Validation rule provides businesses a way to ensure that the data entered by the customers and the employees is correct and meets their standards. It helps maintain data authenticity. When customers submit tickets or agents create tickets on behalf of the customers, they enter certain values into the fields. Businesses can ensure the entered values are accurate by setting a validation rule. Likewise, when agents enter data, such as product code, serial IDs, and customer details, these values can be authenticated using a validation rule.

Benefits of the Validation rule include:

Let's explore how validation rules are used in the Banking department to ensure accuracy and security. 

These rules help maintain the integrity and security of your financial transactions, providing a reliable and safe banking experience.

Based on the example above, let's create a validation rule that the account number can only have numeric values.

In this way, if there are no numbers entered or if there are any alphabets entered, an alert is displayed that they should enter only the numeric values. 

The validation rule could be a combination of multiple conditions. You can limit the data provided by using the logical operators (and/or) and Regex expressions as well. 

The Validation rule in Zoho Desk ensures that the information provided by the customers are in a specific criteria or pattern. Validation rules could be added for any modules and departments in an organization. An error is displayed when the information doesn't match the requirements.

Regex is a pattern-matching language that is used to match and search text based on specific patterns or rules. With this new functionality, you can create rules that require specific patterns to be followed in input fields, such as phone numbers, email addresses, and more. This not only helps ensure accurate data collection but also saves time and effort in the data processing.

Benefits of using regex include:

There are three comparator provided for Regex : 

Assume that you want to validate a field using all the possible criteria. For example, the Phone number field.

If a bank is handling customer support in India, they should validate if the customer's phone number is valid. 

To validate this, they need multiple conditions in the same field. In this case, they can provide the primary field as Phone Number, then the secondary condition as 'Country is India', and the next criteria in the secondary condition as 'Number should start with +91'.

In this way, multiple conditions and criteria are used for the same rule, enhancing the automation process.

Assume you want the customers to fill out the SWIFT/BIC code of their bank account. Swift Code is an 8-11 alphanumeric character code structured in a standard format from left to right as: Bank code (four letters abbreviating the bank's name) Country code (two letters representing the country) Location code (two letters or numbers for the bank's head office). 

If you do not want any other structure and if there is a possibility that the order could be changed, something like Country code, Bank code, and Location code, you can add this custom pattern and select the criteria as Not matches Regex. So if the entered value matches the pattern you have provided, then an alert message could be displayed that it is an incorrect format. 

Yes, you can create a custom Regex pattern in Zoho Desk.

Note: Regex is only supported in primary condition for the time being.

Follow the steps given below to add a custom Regex pattern:

In specific business situations, such as online payments or banking, agents may need to enter numbers into the account number field. To ensure accuracy, a validation rule can be implemented: if the account number contains any characters other than numbers, an alert message should be displayed.

You can create a validation rule in the following format:

If a field, such asResolution Time, is a part of the validation rule, it cannot be updated as a part of the mass update option as it could result in the failure of the rule.

Validation rules are layout specific. Assume that the Account number field is reused in multiple layouts. The expectation or the requirement of this field in each layout could be different. 

When you do a mass update, there could be 100 tickets with the same field, out of which 10 is from Layout 1, 50 from Layout 2, and 40 from Layout 3. At this stage, the same field cannot be validated for all three layouts. This could result in failure of the rule.

Relative dates are not possible for the time being. We will make an announcement post if the feature is developed in the future. 

The maximum character limit is 150 for the alert message. 

The Validation rule in Zoho Desk ensures that the information provided by the customers is in a specific criteria or pattern. Validation rules can be added for any modules and departments in an organization. An error is displayed when the information doesn't match the requirements. 

A validation rule validates the input given in a single field. That field is known as the primary field.

The primary field's validation can depend on the inputs given in other fields of the form.

While creating a validation rule, you can see the Apply to Help Center option at the bottom of the page. 

If a user is raising a ticket from the help center, and you want the entered data to be validated, then select the Apply to Help Center checkbox.
The criteria provided in the validation rule will be validated in the tickets submitted from the Help Center as well. 

Yes, in the validation rules page, you can select the Modules and Departments from the top.
Whereas, you can also filter the available rules based on their layout. 

To do that,

The rules created in the specific module, department, and layout are displayed. 

Yes, you can add five secondary conditions per parent condition and five criteria per secondary condition. The alert message can be defined for each secondary condition and its criteria. 

The maximum character limit is 1000 for the values entered in the criteria pattern.  

Consider a scenario in which an organization provides customer support for a specific brand (say XYZ). They create a validation rule that the support emails must include the brand name, such as chris@xyz.com. Only emails that contain the brand name will be considered for support. 

However, if the organization decides to expand its support services beyond a single brand, they can simply deactivate this validation rule.

When a rule is deactivated, it will be labeled as Inactive.

Yes, it is possible to delete a validation rule. Here is how you can do it:

Please note that the validation rule, along with the criteria and alert messages, will be deleted, and it cannot be retrieved once deleted.