A macro is a collection of predefined actions that can be executed on one or more tickets in a single step. Rather than manually performing each action — such as sending an email reply, changing a ticket's status, or creating a follow-up task — an agent can bundle these actions together into a macro and trigger them all at once. This is particularly useful when the same sequence of actions needs to be repeated across multiple tickets that share a common issue or scenario, as it ensures consistency and significantly reduces the time spent on repetitive work.

Consider a situation where a travel agency receives a surge of support tickets from customers affected by weather-related flight cancellations. Each customer needs the same information: an explanation of cancellation policies, rebooking options, and a follow-up task to gauge satisfaction after rebooking. Instead of opening each ticket and performing these actions one by one, an agent can select all the relevant tickets and apply a single macro that simultaneously:

This approach is ideal whenever a group of tickets requires identical actions and the agent can confidently group them by a shared theme or issue type.

To apply a macro to multiple tickets:

The macro's predefined actions will then be applied across all selected tickets. It is important to note that this operation is department-specific, meaning the macro will only apply to tickets within the same department. User cannot apply a single macro across tickets belonging to different departments in one action.

Yes. When a parent ticket has associated child tickets, agents can select specific child tickets and apply a macro to them just as they would with any other group of tickets. This is useful when the parent ticket has progressed to a stage where the child tickets need a standardized response or action.

For example, imagine a parent ticket tracking an employee onboarding process where each child ticket represents an individual candidate. Once onboarding tasks are complete — such as sending a welcome email, finishing IT request forms, and completing compliance courses — an agent can apply a macro to all relevant child tickets that:

A macro can be applied to child tickets either before or after the parent ticket has been resolved, giving agents flexibility in when they choose to execute these actions.

When a macro is applied as a mass or bulk action, the actions are not executed on all tickets simultaneously. Instead, the operation is initiated and the tickets are queued for processing. The system processes each ticket in sequence rather than all at once. Agents can monitor the progress and status of these actions through the bulk actions log and mass actions log, which are accessible under Setup > Data Administration > Bulk Actions Log.

User can check the status of macro applications through the action logs in Zoho Desk. There are two relevant log views:

If a bulk action fails, the log will indicate the reason. Common causes of failure include disabled back-end schedulers, modified list views, or internal server errors. Note that once a bulk action is in progress, it cannot be discarded.

Yes. The mass macro application is department-specific, which means that when a user select multiple tickets and apply a macro, the action is scoped to the department those tickets belong to. If the organization has multiple departments and user need to apply the same macro to tickets across different departments, user would need to perform the action separately for each department's tickets.

No, Applying a macro to child tickets operates independently of the parent ticket. The macro's actions — whether they involve sending emails, updating statuses, or creating tasks — are applied only to the selected child tickets. The parent ticket's status, assignment, and other attributes remain unaffected. This separation allows agents to resolve or update child tickets at their own pace without inadvertently changing the parent ticket's state, even if the parent ticket has already been resolved.