Second Insight - Let's talk Layouts

Second Insight - Let's talk Layouts

The Wheels of Ticketing - Desk Stories

Let's talk Layouts


What are layouts?

Layouts refer to the arrangement or design of elements in a space, whether on a physical surface, like a room or a piece of furniture, or in digital contexts, such as web pages or graphic designs. 
InfoUser interface layout: In software design, various interface elements, such as buttons, forms, and menus, are arranged to create an efficient and user-friendly experience. 
Layouts control how fields and related sections are organized on a department's module page. Each department can have its own design, which includes a combination of default and custom fields. These layouts dictate which fields are visible, read-only, and required.
 
Customer support agents need specific information to handle tickets for different products or processes effectively. As a result, help desks frequently incorporate multiple custom fields into the ticket forms that customers complete. This may lead to customers facing irrelevant fields that don't apply to their specific issues. The most effective solution to this confusion is to create and use an appropriate layout.

How can you benefit from using layouts?

Layouts are used in a wide range of software applications and platforms to enhance communication and user experience.
 
In Zoho Desk, you can use layouts to tailor the fields on module pages like Tickets and Tasks. The drag-and-drop feature enables you to add new fields easily, remove unnecessary ones, and rearrange fields to match your preferences. 

Key functions of a layout: 

  • Visual hierarchy: Clarifies the significance of various elements and directs the viewer's attention to the essential information.
  • Readability: Enhances the clarity and legibility of text and images, making it easier for the audience to digest the content.
  • Aesthetic appeal: Creates an attractive design that engages users and encourages them to interact with the content.
  • Consistency: This ensures a uniform look and feel across different pages or sections, which helps with branding and recognition.
  • Navigation: Facilitates user navigation by organizing content logically and allowing users to find information quickly and intuitively.
  • Functionality: Supports the intended function of the design, whether to inform, persuade, entertain, or provide a service.
Quote
A well-designed layout is crucial for effective communication and user engagement in any visual medium. 

A story for better interpretation of layouts

The Perfect Layout - A Tech Story

At Heaven Solutions, a bustling tech company, they proudly call their help desk software 'Heaven Desk'. It was the go-to place for agents facing tech troubles, but the overall situation was chaotic. The desks were cluttered, information was scattered, and the agent teams were overwhelmed with requests.
 
Ross, a bright and passionate senior tech support, was part of the help desk team. He loved helping others but often found himself frustrated when navigating through heaps of information to assist his team. One day, while dealing with a particularly perplexing issue, he had a revelation: the team needed structure to tame the chaos!
 
Inspired, Ross gathered his team for a brainstorming session. “What if we redesigned our help desk layout?” he suggested. The team was intrigued but skeptical. “How can a layout make a difference?” one seasoned tech support asked. 
 
Ross smiled and began to explain: “Let’s think of it this way: a well-organized layout can guide users to find solutions quickly. It can reduce confusion, streamline processes, and enhance productivity.” 
 
The team's curiosity was piqued, and they experimented with Ross's idea. They mapped out ideas on a whiteboard and discussed different elements of a successful help desk layout. 
  • Categorization: They categorized issues into clear sections—hardware, software, network, and general inquiries. This way, users could quickly find the category relevant to their problem. 
  • Search functionality: Ross proposed implementing a robust search feature on their help desk platform. Users could type in keywords or phrases, making finding solutions more manageable.
  • Visible layout: The team agreed that a cleaner, visually appealing design would help declutter the experience. They envisioned a layout with ample white space, easy navigation buttons, and tabs representing different categories.


  • FAQ guides: Recognizing that many questions were often repeated, they created an easily accessible FAQ section and a library of troubleshooting guides. This would empower agents to solve minor issues independently.


  • Quick feedback: They incorporated a feedback mechanism where users could rate their experience after each interaction, allowing continuous improvement based on user input.

Excited about their ideas, the team presented the new layout to their manager. To their delight, he loved the vision and approved the redesign. With everyone's input, they built the new Heaven help desk. When they launched the redesigned help desk, it was like transforming a maze into a designated path.


On the first day after the launch, Ross was buzzing with anticipation. As employees began using the new layout, he watched their faces light up. Help desk requests decreased as many users could now find what they needed through the FAQs and guides. The search functionality quickly became a hit, with colleagues excited about how quickly they could resolve issues.
 
Because of their collaborative effort, the help desk now serves as a support system and empowers employees to help themselves. The structured layout improved efficiency and user satisfaction, proving that a thoughtful design could transform chaos into clarity.
 
In the end, the purpose of layouts became clear: they weren't merely about aesthetics; they were powerful tools that guided users, reduced frustration, and ensured a seamless experience. Through Ross's idea and the team's collaboration, Heaven Desk became a model help desk, demonstrating that a little structure could lead to immense success.

Takeaway

A well-designed layout organizes information and resources in a coherent way and makes the system intuitive and easy to use, which reduces frustration and improves user satisfaction. It ensures that users can find what they need quickly and efficiently, whether it involves accessing a knowledge base, submitting a ticket, or tracking the status of their request. 

Please stay tuned for more Desk Module stories.

 

Cheers,


Kavya Rao

The Zoho Desk Team



      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ




                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • ZOHO add-in issue

                                    I cannot connect ZOHO from my Outlook. I am getting this error.
                                  • Marketing Automation

                                    L.S. Marketing Automation is and has always been part of the Zoho One bundle - according to the information provided on the Zoho Website. Why when I open Marketing Automation do I get the following message?: "Your trial has expired. We hope you enjoyed
                                  • What's New in Zoho Analytics - January 2026

                                    Hello Users! We are starting the year with a strong lineup of updates, marking the beginning of many improvements planned to enhance your analytics experience. Explore the latest improvements built to boost performance, simplify analysis, and help you
                                  • Translation from Chinese (Simplified) to Chinese (Traditional) is not working. It randomly translated. Google Translate accurately but zoho translate is not working at all

                                    Hi friends, The newly added language for translation. https://www.zoho.com/deluge/help/ai-tasks/translate.html "zh" - Chinese "zh-CN" - Chinese (Simplified) "zh-TW" - Chinese (Traditional) my original text: 郑这钻 (and it is zh-CN) translated traditional
                                  • The Social Playbook - January edition: Getting started with content creation

                                    Social media isn’t just about posting some random content. It’s about why certain content works, how brands stand out, and what makes people pause mid-scroll. The Social Playbook is a monthly community series where we break all of that down. Through real
                                  • Support for Custom Fonts in Zoho Recruit Career Site and Candidate Portal

                                    Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you're doing well. We would like to request the ability to use custom fonts in the Zoho Recruit Career Site and Candidate Portal. Currently only the default fonts (Roboto, Lato, and Montserrat) are available. While these
                                  • Adding bank details to the contact through API

                                    How to add bank-related information to the contact while creating it using API? The account number needs to be encrypted before sending it through API but not sure how to encrypt and get those values. Please guide me in this.
                                  • Font breakage in Zoho Mail Desktop Lite application for Mac

                                    Dear Zoho Mail and Workplace Community, With the latest update of macOS Sequoia and macOS Tahoe, there has been font breakages in the email preview of Zoho Mail Desktop Lite application for Mac. This breakage is due to the corruption of the System fonts
                                  • Feature request - image resizing on sales orders

                                    I need to be able to show the items on the sales orders, currently the item image shows really small and no way to resize it, need the ability to make the image larger to showcase the product on the pdfs
                                  • 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
                                  • Automation Series: Auto-Notify External Users on Issue Closure

                                    Hello Folks! In Zoho Projects, you can notify external issue reporters via email when an issue is marked as Closed. This helps the users avoid manual follow-ups and keeps the reporter updated. In this post, we’ll walk through a simple setup using a Web
                                  • Turn chat conversations into real action with Integration Blocks in Guided Conversations

                                    When a Guided Conversation fails, it's usually not because the logic is wrong. They fail because the conversation stops moving. A customer starts a chat with a clear goal: report an issue, check a status, or confirm something. At first, the flow does
                                  • Basic Mass Update deluge schedule not working

                                    I'm trying to create a schedule that will 'reset' a single field to 0 every morning - so that another schedule can repopulate with the day's calculation. I thought this would be fairly simple but I can't work out why this is failing : 1) I'm based in
                                  • click to call feature

                                    I've Zoho CRM and in that i want click to call feature.
                                  • 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
                                  • 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
                                  • 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
                                  • 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
                                  • need a packing list feature

                                    In our business, goods listed on an invoice are packed in separate boxes and shipped off. for e.g. an invoice may have 10 items. each item could then be packed in different boxes depending on qty of each item. this packing list is as important as the invoice for purposes of shipping documents.  Request you to add this feature asap.
                                  • #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!
                                  • Admin Tip: Manage sub-domain emails using sub-domain stripping

                                    As an admin, you may need separate domains for different departments such as sales, support, and marketing. While this approach offers flexibility, creating and managing multiple domains can quickly become overwhelming, especially since each domain requires
                                  • Quick Copy Column Name

                                    Please add the ability to quickly copy the name of a column in a Table or Query View. When you right-click the column there should be an option to copy the name, or if you left-click the column and use the Ctrl+C keyboard shortcut it should copy the
                                  • Ability to Edit YouTube Video Title, Description & Thumbnail After Publishing

                                    Hi Zoho Social Team, How are you? We would like to request an enhancement to Zoho Social that enables users to edit YouTube video details after the video has already been published. Your team confirmed that while Zoho Social currently allows editing the
                                  • 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
                                  • Is Desk Down?

                                    Across department - always an error. [Status Mode] - error [Table View and the rest] - working
                                  • 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
                                  • 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
                                  • 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
                                  • 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
                                  • Change the "from" field

                                    Hello, I used some random word to create the account ID to later host the domain based emails. That username shows up in the "from" field on test emails. How do I change that to a custom one, like first name/last name or business name? I tried to create second user and "named" it the way I want and it worked to a degree, although the "from" field shows all lower case letters, while original had some capital letters. So the "all-low-case" is another issue I am having... Thank you
                                  • [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
                                  • 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
                                  • Next Page