How to create Zendesk ticket views for pending tickets

Support teams know the feeling. You reply to a ticket, mark it pending, and move on to the next one. Days later, you realize that ticket (and dozens like it) have been sitting in limbo, forgotten and unresolved. Pending tickets are a necessary part of customer support workflows, but without proper organization, they become a black hole where customer issues disappear.

The solution is simple: custom ticket views that keep pending tickets visible and organized. In this guide, I'll walk you through creating Zendesk ticket views specifically designed for pending tickets, so nothing slips through the cracks again.

What you'll need

Before we start building views, make sure you have:

• A Zendesk Support account (Team, Professional, or Enterprise plan)
• Admin permissions if you're creating shared views for your team, or agent access for personal views
• Basic familiarity with Zendesk ticket fields like Status, Priority, and Group

Let's break it down. Views are just filtered lists of tickets based on criteria you set. Once you understand the basics, creating custom views for pending tickets becomes straightforward.

Understanding Zendesk ticket statuses

Zendesk uses six ticket statuses to track where a ticket sits in your workflow. Here's the short version:

The key distinction for this guide is Pending vs On-hold. Pending means you're waiting for the customer to respond. On-hold means you're waiting for someone else (a vendor, another department, a bug fix). Customers see Pending tickets as "waiting for them." They see On-hold tickets as still "Open."

This matters because pending tickets need different handling. They're not actively being worked on, but they still need attention if the customer doesn't respond. That's where custom views come in.

Step 1: Access the views management page

To create or manage views, head to the Admin Center. Click Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Views.

You'll see two types of views here:

• Shared views: Created by admins for teams or the entire organization. The first 100 shared views are accessible in the Views list.
• Personal views: Created by individual agents for themselves only. Agents can access up to 10 personal views in their list.

Admins and agents with custom role permissions can create both types. Regular agents can only create personal views.

Step 2: Create a new view for pending tickets

Click Create view to start building your pending ticket view.

Start with the basics:

1. Title: Use something descriptive like "Pending - Awaiting Customer" or "Pending - Follow-up Needed"
2. Description: Optional, but helpful for shared views so teammates understand the purpose
3. Who has access: Choose "Any agent" for shared views, "Only you" for personal views, or "Agents in specific groups" for department-specific views

Now add your conditions. Click Add condition and set:

• Condition: Status
• Operator: Is
• Value: Pending

This is the core of your view. But you can get more specific:

• Add Hours since pending > 24 to see tickets that have been waiting more than a day
• Add Priority is High or Priority is Urgent to focus on critical issues
• Add Assignee is current user for a personal "My Pending Tickets" view
• Add Group is [Your Group Name] to see pending tickets by team

Conditions use "All" (AND) or "Any" (OR) logic. "All" means every condition must be true. "Any" means at least one condition must be true. For most pending views, you'll want "All."

Step 3: Configure view formatting

Once your conditions are set, configure how tickets appear in the view.

Under Columns, drag fields to customize what information agents see:

• Requester: Who submitted the ticket
• Subject: What the ticket is about
• Priority: How urgent it is
• Created: When the ticket was opened
• Updated: When the last activity occurred
• Assignee: Who's responsible for the ticket

You can add up to 15 columns. Multi-select fields aren't supported in views.

Under Group by, choose how to organize tickets:

• Assignee: See who's responsible for what
• Priority: Group urgent tickets together
• Request date: Organize by when tickets came in

Under Order by, select Ascending or Descending to control the sort direction.

Click Preview to test your view before saving. Make sure it shows the tickets you expect. If not, adjust your conditions and try again.

Essential pending ticket view templates

Here are five view configurations you can copy and adapt:

"Pending - Recent"

For tickets pending less than 48 hours:

• Status is Pending
• Hours since pending is less than 48

"Pending - Follow-up Needed"

For tickets pending more than 48-72 hours:

• Status is Pending
• Hours since pending is greater than 48

"My Pending Tickets"

Personal view for assigned pending tickets:

• Status is Pending
• Assignee is current user

"Pending High Priority"

For urgent pending tickets:

• Status is Pending
• Priority is High or Priority is Urgent

"Pending by Group"

Organized by team:

• Status is Pending
• Group is [Your Group Name]

Automating pending ticket follow-ups

Views help you organize pending tickets. Automation helps you act on them without manual effort.

Here's why automation matters: customers don't always respond to your replies. Tickets sit in pending status for days, weeks, or longer. Without follow-up, these tickets become forgotten backlog.

Zendesk's automation feature can handle this. You can set up rules that:

• Send a follow-up message after 48-72 hours of no response
• Automatically solve tickets after 1-2 weeks of pending time
• Tag tickets for reporting and tracking

The Zendesk community has documented a method using HTTP Targets to create automated public follow-ups. This involves creating a URL HTTP Target and setting up automations that trigger after specific time thresholds.

If you want to go further, eesel AI integrates with Zendesk to add intelligent automation on top of your views. Our AI teammate can analyze pending tickets, suggest follow-up timing based on customer history, and even draft personalized follow-up messages that match your team's voice.

Best practices for managing pending tickets

After setting up your views, follow these practices to keep pending tickets under control:

• Hide pending tickets from primary "Open" views: Your main working view should focus on tickets that need immediate action. Create separate views for pending tickets so they don't clutter your active queue.

• Set up SLA policies that account for pending time: Tickets in pending status don't count against reply time SLAs, but you should still track how long they've been waiting. Consider setting internal targets for pending ticket follow-ups.

• Review long-pending tickets weekly: Create a view for tickets pending more than 7 days. Review this weekly to decide whether to follow up again or solve the ticket.

• Use tags to categorize pending reasons: Tags like "pending_customer_info" or "pending_approval" help you understand why tickets are pending and identify process improvements.

Troubleshooting common view issues

Sometimes views don't work as expected. Here's how to fix common problems:

View not showing expected tickets: Check your conditions. Make sure you're using the right field values. Remember that "All" conditions must all be true, while "Any" conditions need just one to be true.

Too many tickets appearing: Add more specific conditions. Filter by group, assignee, or time range to narrow results.

Too few tickets appearing: Check if you have conflicting conditions. For example, "Status is Pending" and "Status is Open" in an "All" condition will return zero results.

Permissions issues: Make sure you have the right access level. Agents can't create shared views unless they have admin permissions or a custom role that allows it.

If you're still stuck, check ticket events to see exactly what's happening with specific tickets. Events show all changes, notifications, and updates for complete visibility into ticket history.

Taking pending ticket management further

Custom views are just the starting point. Once you have visibility into your pending tickets, you can start optimizing the entire workflow.

eesel AI integrates with Zendesk to enhance how teams handle pending tickets. Instead of just organizing tickets into views, our AI teammate can:

• Automatically triage incoming tickets and route them to the right views
• Analyze pending tickets and suggest optimal follow-up timing
• Draft personalized follow-up messages based on ticket context
• Identify patterns in why tickets go pending (missing info, approval delays, etc.)

The goal is the same as your views: make sure no ticket gets forgotten. We just add intelligence to reduce the manual work involved.