Plan requirement
| Subscription | Suite Growth or higher, Support Professional or higher |
| Access | Admin |
The question that decides your data model. One test answers it: does this thing exist independently of the ticket?
The test
Does it exist when there is no ticket, and can it be the subject of several tickets over time?
- Yes: a custom object. A contract exists whether or not anyone has a problem with it, and will be referenced by many tickets across years.
- No: a ticket field. The reason someone is calling exists only in the context of that call.
Worked examples
| Thing | Which | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Order number | Field | A reference, not a record you maintain here |
| Contract | Object | Exists independently, has its own fields, many tickets |
| Problem category | Field | A property of this conversation |
| Device | Object, or asset management | Has a life of its own |
| Urgency | Field | Only meaningful for this ticket |
The middle case
An order number is a reference to something in another system. A field holding the number is usually right and enough. It becomes an object when you need Zendesk to know things about the order, such as its status or value, and to report on them.
Ask what you would do with the extra data. If the answer is nothing, a field is the cheaper answer by a long way.
Getting it wrong costs
A field where an object belonged means repeating the same data on every ticket, with no single place to correct it. An object where a field belonged means maintaining records nobody reads.
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