If your business uses Zendesk for customer support, you may need to search for tickets based on certain conditions. For example, which tickets are from a specific customer? Which tickets get a negative rating? Which tickets were unsolved last week?

Although Zendesk has a built-in search bar that allows you to search tickets that contain a specific keyword, it simply returns all of the tickets based on texts. You can’t narrow down the results by defining even simple logic. The filter in the search bar is too basic to do advanced searches.

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Zendesk web widge

If you want to filter the results based on other conditions, you have to use other methods.

Option 1: Zendesk property keywords

One way to do advanced searches is to use property keywords and search terms to create search queries. For example, if you want to search for tickets with a “premium” tag, you can create a query like the following:

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Zendesk web widget

You can create several filters in the search query to further narrow the results. However, to set up a filter, you have to spend time reading the documentation to look up which property keyword to use. In addition, the query can be very complicated and uneasy to read when you set up multiple filters at the same time.

Option 2: Zendesk Advanced Search plugin

Zendesk also has a plugin called Advanced Search that converts complex keyword properties into an easy-to-use form. Thus, you can do an advanced search by filling the form. However, you can only download the first 2000 results at a time. Also, its pricing is usage-based. If more than 1 agent uses the plugin, you need to pay for it. Moreover, the plugin is still immature and the search results are often inexact or duplicated.

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Zendesk plug-in

Option 3: Use a cloud database

If you often need to search for tickets and even present the results as a report, another way is to use a cloud database. You can use the cloud DB to connect to your Zendesk account and load data into the cloud database. Generally, cloud DBs have powerful and easy-to-use filters that allow you to create a complex search. Once you create the filters, the system can keep the setting of the search. You don’t have to redo the search next time but can view the latest results. In addition to searching for tickets, the cloud DBs allows you to do further analysis through built-in analytical features or visualization tools.

Import tables from your Zendesk account  

First, connect to your Zendesk account on Acho. You can follow the instructions here to build the connection. The main thing you’ll need is an API token from your Zendesk account. Then, import tables that you want to use into a new project.

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Zendesk ticket table

Create your own database for searching

Then, you can combine these tables using the Join action and create a comprehensive table as a database. This database includes all information that you need and each column can be used for searching.

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apply a filter on Acho

If you want to do a quick search, you can simply type a keyword in the search bar at the top of the headers. It will return all of the results that include the keyword in the given column.

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quick column search on Acho

Create a complex search by using the Filter action

Alternatively, you can set up a set of filters to narrow the search results. For example, to check if there are any tickets that are unsolved in July, you can use the Filter action to create three filters as shown below.

Based on each column’s data type, the filter will provide different logics such as “is or after” for dates, “contains” for texts, “larger than” for numbers, etc.

After applying your filters, you can even store them as your favorites so you can revisit them later on.

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advanced filter on Acho

Turn on the scheduler to update the search results

You can keep the search setting and turn on schedulers to update the tables automatically. Every time you log into Acho, you can view these results without searching them again.

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schedule a data sync on Acho

Once you get the results that you want, you can share them with other people through CSV files or spreadsheets. Alternatively, you can invite others into Acho’s project, and thus they can do their own search. You can export them to BI tools, such as Tableau or Metabase, to do further analysis.

If you need any help to create customized search results, feel free to contact us through the chatbox below.