The Agent and Dispatch panels work out of the box, but they don't know which scope tabs your team actually uses, which actions your team needs as one-click buttons, or which forms should be wired up as named buttons on ticket cards. Panel Customization is where you tune both panels so they match how your team actually works.
Problem: Out of the box, the Agent panel shows a generic set of scope tabs and actions. Half are useful for your team, half aren't. Agents see clutter they ignore, miss buttons they'd actually use, and spend time picking the right view from a menu instead of having it default-loaded. Multiply across a team and the friction adds up.
Horizon's answer: Per-panel customization for Agent and Dispatch. You decide which scope tabs appear, which one loads by default, which refinement filters are wired in, which action buttons are visible, and which custom forms surface as named buttons on ticket cards. Once configured, every agent and dispatcher gets a panel tuned to your team's workflow without each user having to set their own preferences.
The Admin panel doesn't get this treatment — admin work is rare and the navigation already groups by purpose. Customization applies only to Agent and Dispatch.
Open the admin panel and navigate to Settings → Panels. You'll find:
| Page | What it does |
|---|---|
| Agent Panel Settings | configures the Agent panel's scope tabs, default scope, refinement filters, action buttons, and form attachments |
| Dispatch Panel Settings | same configuration for the Dispatch panel |
The two pages have the same shape. You configure each independently because the workflows are different — agents work their own queue, dispatchers work the team's.
Each panel settings page exposes:
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Scope tabs | which scope tabs appear at the top of the board (e.g. "My Tickets", "All Open", "Awaiting Customer", "Overdue") |
| Default scope | which scope tab loads when the user opens the panel |
| Refinement filters | per-board secondary filters available within each scope (e.g. "narrow to my company", "narrow to priority High+") |
| Action buttons | which one-click actions show on ticket cards (e.g. "Send Booking Link", "Submit Custom Form", "Smart Assign", "Snooze") |
| Action forms | custom forms surfaced as named buttons on ticket cards (instead of being buried in a generic submit-form picker) |
| Email template defaults | per-panel default templates for booking links, customer replies, etc. |
What you do not configure here: ticket card columns, sort order of tickets within scope tabs, or any field-level helpdesk settings. Those are either fixed or controlled elsewhere (helpdesk integration, the user's own preferences).
Scopes are saved filters tied to the panel's board view. Each scope is built from a HelpdeskEvalCriteria definition. The panel settings page lets you:
The agent or dispatcher's default panel opens to that default scope tab. Pick the one that matches the most common entry-point workflow:
If your team uses three or four distinct views, expose all of them as tabs. If your team only ever uses one, don't expose the rest — fewer tabs is less cognitive load.
Within any scope tab, refinement filters let users narrow further without losing the scope. Common refinements:
You configure which refinements are available per scope. Users pick from those available refinements when they need them. The point is to give users the right knobs, not every knob.
Each ticket card on a board can show a row of action buttons. The full catalog of available actions includes things like:
You pick which subset shows on the card. A typical Agent panel might show Send Booking Link, Submit Custom Form, Defer, Open in Helpdesk. A dispatch panel might show Smart Assign, Snooze, Open in Helpdesk, plus dispatcher-specific actions.
Don't try to expose everything. Cards get cluttered fast. Five buttons is a lot. Three is plenty for most teams.
By default, when an agent wants to submit a custom form, they click a generic Submit Custom Form button and pick from a dropdown. That's fine for rarely-used forms. For frequently-used forms (a Vendor Escalation form your team uses three times a day, an Approval Request form that's part of a standard process), you can promote the form to a named button on the ticket card.
In Panel Settings, configure each promoted form with:
The result: instead of "click Submit Custom Form → pick Vendor Escalation from dropdown → fill it out", the agent clicks "Vendor Escalation" directly. Two fewer clicks, and the form's discoverability goes from buried to obvious.
Promote a form when it's used often enough that the dropdown step becomes friction. Leave it in the dropdown when it's situational.
Test by opening the Agent panel as a regular user (or use the panel switcher) and confirm the layout matches what you configured. Iterate based on team feedback.
Panel layout decisions are best made after watching the team use the panel for a few weeks. Signals to act on:
The goal is a panel that fits the team's workflow tightly. The fewer decisions an agent has to make to find their work, the better.
Tip: Panel customization is one of the few places where you'll be tempted to match the helpdesk exactly — same tabs, same filters, same button placement. Don't. Horizon panels exist to replace the helpdesk's queue management, not mirror it. If the helpdesk's view is a 16-column ticket list and your team operates from a focused four-tab view in Horizon, that's the system working. Configure for clarity, not parity.