At Zendesk, we value the feedback of our customers and consider it an important part of our process. That's why we offer early access for some features in development so that you can try out the feature in advance and give us feedback or report issues. We may also provide other feedback opportunities during the development process
In addition to participating in betas and early access programs (EAPs), you might want to join our Experience Research Panel to learn about UX research opportunities where you can help shape our products.
We are offering opportunities for you to give input in the following areas:
- Zendesk Support
- Zendesk Explore
- Zendesk messaging
- Zendesk Knowledge
- Zendesk Workforce Management
- Zendesk AI and AI agents
- Developers
Important considerations
Participation in betas and EAPs is completely optional, and availability may be limited. Please be aware that pre-release features and functionality:
- May not always function as expected or meet your particular needs.
- Are not subject to any Zendesk Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that may be applicable to your Service Plan.
- Are not considered “BAA Covered Services” or “HIPAA-Enabled Add-Ons” under your Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with Zendesk if you are entitled to and have signed one.
- May be discontinued or significantly modified at Zendesk’s discretion.
When a beta or EAP closes, Zendesk will often make the feature or functionality generally available to all eligible Zendesk customers. The feature or functionality may be included in an existing Service Plan, or it may require the purchase of an Add-On. Upon general availability, beta or EAP participants may be required to upgrade Service Plans or purchase an Add-On in order to continue accessing the feature or functionality.
Zendesk Support
The following current and upcoming betas are available for Support:
- Help center authentication for messaging
- Action Builder
- Dark mode
- App Builder
- Sandbox configuration management
- Custom objects in Explore
- Ability to merge organizations
- Approvals
Help center authentication for messaging
The help center authentication for messaging provides early access to allow customers to automatically sign authenticated help center users into the Web Widget, removing the need for any extra development work on your part.
Learn more about the help center authentication for messaging EAP.
Action Builder
The action builder provides a new and simplified way for teams to manage and automate workflows across multiple systems without requiring any coding. This enables non-technical admins and users to customize and use integrations with Zendesk like never before.
Learn more about the Action Builder EAP.
App Builder
The App Builder EAP is a new and powerful feature leveraging generative AI to empower admins to create custom apps without the need for developer resources, making it faster and more cost-effective than ever to tailor your Zendesk experience to your unique business needs.
Features of the App Builder include:
- Conversational UI: Lets you to describe your desired app using natural language.
- Example prompts: A small collection of prompts to help you get started.
- Iterative app development: Continuously refine and build applications using LLM, allowing you to adjust the app according to your specific requirements.
- Version control: Save different versions of the created app, enabling easy navigation between various iterations.
- Real-time visual preview: Preview the app visually in real-time as you build.
- Data integration: Create apps that utilize data from Zendesk, your company's internal system, and third-party platforms such as Shopify, Jira, and others.
- Code accessibility: View the generated code for the app, which can be reviewed by more technically skilled admins or developers.
- Testing environment: Test the app within your Zendesk Lotus environment prior to installation to ensure proper functionality.
- Publishing and deployment: Publish and deploy the app to install it within your Zendesk account, including an app permission flow.
- Error resolution: Utilize LLM for error fixing if you encounter any unexpected issues.
- Feedback submission: Use the feedback form to report bugs, request features, or share general comments.
Although the EAP is currently limited to a small group of users, we are actively working to make it available to a larger audience in the coming months. If you would like to try out App Builder when it becomes more widely accessible, we encourage you to join the waitlist. Access to App Builder currently requires the Copilot add-on.
Sandbox configuration management
The Sandbox Configuration Management EAP provides early access to features that streamline the management of configuration settings across your Zendesk environments. The EAP will consist of multiple phases, beginning with inspection, which gives admins a near-complete overview of an environment's configurations. It also supports saving snapshots of your configuration settings.
Future phases of the EAP will include comparing environment configuration snapshots and deploying configurations from one environment to another.
Learn more about the Sandbox Configuration Management EAP.
Custom objects in Explore
The Custom objects in Guide and Explore EAP provides early access to multiple enhancements to custom objects. First, lookup fields pointing to custom objects can be included in your help center request forms. Second, you can configure end user permissions to view and interact with each custom object's records. Finally, you can also leverage expanded reporting on lookup relationship fields in Explore. Together, these features allow you to integrate custom objects into your end-user's experience and collect more complete data about how lookup relationship fields and custom objects are being used.
Learn more about the Custom objects in Guide and Explore EAP
Ability to merge organizations
Admins can merge one organization into another. When organizations are merged, all users, open tickets, and domains are merged into one organization - the receiving organization. The merging organization is deleted after the merge completes. All changes related to an organization merge are recorded in the audit log. Additionally, tickets that are part of the merge show the change in their ticket events log.
Learn more about merging organizations
Approvals
This EAP introduces the new approval request process feature. Approvals are requests that agents make on behalf of other agents and end users. You can use approvals to increase agent efficiency, ensure compliance, maintain quality control, and provide transparency within your organization.
Learn more about the Approvals EAP
Zendesk Explore
The following current and upcoming betas are available for Explore:
New report builder
This open beta introduces the new report builder, a newly redesigned reporting experience that makes data exploration and report creation more efficient and intuitive for beginners and advanced report builders alike.
Learn more about the new report builder open beta
Zendesk messaging
The following current and upcoming betas are available for messaging:
Engagements reporting API
The omnichannel engagements reporting API has been launched as an Early Access Program (EAP) for eligible customers to access the engagements dataset.
Engagements represent individual legs of agent interactions in the overall ticket lifecycle.
Learn more about the engagements reporting API
Zendesk Knowledge
The following current and upcoming betas are available for Knowledge:
- AI translations for articles
- Service catalog EAP
- Article multiplacement EAP
- New request list experience
AI translations for articles EAP
AI translations for articles uses AI to help you quickly create article translations within your knowledge base, making it easier to provide support in multiple languages.
With this feature, you can generate translations for articles directly within the article editor. If your help center supports multiple languages, you can create an article in your default language, then use the AI translation feature to automatically translate the article into any language supported by your help center.
Service catalog EAP
The service catalog is a ticket channel built for employee service that lets employees easily find and request employee services and assets from internal departments via the help center.
When an employee requests a service or asset from the service catalog, a ticket is automatically created and linked to that item. Internal support specialists can manage and resolve requests through their unified workspace, and employees can manage their requests through the request management interface in the help center.
Learn more about the service catalog EAP.
Article multiplacement EAP
Article multiplacement lets you create one article and place it in up to ten different sections across all brands in your help center. Article placements share the same title and body but have a unique article ID and placement configuration that tells your help center where the placement article should appear.
As a result, when you update the content of an article, the content of related placements are also updated and published. This powerful feature makes it possible to create content once and share it between multiple sections and brands.
New request list experience
The help center, by default, offers the option for end users to submit requests. End users who submit requests can also manage their support requests in the customer portal.
The new request list experience (Beta) improves the way in which end users can manage large numbers of requests in the customer portal. When you enable the new request list experience in your theme, end users can use the new combinable filtering options to refine the requests they want to manage as well as new column configuration options to show/hide columns.
Learn more about the new request list experience open beta.
Zendesk Workforce Management
The following EAPs are available for Zendesk Workforce Management (WFM). This section was formerly Tymeshift.
- Define a rotation period for automatic shifts
- Track agent time with Google Chrome extension
- Combined workstreams and workstreams prioritization
- Forecast vs Actual report
- Unassigned shifts
- Staffing panels week and month views
Define a rotation period for automatic shifts
This EAP lets admins define rotation periods for automatic shifts. By defining rotation periods, agents' shift start times are automatically rotated based on the time period you defined, which frees managers from having to decide a specific order in which to rotate shifts.Learn more about the automatic shifts rotation period EAP.
Track agent time with Google Chrome extension
WFM admins can track how agents spend time outside of Zendesk by using the Zendesk time tracker Google Chrome extension and configuring extension tracking. Extension tracking allows general tasks to be mapped to specified URLs. When agents can install the Zendesk time tracker extension from the Google Chrome web store, their activity is tracked when they visit any of the specified URLs.
Learn more about the extension tracking EAP.
Combined workstreams and workstreams prioritization
Admins can combine workstreams, as well as prioritize workstreams so that you can ensure that you’re covering the right work at the right time.
Learn more about the combined workstreams and workstreams prioritization EAPs.
Forecast vs Actual report
The Forecast vs Actual EAP unveils a dynamic new reporting feature, offering users the ability to directly compare forecasted data with actual performance metrics within their operations. This reporting page is tailored to enhance decision-making and operational analysis by providing insights into Inbound Volume, Staffing, Average Handle Time, and Service Levels.
Learn more about the forecast vs actual report EAP.
Unassigned shifts
Unassigned shifts are created without being assigned specific agents, allowing managers to ensure optimal coverage without focusing on individual team members. Once created, unassigned shifts can be shared with a group of agents who can apply to take them.
Learn more about the creating and managing unassigned shifts EAP.
Staffing panel week and month views
This EAP allows you to view staffing panels in both week and month views in the WFM Schedule page. Staffing panels have provided key information in the Schedule page day view. With this EAP, staffing panel capabilities are being extended to the week and months views to help you analyze and perfect your teams' shifts on a broader scale.
Learn more about the accessing the WFM schedule staffing panel.
Zendesk AI and AI agents
The following EAPs are available for Zendesk AI and AI agents:
Agentic AI agents
Agentic AI agents are capable of autonomous decision-making, planning, and adaptive execution throughout the course of a conversation. This means they can interact with users in a more natural, human-like way, engaging in small talk and working through complex or vague issues by identifying the necessary next steps and asking follow-up questions where needed.
Agentic AI agents require the AI agents - Advanced add-on.
Learn more about the agentic AI agents EAP
Generative AI
The following EAPs include generative AI features:
Developers
The following early access program is available for workforce management (WFM).
WFM reports API
The WFM reports API is a powerful new tool for you to harness your data more effectively. This endpoint allows you to extract data from both default and custom reports by specifying the ID of the desired report template.
The WFM reports API is currently in an Early Access Program (EAP). You can sign up for the EAP here.