Overview of Feature Request & Affected Roles
We are requesting the ability to sort and filter tickets using Lookup Relationship fields (LURPs) within Zendesk views.
Our organization uses a Lookup Relationship field to designate Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) responsible for certain tickets. This field is critical for routing, collaboration, and identifying tickets assigned to a specific SME.
Currently, Zendesk does not allow sorting or filtering by Lookup Relationship fields in views, which significantly limits the operational usefulness of the field for reporting and ticket management.
Affected roles include:
- Support Agents
- Escalation Teams
- Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
- Support Managers / Operations Leads
These teams rely on Zendesk views to efficiently locate and manage tickets tied to specific SMEs.
What problem does this solve?
Without the ability to filter or sort by a Lookup Relationship field, teams cannot easily identify tickets associated with a specific SME.
This creates several operational challenges:
- Agents cannot quickly locate tickets tied to a particular SME.
- Teams must manually search through multiple pages of tickets to find relevant items.
- Escalations and SME collaboration are slowed.
- Operational reporting and workload visibility are limited.
The Lookup Relationship field is designed to model relationships between records (such as SMEs), but the inability to use it in views, sorting, or filtering prevents it from functioning as a practical workflow tool.
When were you last affected? Frequency & Business Impact
This issue occurs daily for teams managing SME workflows.
Our teams frequently need to locate tickets associated with a specific SME, particularly when:
- Following up on escalated issues
- Reviewing SME workload
- Coordinating cross-team troubleshooting
- Managing ticket queues tied to expertise areas
Because the field cannot be filtered or sorted, agents must manually navigate through multiple pages of tickets, which increases time spent locating tickets and introduces inefficiencies in ticket management.
At scale, this results in:
- Lost productivity for support agents
- Delays in issue resolution
- Reduced visibility into SME workloads
Current Workaround (if any)
Currently there is no effective workaround that preserves the benefits of Lookup Relationship fields.
Possible alternatives have significant drawbacks:
- Manual searching through ticket pages, which is time-consuming.
- Replacing the lookup field with a dropdown or user field, which removes the relational data benefits and increases maintenance overhead.
- Using additional tagging or manual data entry, which introduces inconsistency and administrative burden.
These workarounds reduce the value of Lookup Relationship fields and create additional operational complexity.
Ideal Solution
Allow Lookup Relationship fields to be used in Zendesk views for filtering and sorting, similar to other ticket fields.
Ideally, Zendesk would support:
- Filtering views by Lookup Relationship field values
- Sorting views by Lookup Relationship field values
- Using these fields in view conditions and column sorting
- Optional: exposing these fields in Explore reporting filters
This enhancement would allow teams to fully leverage relational data in Zendesk while maintaining efficient ticket management workflows.
