Updated October 2026.
Zendesk TV dashboard: how to display live Zendesk metrics on a TV
The easiest way to display Zendesk metrics on a TV is with a dashboard tool designed for TV, such as Geckoboard. Connect your Zendesk account, start from a pre-built dashboard, and display it on any screen connected to a small computer.
Geckoboard specializes in helping support teams that use Zendesk create engaging, real-time TV dashboards. When you connect Zendesk, you get pre-built widgets and dashboards that you can customize around the exact metrics that matter to your team.
You can also add data from 90+ other data sources, including Shopify, Aircall, HubSpot, Jira and Dialpad. If you need something more specific, our team can build custom integrations, metrics and calculations for you.
500+ teams using Zendesk rely on Geckoboard for their customer support dashboards, including monday.com, Woolworths Group, Gousto, Waterstones, Trackforce, Simba and Token.
What makes an effective Zendesk wallboard?
While it's technically possible to display almost any report on a TV, unless a dashboard is designed as a wallboard, it rarely works well.
To be effective, a real-time wallboard needs to be:
- Customizable, so you can show the metrics that matter to your team and set goals for them.
- Able to combine data from your other tools, such as your phone system, Jira or CRM, alongside Zendesk.
- Designed to be understood from across the room, with large fonts and simple, engaging visualizations.
- Updated in real time, or as close to it as possible.
- Secure, with read-only access to your data and no logged-in account left running on the TV.
Geckoboard is built to do all of this.
Why put Zendesk metrics on a TV?
Displaying your team's Zendesk KPIs on a TV dashboard can improve SLA adherence, agent performance, team morale and customer experience. It also gives the wider company a clearer sense of the work your support team does.
Agents rarely look at reports when they're buried inside reporting tools. As a result, they often have little idea whether SLAs are at risk, how the team is performing, or how their own performance compares.
By the time those numbers show up in a report, it's often too late to change what happened. Managers are left checking performance, chasing updates and telling people where to focus.
With live metrics in front of the whole team, agents can spot issues earlier, adjust their behavior and self-manage while there's still time to improve the outcome. That helps teams stay on top of SLAs, improve agent performance and build a stronger sense of momentum and morale.
Managers can spend less time micromanaging and more time coaching and improving the team.
"The information was critical, but it was stuck in Zendesk. We needed real-time insights that anyone could see, from agents to executives." — Kieran Boyce, General Manager of Operations, Woolworths MarketPlus.
Can you display Zendesk's own dashboards on a TV?
Zendesk includes real-time dashboards, but they're primarily designed to be viewed on a laptop or desktop. On a TV, fonts and charts can be difficult to read from a distance. Zendesk’s live dashboards also time-out after 90 seconds if they’re not interacted with. If you only need a live queue view for one team without using a TV, Zendesk's real-time monitoring may be enough.
Geckoboard dashboards are built to be read from across a room. Visualizations are designed to work at a distance, while status indicators help highlight metrics that are off track. Leaderboards, celebrations and feeds can also help make dashboards more engaging for the team.
You can see examples in our Zendesk dashboard examples.
Do you need digital signage software for a Zendesk dashboard?
Several digital signage companies advertise Zendesk dashboards. However, most don't actually build the dashboard itself. Instead, they manage the screen and display a dashboard you've already made in Zendesk, Geckoboard or another tool. The few that offer their own Zendesk app only offer very basic customization.
Signage software is useful if your IT team manages screens across an entire building or multiple locations. If you only want a Zendesk wallboard, you usually don't need it.
As well as building the dashboard, Geckoboard has built-in screen pairing, lets you cycle through multiple dashboards, and allows you to control what's displayed on a screen remotely.
How to set up a Zendesk TV dashboard
Step 1: Sign up to Geckoboard and connect Zendesk
Start a 14-day free trial. You'll be asked to connect Zendesk when you sign up.
Geckoboard connects to all the main products in the Zendesk suite, including Zendesk Support. It only needs read-only access to your Zendesk data.
After you connect, Geckoboard imports the historical data needed to chart trends over time. You only need to do this once. If you have a very large number of tickets, the initial import can take a little while.
If you prefer, we can provide dummy data to test Geckoboard before connecting your Zendesk account.
Step 2: Start with a pre-built Zendesk dashboard
Geckoboard comes with pre-built Zendesk widgets and dashboards for monitoring SLAs, agent status, queues and overall service performance.
Step 3: Customize your dashboard
You can change any part of a pre-built dashboard or start from scratch. Add or remove widgets, resize them and group related metrics together.
Put the metrics your team needs to act on where they'll see them first, and add filters relevant to your team.
If your team relies on other tools too, you can add their data to the same dashboard, from tools such as Aircall, Dialpad, Jira, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Shopify, Google Analytics and spreadsheets.
Adding goals, comparisons and status indicators helps people tell at a glance whether a metric is on track.
Step 4: Choose your hardware
Any TV or large monitor will work. It needs to be connected to a device that can run a modern browser such as Chrome or Firefox.
An old laptop or desktop is fine, but if you're buying a device specifically for the purpose, we recommend a small computer such as a Raspberry Pi or PC stick. They're affordable, energy efficient and can be neatly mounted behind the TV.
We don't generally recommend relying on a smart TV's built-in browser. They can be slow, don't always follow modern web standards, and may struggle when left running full-screen dashboards for long periods.
Digital signage players are another option, but they usually come with a signage subscription you won't need if you're only displaying a single wallboard.
Our TV dashboard guide goes into the different hardware options in more detail.
Step 5: Send it to your TV
Set the computer up in kiosk mode so it automatically opens your dashboard when it starts. Our TV dashboard guide includes instructions for Windows and Raspberry Pi.
Then, on the device connected to the TV, go to gbrd.tv. A short pairing code will appear.
From a computer where you're logged into Geckoboard, select Send to screen and enter that code. You can then manage the screen remotely and set it to cycle through several dashboards using Loops.
What to show on your Zendesk TV dashboard
TV dashboards work best when they reflect your team's priorities.
For customer support teams, useful metrics to track include:
- SLA achievement rate
- Tickets approaching an SLA breach
- Queue size and backlog
- Agent status, including who's online and available
- First response time
- Resolution time
- CSAT
- Agent performance
- Recent customer feedback or reviews
How you display these metrics is important too. Stick to a simple set of visualizations, use clear labels, and give numbers context with goals, comparisons and status indicators.
Our dashboard design guide covers these principles in more detail. You can also browse our customer support dashboard examples and Zendesk dashboard examples for inspiration.
If you'd like help deciding what to display, we're also happy to provide advice on dashboard best practices. Contact us.
Geckoboard supports the Zendesk suite
Geckoboard can display metrics from across Zendesk and combine them on the same dashboard with data from your other tools. Here are some examples of what you can track with each product:
- Zendesk Support: metrics such as SLA achievement, tickets approaching a breach, backlog, first response time and CSAT
- Zendesk Talk: metrics such as calls waiting, longest wait, missed calls and agents available
- Zendesk Chat and Messaging: metrics such as chats waiting, wait times and agents online
- Zendesk Agent Status: who's online and available
- Zendesk QA: metrics such as quality scores by team or agent
- Zendesk Sell: metrics such as deals won against target and pipeline value
These are just a starting point. You can build widgets around the specific metrics, filters and goals your team needs.
Frequently asked questions
What's the best way to show Zendesk on a TV? Use a dashboard tool designed for TV, such as Geckoboard, connected to a small computer behind the screen. It gives you up-to-date Zendesk metrics that can be read from across the room, and you can add data from your other tools too.
Can I use digital signage software to show Zendesk on a TV? Yes. Most signage tools will display a dashboard you've built elsewhere, and a few have basic Zendesk apps with fixed reports. They handle the screen, but the dashboard itself still has to come from somewhere.
Why not just open Zendesk on a TV? Zendesk's dashboards are primarily designed for use at a desk and can be difficult to read from across a room. A browser left logged in all day can also time out or stop at a sign-in prompt.
Is Zendesk retiring Explore live dashboards? Yes. Zendesk will remove Explore’s live reporting features on 25 January 2027, including pre-built live dashboards and live data components in custom dashboards.
Real-time monitoring is the replacement, and Zendesk says customers will be able to migrate their workflows and rebuild custom dashboards in the new interface. If you’re rebuilding a dashboard you use on a TV, this is a good time to consider a tool designed for wallboards, such as Geckoboard.
Can I use a smart TV or Amazon Fire TV Stick? You can, but we don't generally recommend relying on a smart TV's built-in browser for an always-on dashboard. A small computer such as a PC stick or Raspberry Pi connected by HDMI is usually a more reliable option.
Read our TV dashboard hardware guide for more detail.
Does a Zendesk TV dashboard update in real time? It depends on the Zendesk product and metric.
With Geckoboard, Zendesk Support metrics update every 10 minutes, Zendesk Chat every minute, Zendesk Talk every 30 seconds and Zendesk Agent Status every 30 seconds. Zendesk Messaging metrics can update instantly.
This means operational metrics such as queues, agent status and messaging activity can stay particularly close to real time.
Can I show more than one dashboard on a TV? Yes. Geckoboard's screen management lets you use Loops to cycle through several dashboards on the same TV.
Does Geckoboard need full access to my Zendesk account? No. Geckoboard connects to Zendesk with read-only access to the data it needs to calculate and display your metrics.
Try it with your own Zendesk data
Start a free trial to create your Zendesk dashboard, then customize it around your team and add data from 90+ other tools.
