Reporting from the Cloud: On-demand Analytics with Youcalc

Last week we announced a new edition of Zendesk that included some new reporting features. With Zendesk Plus+, users now get a near real-time CSV feed of ticket data including resolution time metrics and custom fields. You can import the feed directly into Excel or another spreadsheet application. But what we think is really cool is the work that some of our partners are doing to make real-time reporting even more useful for our users. Today we're excited to highlight an app that allows you to connect directly into another cloud-based service.

Youcalc, an on-demand analytics company, has put together a really cool application -- the Dashboard for Zendesk -- that displays your tickets like you have never seen them before. The Youcalc dashboard can run standalone or be embedded into your website.

The Dashboard gives you the option to see your tickets at-a-glance which includes a ticket overview with any backlogged items and how tickets have been created over the last 10 weeks including a neat weekday overview as well as a time-of-day overview. And the ability to analyze tickets based on properties and an Agent Performance interface showing the distribution of tickets per agent as well as average resolution time.

Youcalc gives you the ability to copy and modify the standard reports using the Youcalc builder. And according to Youcalc's blog you can "expect more Zendesk apps to come as we get feedback from users and as users start to customize and build their own Zendesk analytics apps on Youcalc". Sounds very good.

Best of all, it's completely free. Grab it here.

As the new reporting feed is only available for our Plus+ customers, Youcalc has developed a widget for agents on all plans that makes it easier for them to track their personal performance. It's optimized for the Zendesk widget interface and can be implemented as a custom widget using Youcalc's code snippet. It also runs on the iPhone Safari browser making it easier to track reporting on-the-go. Get it from Youcalc's web site.

You can read more about both of these apps on the Youcalc blog. Enjoy!

Whoa!

It's hardly two weeks since I wrote about some really cool Zendesk implementations where customers had explored the capabilities of our CSS customization. And then this happens. Viewbook, the online service for visual creatives, and Onehub, the online collaboration solution, both launch these kick-ass Zendesk implementations that completely adopts the look-and-feel of their parent web sites that are awesome! Thanks for making us look so cool.

New Products Announced as Peter Fenton joins Board (PR)

Today is a great day at Zendesk and we have 6 million new reasons to be excited!

First, we're psyched to announce two new Zendesk editions today. A Solo edition for independent consultants and home-based businesses, and a Plus+ edition for the somewhat larger companies with stricter governance requirements. The new editions constitute a big strategic step for us. Zendesk has been implemented in large organizations with thousands of employees and up to a hundred support reps, and in tiny boutiques with one agent and 25 customers. We knew we had to differentiate our offerings to be able to cater to all these different needs, but at the same time it was also critical that we kept the simplicity of the application and the transparency of the different editions. We think we have achieved that with our new offering, and we look forward to receiving your feedback. You can get all the details on the two editions of Zendesk at our brand new and snazzy web site.

We’re also very excited to announce we’ve secured $6 million in series B funding and that Peter Fenton from Benchmark has joined our board. We closed this Series B much earlier than required, but the stars aligned and we felt that Benchmark was the exact right partner at the exact right point in time. The team at Benchmark has done incredible things in the SaaS and consumer technology markets and we look forward to tapping that energy to take Zendesk to a new level, fueling the momentum we've experienced in the last year. Pictured to the right you can see Peter, yours truly and Devdutt from Charles River Ventures. Devdutt's done a fantastic job with us the last six months, and we're really thankful for Charles River's continued support as they're joining the B round pro rata.

We have a lot of stuff up our sleeves. We have a very active customer community and we simply love all the feedback and feature requests that we get. We won't be able to get it all done at once, but most of the stuff that you're requesting will come as soon as we've found a "beautifully simple" way of implementing it. Stay tuned for more.

You can read the full press release on the new products and the Series B below the fold, but allow us to take this opportunity to thank some of the people around us that have made it possible so far: The early friends & family investors who put their personal money into this project, Christoph Janz, possibly the best angel investor a start-up can have, our first employees that have worked so hard for so little, the reporters that have followed us from early days, and last but not least, all of our utterly incredible customers. Thank you Crystal, David, Jake, Mike, Graham, Björn and the rest of you. Thanks for inspiring us to do our best.

Meetup San Diego

Zendesk is back on the West coast and is inviting all Zendesk lovers and aficionados, customers and partners in southern California to meet up at the W Hotel in San Diego on Tuesday, August 25th, 6-9pm. As always the bar tab is on Zendesk. Please RSVP via the Facebook event page. Thank you and see you soon in San Diego!

Five Rules for the Karma Agent

Heavily inspired by the article "How to be a Buddha Boss" from Swedish web site Chef.se hereby five rules for the Karma Agent sharing the good help desk karma, providing enlightened customer support:

1. Stop up from time to time. Shut down and breathe.
2. Be there. Enjoy the moment.
3. Relate to people. All people are unique.
4. Be a better person. Do your best.
5. Get a life. Be a father, mother, lover, friend.

And with that we wish everybody a great weekend. Stay tuned for this weekend's update and a long list of exciting news on Monday!

User Interface Customization with the CSS Widget

Zendesk offers an easy and convenient way for you to set up your help desk so that it resembles your web site's look and feel. You can change the colors, the favicon, the logo, the naming and even the customer-facing language. And it can all be done in seconds.

But sometimes that's not enough and that's why we offer a custom CSS widget, so that you can modify basically any aspect of the help desk user interface. Sometimes even subtle changes can have a big impact. Take a look a the examples below that we have stumbled upon when talking to our customers. If you want to do something similar go look for CSS tips in our forums. Have fun!

Story of Clive the Support Agent

"There is a happy ending after the tale of woe and despair. If you're a software company that needs to offer customer support and link to your own systems, read on! Our tale starts with an over-worked programmer, Clive, doubling up as support agent, slaving away on the helpdesk..."

That's how the Zenfession from Paul Curtis starts, recounting the story of Clive, an over-worked programmer doubling up as support agent, and how he discovers the path to enlightenment. It's a great story and we're thankful that Paul has made the effort of putting it together.

Zenfessions are shared customer experiences. Go check it out if you want to learn how other organizations have implemented and are working with Zendesk. And remember that you can share your Zenfession too. We'll throw in a one of the amazing Zendesk Buddha Machines or a Zendesk tee for the effort.

Thanks Paul and everybody else for sharing!