What a custom object is

A custom object is your own kind of record, for the things your business has that are not users, organisations or tickets.

A custom object is your own kind of record, for the things your business has that are not users, organisations or tickets.

The idea

Zendesk knows about people, companies and conversations. It does not know about your contracts, your subscriptions, your devices or your properties. A custom object lets you define one of those, with its own fields, and link it to tickets.

What it gives you

• Records with real fields, not a note in a text box.
• A link from the ticket, through a lookup field.
• Details in the context panel, so the agent sees the contract without leaving.
• Business rules and reports that can act on it.

Examples that fit

• Contracts, with a type, a start date and a renewal date.
• Subscriptions or licences a customer holds.
• Products in a catalogue that tickets refer to.
• Properties, vehicles, machines: anything physical your support is about.

What it is not

Not a database, and not a replacement for the system that owns the data. If your contracts live in another system, the question is usually whether to sync a subset here or integrate, and that is a real decision rather than an obvious one.

What it can do about many-per-ticket values depends on which side carries the lookup field, and that is the decision to get right at the start.

• The field on the custom object, pointing at the ticket. Each record then relates to a single ticket.
• The field on the ticket, pointing at the custom object. Several records can then be associated with one ticket.

The second is usually the flexible one, and putting the field on the wrong side is awkward to undo once records exist.

See also

• When to use a custom object and when a ticket field
• Creating a custom object
• Lookup relationship fields: pointing at another user, organisation or ticket
• Activating custom objects
• Parent-child relationships and roll-up summary fields