Groups

What Are Groups?

Groups are collections of agents in Zendesk that represent your support teams. They're used to organise agents into teams (e.g., "Billing", "Technical Support", "VIP Team") and to route tickets to the right people. Groups are one of the most commonly referenced objects in Zendesk configuration -- triggers, automations, macros, views, and SLA policies all use groups for ticket assignment, access control, and filtering.

What Configly Captures

For each group, Configly stores a complete snapshot of its configuration:

• Basic Information

  • Group name and description
  • Default status -- whether it's the default group for new agents
  • Deleted status -- whether the group has been soft-deleted in Zendesk

• Metadata

  • Zendesk ID
  • Created and updated timestamps

Viewing Groups

Navigate to Groups from your connection dashboard to see all your groups. You can:

• Browse all groups with their current status
• Search groups by name
• See total and active counts on the dashboard card
• Click any group to view its full details and reverse dependencies

Common Dependencies

Groups are primarily referenced by other configuration objects rather than referencing them. This makes groups one of the most important objects to check before making changes.

Use dependency mapping to see the full list of objects that reference any group.

Tips for Admins

Before Making Changes

• Before deleting a group, check its reverse dependencies. Triggers that assign to a deleted group will silently fail, and macros restricted to that group will stop appearing for agents.
• Before renaming a group, note that Zendesk uses internal IDs for group references, so renaming won't break triggers or macros. However, views and macros that display the group name will show the new name immediately.
• Before merging groups, check which macros are restricted to each group. You may need to update restrictions after the merge.

Common Patterns

• Tiered support -- Groups for L1, L2, and L3 with triggers that escalate between them
• Product teams -- Separate groups per product line with macros restricted to relevant teams
• Regional teams -- Groups for different time zones with automations that reassign based on business hours

Maintenance

• Regularly review deleted groups -- they may indicate team restructuring that wasn't fully reflected in triggers and macros
• Check for groups with zero active agents -- these may be obsolete
• Verify that macro restrictions match your current team structure

Using Configly

• Use snapshot comparison to track when groups are added, renamed, or deleted
• Use dependency mapping to see a complete picture of which rules reference each group
• Use What-If simulation to test the impact of group changes before making them in Zendesk

Example Use Cases

Team Restructuring

Your support team is splitting "General Support" into "Billing Support" and "Technical Support". Before making the change:

1. Search for the "General Support" group in Configly
2. View its reverse dependencies to find every trigger, macro, and view that references it
3. Plan which objects need updating after the split
4. Use the dependency list as a checklist during the migration

Cleanup Audit

You suspect there are groups that no one uses anymore:

1. View all groups and note which ones have zero active agents
2. Check reverse dependencies for each candidate
3. Groups with zero dependencies and zero agents are safe to delete
4. Groups with dependencies need those references removed first

Change Impact

Before deleting the "Outbound Sales" group:

1. Open the group in Configly and check reverse dependencies
2. Find that 3 triggers assign to this group and 2 macros are restricted to it
3. Update those 5 objects in Zendesk before deleting the group
4. Sync again to verify the changes

Related Objects

• Triggers -- automated rules that assign tickets to groups
• Automations -- time-based rules that can reassign between groups
• Macros -- agent actions that can be restricted to specific groups
• Views -- filtered lists that can filter by or restrict access to groups
• SLA Policies -- service level targets that can vary by group assignment