Zendesk Agent Home
Zendesk Agent Home is a landing page built around one question: what should this agent do next. Frequently mistaken for a reporting dashboard, which it isn't.
What Zendesk Agent Home is
Agent home is the screen an agent lands on in the agent workspace instead of dropping straight into a list of views. It pulls together the work assigned to that person, what needs attention, and what has happened since they were last here.
The framing matters. This is a personal work surface, not a team dashboard. It answers what should I do next for one agent. It doesn't answer how is the queue doing, which is an Explore question and belongs on a different screen entirely.
Zendesk has been iterating on this area, and what appears on it differs by plan and by how far your account has moved through the rollout. Check the current Zendesk docs for what your own account supports before you plan a workflow around a specific panel.
What tends to be on it
The panels vary, and the intent behind them is consistent.
The genuinely valuable one is the second. In a view-driven workflow, a customer reply on a ticket you already own can sit for hours because you're working a different list. Surfacing it by default is a real improvement and it's not glamorous.
Configuring it
How much is configurable depends on your plan and your rollout stage. Broadly, admins influence what appears through the things that were already driving the queue: which views exist and who can see them, how routing assigns work, what your SLA policies define as urgent, and what agents are permitted to do.
Agents typically have some personal control over ordering and which panels they care about. Treat the layout as a preference rather than a policy.
The practical advice for an admin is unglamorous. Agent home reflects your configuration, so if it looks unhelpful, the fix is usually in the routing and the SLA policies rather than in the home screen itself. A messy queue produces a messy home page.
Coming from the older interface
If your team learned Zendesk on the older layout, expect a genuine adjustment. The old flow was habitual: land on views, open your view, work top down. Agent home puts a decision layer in front of that, and experienced agents often find it slower for the first week because it interrupts a motion they had automated.
Two things help. Do not switch on a Monday, and don't switch during a peak. And tell people that views are still there, because the most common early complaint is that the views have gone, when they have not.
Give it two weeks before collecting opinions. First-day reactions to any interface change tell you about the change, not about the interface.
Does it replace views?
No, and it should not. Views are shared team infrastructure: the unassigned queue, the escalations list, the breaching-soon filter that a team lead watches all day. They are how a team agrees on what the work is.
Agent home is personal. It is the individual slice of that shared reality.
Both matter, and the failure mode is treating agent home as a replacement and letting your view structure rot. Keep the views tidy. Agent home is only as good as the configuration underneath it.
Frequently asked questions
Is Agent Home a dashboard or a home screen?
A Zendesk home screen, not a Zendesk agent dashboard. The Zendesk agent workspace home shows what to work next rather than how the team is performing, which is why people who expect reporting are disappointed.
What is Zendesk agent home?
A landing page in the agent workspace showing an agent their assigned work, recent customer replies, mentions and available tickets, so they start with what to do next rather than a list of views.
Does agent home replace views?
No. Views remain the shared team queues. Agent home is a personal layer on top, and it depends entirely on the routing and views underneath being sensible.
Can agent home be turned off?
Availability and controls depend on your plan and how far your account has moved through the rollout, so check the current Zendesk docs for your own account.
Is agent home the same as a dashboard?
No. It's a personal work surface, not a reporting one. Team metrics belong in Explore.
Why do agents dislike it at first?
Because it interrupts an automated habit. Most teams settle within a fortnight, which is why you should not gather opinions on day one.
A better starting screen, same duplicate tickets
Agent home shows one agent their work. It cannot show them that the ticket below is the same customer again. Ticket Merger can.
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