Managing sessions in Zoho Desk involves overseeing active login sessions for account security, as well as tracking agent activities and work items tied to customer tickets — here's how to handle both effectively.
Why this matters
If you suspect unauthorised access to your Zoho account, or simply want to audit who is logged in and from where, session management is your first line of defence. Equally, Zoho Desk's Activities module lets agents track tasks, calls, and events linked to tickets, giving supervisors visibility into ongoing work. As independent experts at Beam Help (not official Zoho support), we see these two areas confused regularly — this guide covers both.
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Step-by-step
Step 1. Review and terminate active login sessions
To audit who is currently signed in to your Zoho account, navigate to accounts.zoho.com and go to Sessions > Active Sessions. From here you can see a list of devices along with their session details, and sign out from any session you do not recognise. If you suspect a security breach, you can end all sessions at once and then immediately update your password. [5]
Step 2. Manage sessions from the OneAuth app
If you use Zoho's OneAuth multi-factor authentication app, you can also review and terminate connected sessions directly from within that app — a convenient option when you are away from a desktop browser. [5]
Step 3. Access the Activities module in Zoho Desk
For day-to-day work management within Zoho Desk itself, open the Activities module. This is the central hub where agents can create and monitor tasks, calls, and events. Each activity record stores key information such as start time, duration, priority level, and current status. [3]
Step 4. Create and assign tasks linked to tickets
Inside the Activities module, create a Task and associate it with a specific ticket — for example, a task labelled "Investigate reported bug" tied to the relevant support ticket. Tasks can also exist as stand-alone items if they are not tied to a particular ticket. You can set a due date, priority, and assign an owner so accountability is clear. [3] [4]
Step 5. Schedule and track events
Use the Events section within Activities to log calendar-based interactions such as customer meetings or product demos. Each event carries a scheduled date, time, and duration. You can configure reminders so agents are notified before the event begins. [3]
Step 6. Use task views to monitor progress
Zoho Desk provides pre-defined task views — for example, a view showing only tasks due today, or only completed tasks. You can also build custom views filtered by criteria relevant to your team, making it straightforward to spot overdue or unassigned work at a glance. [4]
Step 7. Mark irrelevant activities as spam
If your Activities module accumulates noise from automated or erroneous entries, you can mark individual calls, tasks, or events as Spam to keep the list clean. Each activity still retains its core metadata (start time, duration, priority, status) even before being marked. [4]
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Common pitfalls
- Confusing account-level sessions with Desk activities. Account sessions (managed at accounts.zoho.com) control who is logged in to the Zoho platform. Desk Activities track work items inside the helpdesk. They are separate concerns. [5] [3]
- Forgetting to archive unused custom views. Over time, custom activity views can accumulate and make navigation slow. Zoho Desk provides an archiving option to hide views you no longer need without permanently deleting them. [4]
- Not acting quickly on suspicious sessions. If you spot an unrecognised device in Active Sessions, signing out of that session alone is not enough — update your password and consider enabling an additional MFA mode as a backup. [5]
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What to check
- Confirm all active sessions are recognised devices by reviewing the Sessions list at accounts.zoho.com and terminating any unfamiliar entries. [5]
- Verify that open tasks in Zoho Desk have owners and due dates assigned, so no ticket-linked work item is left unattended. [3] [4]
- Check that your custom activity views are current and relevant, archiving any that are no longer used to keep the Activities module navigable. [4]