Zendesk continues its relentless pace of innovation, dropping new features and enhancements almost daily. Here’s our expert take on the latest updates announced for August 2026.
Zendesk ITAM Customisation Just Got a Major Upgrade, and IT Teams Should Rejoice
What We Think:
This is a fantastic, practical update that directly addresses real-world feedback. Zendesk is handing over the controls for IT Asset Management (ITAM) to admins, allowing them to tailor the agent experience in a way that was previously impossible. The ability to reorder fields per asset type and hide unnecessary standard fields is a huge win for agent efficiency and reducing clutter. The new action flow triggers and currency field update are the icing on the cake, making the whole ITAM module more powerful and intuitive. Our verdict: This is a must-review feature for any team using Zendesk for ITAM; it’s a significant quality-of-life improvement that will have a real impact.
The Reality Check: What’s Actually Changing?
Zendesk’s announcement cuts through the usual marketing fluff and gets straight to the point. They’re rolling out a suite of enhancements focused on making the ITAM tool more flexible. Let’s break down the key changes in plain English.
- Per-Asset-Type Field Ordering: Previously, the order of your asset fields was global. If you moved the “Serial Number” field to the top for laptops, it moved to the top for software licences too, which was nonsensical. Now, you can customise the field layout for each unique asset type. Admins can simply drag and drop fields in the Admin Center to create the most logical flow for each category of asset.
- Hiding Standard Fields: Not every organisation needs every single default asset field Zendesk provides. Now you can hide these standard fields from the agent view. This is a game-changer for reducing clutter. The data isn’t deleted—it’s still visible in the Admin Center and accessible via the API—it’s just hidden from the agents who don’t need to see it.
- Smarter Automations with Action Flows: Your automation capabilities just got a serious boost. You can now use Action Flows to Delete, Assign, and Unassign assets. There’s also a new “Search assets” step to find specific assets within a flow. Crucially, asset events (like creating, updating, assigning, etc.) can now be used as triggers, opening up a world of possibilities for automated onboarding and offboarding workflows.
- Purchase Cost Becomes a Currency Field: A small but mighty change. The “Purchase cost” field is being converted from a simple decimal to a proper currency field. It will default to your account’s billing currency, making finance and procurement reporting much cleaner and more accurate.
Our Expert Opinion: Why This Matters for Your Operations
Our take is that the most impactful part of this update is the combined ability to hide and reorder fields. True Zendesk ITAM Customization is about tailoring the tool to your specific operational needs, and this hits the nail on the head. Think about the daily life of an IT agent. When they’re provisioning a new starter, they’re dealing with multiple assets: a laptop, a monitor, maybe a mobile phone, and several software licences. Each of these has a different set of critical information.
For a laptop, the serial number, asset tag, and model are paramount. For a software licence, it’s the licence key, user count, and expiry date. Before this change, the agent saw a long, generic list of fields for every asset, many of which were irrelevant. This creates cognitive load and slows down the process. By hiding the noise and prioritising the signal for each asset type, you can dramatically speed up data entry and reduce errors. This is the kind of thoughtful design that directly improves an agent’s workflow.
The enhancements to Action Flows shouldn’t be overlooked either. Automating the assignment of a standard software licence package when a new user is created in your HR system, or automatically unassigning and triggering a “return device” workflow when an employee offboards, moves from a dream to a reality. This allows you to build more robust, end-to-end automated processes that save significant time and ensure compliance.
How We’d Handle the Rollout: A Practical Checklist
While Zendesk says “no action is required,” we believe that’s a missed opportunity. To truly benefit, you need a plan. Leveraging these new Zendesk ITAM Customization features requires a bit of thought. This is the exact kind of strategic planning we help our clients with during a Zendesk consultancy engagement. Here is what we’re advising our clients to do:
| Phase | Action Item | Our Expert Tip |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Audit & Review | Go through each of your asset types in Zendesk. For each one, document which standard fields are currently used and which are ignored. | This is a perfect time to consult with your IT agents. They are on the front line and know exactly which fields are useful and which are just clutter. |
| 2. Plan Your Layouts | Based on your audit, create a new ideal field layout for each asset type. Decide which standard fields to hide and what the new order should be for the visible ones. | Group related fields together. For example, keep all hardware-specific details in one block and all purchase information in another to create a logical flow. |
| 3. Configure & Test | An admin goes into Admin Center and implements the new layouts by hiding and reordering fields. | Before announcing it to the whole team, have one or two power users test the new layouts to ensure they make sense in practice. |
| 4. Check Your Currency | Review the “Purchase Cost” field. Once this change rolls out, if you have any values in this field, the currency will be permanently locked to your account’s billing currency. | If you operate in multiple currencies, ensure your primary billing currency is the one you want for asset reporting before this change takes effect. |
| 5. Explore Automation | Brainstorm 2-3 key manual asset management processes (e.g., employee offboarding) that could now be automated with the new Action Flow triggers and steps. | Start small. Pick one high-impact workflow to automate first, prove its value, and then expand from there. |
In conclusion, this is a thoughtfully designed set of updates that adds significant maturity to Zendesk’s ITAM capabilities. By focusing on usability and workflow efficiency, Zendesk is providing the tools needed to create a truly streamlined asset management experience. Embracing this new level of Zendesk ITAM Customization will pay real dividends in agent productivity and data accuracy for any IT team.
