Zendesk has introduced native task lists: admin-defined checklists that agents can add to a ticket and tick off without leaving the workspace. It's a welcome addition for the follow-ups, handoffs, and reminders that used to live in an agent's head. But a checklist on a ticket is the starting point, not the finish line. SweetHawk Tasks & Subtickets has been the number one paid task management app in the Zendesk Marketplace for over ten years, and it goes a good deal further: it turns tasks into real, linked tickets with their own assignees, forms, and SLAs, automates how they're created and closed, and lets you feed the data you care about into ticket fields so you can build your own reports on it in Explore.
Here's how the two compare.
Feature comparison
| Capability | SweetHawk Tasks & Subtickets | Zendesk task lists |
|---|---|---|
| Reusable task list templates | ✅ | ✅ |
| Add tasks to a ticket and tick them off | ✅ | ✅ |
| Block solve until every task is complete | ✅ Required lists | ✅ Required lists |
| Auto-apply lists from automation | ✅ Triggers, action flows, and other apps | ✅ Action flows / Tasks API |
| Audit log of changes | ✅ | ✅ |
| Multiple task lists on a single ticket | ✅ Stack as many as the work needs | ❌ One list per ticket |
| Saved list templates | ✅ Unlimited | 🟡 100 per account |
| Tasks per list | ✅ No hard limit | 🟡 20 maximum |
| Turn a task into a real, linked ticket (subticket) | ✅ | ❌ |
| Multi-phase lists with sequential locking | ✅ Phase 2 unlocks when phase 1 is done | ❌ |
| Translated task lists for multilingual teams | ✅ | ❌ |
| Assign work to specific agents or groups | ✅ Per subticket | ❌ |
| Subticket has its own form, fields, and SLAs | ✅ | ❌ |
| Copy and map parent fields to subtickets (Liquid) | ✅ | ❌ |
| Pass parent attachments to subtickets | ✅ | ❌ |
| Auto-create subtickets defined in a list | ✅ | ❌ |
| Update the parent on task completion (tag, comment, set fields) | ✅ | ❌ |
| Record any task data to any ticket field you choose | ✅ Fully mappable | 🟡 In-ticket status only |
| Build your own Explore reports on that field data | ✅ | ❌ |
| Light agents can create, contribute, and check tasks off | ✅ | ❌ View only, can't check off |
| Native to Zendesk (no install) | ❌ App-based | ✅ |
| Available on any Zendesk plan | ✅ Works across plans | 🟡 Suite Professional+ / Employee Growth+ |
| Cost | 🟡 Paid app from $4 / agent / month | ✅ Included in eligible plans |
✅ Fully supported | 🟡 Partial or limited | ❌ Not available
The core difference: a checklist, or a workflow engine
Zendesk task lists live entirely inside the ticket they're attached to. A task is a name and an optional description that one agent ticks off. That's genuinely useful for a solo agent working a single request from start to finish.
SweetHawk starts there too, but its tasks can become subtickets: each one a full Zendesk ticket in its own right, with its own assignee, group, form, fields, and SLA. That single difference is what lets work leave the original agent's queue. A billing task can route to finance, a hardware task to IT, and a legal review to legal, each tracked and timed on its own, while the parent ticket stays in sync as the pieces complete. A checklist can tell you what's left to do. Subtickets actually get it done by the right people.
Subtickets are only half of it. The other half is what SweetHawk can do the instant anything changes on a task. Check a task off, un-check it, leave it incomplete, complete a whole list, or clear a phase, and each of those becomes an event you can hang actions off: set any field, add a public reply or internal note, apply a tag, notify someone, apply another list, or trigger a different app entirely. Native task lists record the tick and stop there. SweetHawk turns that same tick into the trigger for whatever should happen next, which is what makes the range of workflows you can build essentially unlimited.
There's also a hard ceiling worth knowing about up front: Zendesk lets you attach only one task list to a ticket. The moment a single ticket spans two processes, say an onboarding that also needs a compliance sign-off, native runs out of room. SweetHawk lets you stack as many lists as the work calls for on the same ticket.
When Zendesk task lists are the right tool
Zendesk's native task lists are a good fit when:
- A single agent owns a request end to end and just needs a repeatable checklist
- The steps are lightweight reminders rather than work that has to be handed to another team
- You want a native, no-install experience and are already on Suite Professional or above
- Lists stay comfortably within 20 tasks and don't need their own reporting
- All the work can happen in one flat list at once: there are no phases, so you can't stage a workflow or hide later steps until earlier ones are done
When SweetHawk Tasks & Subtickets makes the difference
SweetHawk Tasks & Subtickets is the right choice when you need:
- Tasks that become real tickets, assigned to specific agents or whole teams
- Tickets that run more than one process at once: stack several lists on a single ticket, where native caps you at one
- Multi-phase processes where later stages only unlock once earlier ones are done
- Subtickets with their own forms, fields, SLAs, and copied parent data
- Subtickets created automatically the moment a list is applied
- Live actions that fire the instant a task or phase completes: tag the ticket, add a comment, set field values, or trigger another app, so you can build virtually unlimited automated workflows on top of your tickets, all with a clean audit trail
- The flexibility to feed task and subticket data into any Zendesk field you choose, native or custom, so you can build your own Explore reports across tasks, subtickets, and parent/child relationships
- Translated lists for multilingual teams, and light agents who can create, contribute, and check tasks off without a seat upgrade (native lists are view-only for light agents)
The bottom line
Native task lists are a genuinely useful addition to Zendesk, and for a solo agent working through a single, self-contained process they may be all you ever need. They're a fine place to start. But most real support work doesn't stay that simple: it crosses teams, spins off into its own tickets, runs in stages, or has to show up in a report. That's the point where you've outgrown a checklist.
SweetHawk Tasks & Subtickets is the upgrade path. It does everything native lists do, then turns your checklist into a workflow engine: every completed task, list, or phase can fire actions on the ticket or trigger another app, so the possibilities are essentially unlimited. On top of that, work can spin off into real linked subtickets, you can stack multiple lists per ticket, run multi-phase processes, assign to any agent or team, map data into any field, and report on all of it. Start with native checklists, and move up to Tasks & Subtickets the moment your processes get more ambitious.
