How to Bulk Update Users in Zendesk?

Updating many users in Zendesk at once is usually difficult.

By default, if you want to change user data in bulk, you often have to:

• Export users.
• Edit them in a spreadsheet.
• Import them back into Zendesk.
  

This is slow, error-prone, and not friendly for everyday admin work.

Swifteq’s app Advanced Search Plus adds a simple way to bulk update users directly inside Zendesk, without exports and imports.

Below is how it works, step by step, using only the new bulk update feature for users.

Why Bulk Updating Users Is Hard in Zendesk?

In Zendesk, bulk changes are mainly focused on tickets. For users:

• There is no easy native way to update many users at once.
  
• To change fields or organization membership in bulk, you typically must:
  
  • Export users.
  • Edit the CSV.
  • Import again.
    

If you manage a growing help center with many end users, this becomes a real problem when:

• You reorganize customers into new organizations.
• You want to clean or update a user field.
• You need to standardize data across hundreds or thousands of profiles.

That’s one of the reasons the bulk update feature for users was added to Advanced Search Plus.

What Advanced Search Plus Does for Users

Advanced Search Plus helps you:

• Search for users with flexible filters.
• Work with large user sets (hundreds or thousands).
• Select all users or only specific ones.
• Apply bulk changes in a few clicks.
  

For users, you can:

• Update fields (standard or custom, depending on your user setup).
• Add users to organizations in bulk.
• Avoid the export → edit → import cycle.
  

All of this happens inside Zendesk.

Important Note: Always Filter by Role

When working with users, it’s important to:

• Always specify the Role in your search when you plan to update users in bulk.
  

For example:

• Role = End user
  

This ensures you are updating the right type of users and not agents or admins by mistake.

Example: Bulk Add Users to an Organization

Let’s walk through a simple, realistic example.

You want to add a group of end users to the same organization in Zendesk. Instead of editing each user manually or doing a CSV import, you can do it directly with Advanced Search Plus.

Step 1 – Search for the users you want to update

1. Open Advanced Search Plus in Zendesk.
   
2. Build your search for users. For example:
   
   • Set Type to users (if applicable in your interface)
     
   • Filter by Role = End user (very important)
     
   • Add any other filters you need (e.g. domain, tags, segments, or other criteria available in your setup)
     
3. Run the search.
   
4. You’ll see a list of users who match your filters.
   

Now you have the exact group of users you want to update.

Step 2 – Select the users

Once the results are shown:

• All users in the result list can be selected at once.
  

You can:

• Keep all users selected if you want the change to apply to all of them.
  
• Or manually select/deselect specific users if you only want to update some of them.
  

This gives you control over who will be affected by the bulk update.

Step 3 – Open Bulk Changes

When your selection is ready:

1. Click Bulk changes.
2. A panel opens where you choose what you want to change for these users.
   

Here you can work with:

• Fields
• Organization assignment (for example, add all selected users to an organization)
  

Step 4 – Add users to an organization

In this example, you want to add all selected users to one organization.

From the Bulk changes panel:

1. Choose the option to update the field that controls the user’s organization(s).
2. Select the organization you want all these users to belong to.
   

After confirming:

• All selected users will be added to that organization.
  

Instead of:

• Exporting users.
• Editing a CSV.
• Importing back into Zendesk.
  

…you do it completely inside Advanced Search Plus, in a few clicks.

Step 5 – Confirm the result

When the update is complete:

• Open a few of the updated users in Zendesk.
• Check their profile.
• You will see that they are now part of the organization you selected.

This confirms that the bulk update worked as expected.

More Ways to Use Bulk User Updates

The same bulk update concept can be used for other user-related tasks, such as:

• Moving a group of customers to a new organization structure.
• Aligning user data when you change how you segment or group customers.
• Cleaning or updating fields across many end users at once.
  

Any time you have a large group of users that needs the same change, this feature helps you avoid repetitive work and complex CSV operations.

Why This matters for Zendesk Admins and Support Teams

For Zendesk admins and support teams, the bulk user update feature in Advanced Search Plus offers:

• Less manual effort.
• Fewer CSV exports and imports.
• Faster data cleanups and reorganizations.
• More control and consistency in how users are grouped and managed.

You stay in Zendesk, use Advanced Search Plus to find the right users, select them, and run a bulk update in a controlled way.

If you often need to:

• Add users to organizations.
• Adjust user data for large segments of customers.
• Keep your user records clean and consistent.

…the bulk update feature for users in Advanced Search Plus makes that work much simpler and faster. See it in action via our simple demo.

Written by Sorin Alupoaie

 

Sorin Alupoaie is the founder of Swifteq, an experienced software technologist and entrepreneur, he loves shipping products that solve painful customer problems. Sorin strongly believes that any Customer Service interaction represents a huge opportunity for a business to listen and improve how they deliver value to customers.