Every Monday, your support team meets. You share your Zendesk Explore dashboard on the meeting room screen, and everyone nods. By Tuesday, nobody has looked at it again. The team is back in their own ticket lists until next Monday.
That isn't Explore's fault. Explore is built for reporting. Your team needs something simpler: a customer service dashboard that puts a few business figures on a screen everyone can see, all day, without opening anything.
Below: what Explore does well, how to pick the figures worth a spot on the wall, and how to show the dashboard you have or build the one you don't.
We'll use two tools from the same company. OptiSigns is software that runs the screens in a business: it plays on the TV, and you choose what each screen shows. OptiDev, its sister product, builds the dashboard when the one you need doesn't exist yet. It can start from a Zendesk dashboard template.
What Explore does well, and where it stops
Explore is Zendesk's reporting tool. (In the Zendesk products menu, it's now listed as Analytics.) It's good at its job. It shows how ticket volume, customer satisfaction, and handle time change over the weeks. It comes with standard dashboards, and on the Professional and Enterprise plans, you can also build and share your own Zendesk reports. Those plans also have real-time monitoring dashboards that show what's happening in your queue right now.
But when you want one view for your whole business team, three things get in the way.
It only knows Zendesk. Explore reports on your Zendesk data. Zendesk's help center doesn't describe a way to bring in data from your other business tools. Its advice is to export your data and combine it somewhere else. So unless someone copies that data into Zendesk, Explore can't put your support queue next to, say, this week's new trial signups. Those live in your billing system.
Not everyone sees the same thing. What each person can see depends on your Zendesk plan and their role. On Explore Lite, every Support user can view the standard dashboards, but nobody can build new ones. On Professional, some people need to be given access before they see anything.
The live dashboards are fixed. For now, you can filter Zendesk's real-time monitoring dashboards, but you can't add your own numbers to them.
So your team makes do. Agents work from Zendesk views, their lists of tickets that need attention. You copy figures into a spreadsheet for the weekly meeting, and screenshots get pasted into chat. Each one is a copy, and copies go out of date.
Pick the numbers that belong on the wall
Before you build anything, choose what matters to your business. There are lots of customer service KPIs you could track, but a shared screen only needs a few.
Here's a simple test. If someone were to act on a number in the next hour, it would belong on the wall. If you'd talk about it at Monday's meeting, it stays in Explore.
Say your business is shipping a release this week. Three figures pass the test:
Open tickets tagged with this week's release. Everyone can see whether the launch is going smoothly.
Open tickets that have waited more than a day. Someone can pick them up before the customer has to ask again.
The latest ratings on tickets solved this week. A bad one can get a follow-up today, not next month.
This is what a shared screen is for: when a bad rating shows up on the wall, the agent who solved that ticket sees it, and so does everyone else.
Rating trends, handle time per agent, and ticket volume by channel stay in Explore. They matter, but they fit Monday's meeting better than the wall. Should each agent's numbers go on the shared screen? That's up to your team. You can keep those in Explore.
Already have the view? Show it
Someone at the meeting will ask, "Can't we just put the Explore dashboard on the TV?" For some of it, yes. All three figures live in Zendesk, so on plans that let you build reports, an Explore dashboard can show them.
The OptiSigns Zendesk app puts the Zendesk dashboard you already have on your OptiSigns screens. You give it the dashboard link and sign in on the player with a Zendesk login. After that, it reloads every 10 minutes by default. Use a Zendesk login made just for the screen, not your own. OptiSigns explains how to set it up. That puts it on the wall, with nothing to build.
So when is building worth it? In three cases. On Explore Lite, you can't build that dashboard at all. Even on plans where you can, you'd be putting a report page on a TV, while in OptiDev you describe the exact screen you want: big figures and nothing to click. And when you want figures from your other business tools on the same screen, Zendesk doesn't describe a way to bring them into Explore, but an OptiDev app can read them, as long as the tool has an API.
Don't have it? Build it
What you want is simple: three big numbers, easy to read across the room, with nothing to click.
In OptiDev, start from the Zendesk template. It's already a TV board that shows open and recently solved tickets. It highlights tickets that have waited more than 24 hours, and it shows satisfaction ratings when they're available. One tip: ask a Zendesk admin for an API token before you start, because only admins can create one.
Next, describe the board you want in plain words. For example:
"Build a support dashboard for a wall screen. Use our Zendesk data. Show open tickets tagged with this week's release, open tickets waiting more than 24 hours, and the latest ratings on tickets solved this week. Large numbers, dark background, no buttons. Refresh the data every 5 minutes."
OptiDev builds it as a working customer support dashboard. The result should be a dark screen with a few big figures that anyone can read from the back of the room. Your Zendesk key stays locked away on the server. It never reaches the TV.
Don't skip the last line of that prompt. When we tested a board that asked to refresh every minute, it updated itself with no reload. Pick an interval that suits your team.
Changing it later works the same way. When release week is over, ask OptiDev to "swap the release tickets for tickets about the new pricing page." No rebuild needed.
You might also want this week's new signups from your billing system on the same screen. OptiDev apps can read other tools' APIs too, with each key stored the same way. The alternative is paying for another dashboard tool or finding developer time. Here's what a custom internal tool really costs. Wondering if your ticket data is safe? How OptiDev Secures Every App You Build explains it.
Get it in front of the whole team
When the board looks right, publish it to OptiSigns from inside OptiDev and pick your screens. Maybe that's the TV by the support desks, plus one in the kitchen. It shows up in OptiSigns like any other content. Publishing to OptiSigns needs the Admin role in your OptiDev workspace, so check that you have it, or ask whoever does. The OptiDev docs have the exact steps.
But your team isn't always in the office. A private OptiDev app is open only to members of your OptiDev workspace and to your OptiSigns screens, with no public link to share or bookmark. Teammates who work from home can see it too, if they're members of your workspace.
To set up the TV itself, from the player to when the screen sleeps, see how to set up an office TV dashboard.
Give your team the numbers every day
Next Monday, the meeting won't be the only time your team sees the numbers. They'll see them all week. A bad rating can get a reply the same day, and the release queue is in plain sight.
If Explore already has the view you need, show it with the OptiSigns Zendesk app. If it doesn't, open the Zendesk dashboard template and describe the customer service dashboard your business needs.
Start building, no credit card required. Already on OptiSigns? Sign in to OptiDev with the same login.
