments associated with a learner in

    • Customizable UI components in pages | Theme builder

      Anyone know when these roadmap items are scheduled for release? They were originally scheduled for Q4 2025. https://www.zoho.com/creator/product-roadmap.html

    • Feature Request - Set Default Values for Meetings

      Hi Zoho CRM Team, I would be very useful if we could set default values for meeting parameters. For example, if you always wanted Reminder 1 Day before. Currently you need to remember to choose it for every meeting. Also being able to use merge tags to

    • Analytics <-> Invoice Connection DELETED by Zoho

      Hi All, I am reaching out today because of a big issue we have at the moment with Zoho Analytics and Zoho Invoice. Our organization relies on Zoho Analytics for most of our reporting (operationnal teams). A few days ago we observed a sync issue with the

    • How to use Rollup Summary in a Formula Field?

      I created a Rollup Summary (Decimal) field in my module, and it shows values correctly. When I try to reference it in a Formula Field (e.g. ${Deals.Partners_Requested} - ${Deals.Partners_Paid}), I get the error that the field can’t be found. Is it possible

    • Zoho Creator to Zoho CRM Images

      Right now, I am trying to setup a Notes form within Zoho Creator. This Notes will note the Note section under Accounts > Selected Account. Right now, I use Zoho Flow to push the notes and it works just fine, with text only. Images do not get sent (there

    • CRM gets location smart with the all new Map View: visualize records, locate records within any radius, and more

      Hello all, We've introduced a new way to work with location data in Zoho CRM: the Map View. Instead of scrolling through endless lists, your records now appear as pins on a map. Built on top of the all-new address field and powered by Mappls (MapMyIndia),

    • Error Logs / Failure logs for Client Scripts Functions

      Hi Team, While we are implementing client scripts for the automation, it is working fine in few accounts but not working for others. So, it would be great if we can have error Logs for client scripts also just like custom functions. Is there any way that

    • Automate pushing Zoho CRM backups into Zoho WorkDrive

      Through our Zoho One subscription we have both Zoho CRM and Zoho WorkDrive. We have regular backups setup in Zoho CRM. Once the backup is created, we are notified. Since we want to keep these backups for more than 7 days, we manually download them. They

    • Zoho Books blocks invoicing without VeriFactu even though it is not mandatory until 2027

      I would like to highlight a very serious issue in Zoho Books for Spain. 1. The Spanish government has postponed the mandatory start of VeriFactu to January 1st, 2027. This means that during all of 2026 businesses are NOT required to transmit invoices

    • Problem : Auto redirect from zoho flow to zoho creator

      Hi there, I've been waiting for zoho team to get back on this for last couple of days. Anyone else have the problem to access zoho flow? everytime I click on zoho flow it redirects me to zoho creator. I tried incognito mode but it still direct me to zoho

    • Client and Vendor Portal

      Some clients like keeping tabs on the developments and hence would like to be notified of the progress. Continuous updates can be tedious and time-consuming. Zoho Sprints has now introduced a Client and Vendor Portal where you can add client users and

    • #7 Tip of the week: Delegating approvals in Zoho People

      With Zoho People, absences need not keep employees waiting with their approval requests. When you are not available at work, you can delegate approvals that come your way to your fellow workmate and let them take care of your approvals temporarily. Learn more!

    • Trouble with using Apostrophe in Name of Customers and Vendors

      We have had an ongoing issue with how the system recognizes an apostrophe in the name of customers and vendors. The search will not return any results for a name that includes the mark; ie one of our vendors names is "L'Heritage" and when entering the

    • Why am I seeing deleted records in Zoho Analytics syncing with Zoho CRM?

      I have done a data sync between Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics, and the recycle bin is empty. Why do I see deleted leads/deals/contacts in Zoho Analytics if it doesn't exist in Zoho CRM? How can I solve this problem? Thanks

    • Nueva edición de "Ask The Expert" en Español Zoho Community

      ¡Hola Comunidad! ¿Te gustaría obtener respuestas en directo sobre Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk u otra solución dentro de nuestro paquete de CX (Experiencia del Cliente? Uno de nuestros expertos estará disponible para responder a todas tus preguntas durante nuestra

    • Next Page