Zendesk

Connect your Zendesk account to SurveyRock once. After that, a workflow can create a ticket, update one or add a comment, and an Action can open a linked ticket with one click. Zendesk is on Pro and up.

Connect Zendesk

You need to be an owner or admin of the workspace, and a Zendesk agent or admin.

1. In SurveyRock, go to Workspace Settings, Integrations, Zendesk.
2. Enter your Zendesk address (for example yourcompany.zendesk.com) and click Continue to Zendesk.
3. Sign in to Zendesk if it asks, and click Allow to approve SurveyRock.

Zendesk sends you back to SurveyRock, and the card shows the account as connected. There is no API key to copy: you approve SurveyRock in Zendesk, and we store the access Zendesk gives us encrypted.

Every ticket is created as the Zendesk agent who approved it, with that agent’s permissions. If you sign in as a Zendesk end user rather than an agent, SurveyRock refuses the connection and keeps nothing.

SurveyRock asks Zendesk for four permissions: create and edit tickets, view users, create and edit users (for the contact fields a step can write), and view account settings (to list your ticket and user fields). It does not ask to read your tickets.

You can connect more than one Zendesk account to the same workspace with Connect another Zendesk account. Each workflow step picks the account it uses.

Create or update tickets from a workflow

Add an Action step to a workflow and choose Zendesk Ticket. Pick the connected account, then what the step does:

• Create ticket. Set the subject and description. The requester email is optional: left empty, the requester is the Zendesk agent who connected the account, and a new email address becomes a new Zendesk user. Priority is optional; a new ticket gets Zendesk’s default unless you set one. You can add tags.
• Update ticket. Give the ticket number and change its status, priority or custom fields. Fields left as “Not set” are not changed. To act on a ticket an earlier Zendesk step in the same workflow created, use the tag button and pick that step’s ticket number.
• Add comment. Give the ticket number and the comment. A comment is an internal note only agents see, unless you tick Public reply, which the requester sees.

The requester, subject, description, tags and comment fields take merge tags from the tag button, so a ticket can carry details from the response that started the workflow. Under Custom ticket fields you can fill in your Zendesk account’s own ticket fields.

Workflows themselves start on Team. The Zendesk step is on Pro and up. The Create Zendesk ticket on low NPS template is a ready-made starting point.

The requester may get an email from Zendesk

Zendesk’s own triggers decide whether a ticket’s requester is emailed, and its default triggers email the requester when a ticket is created and when a public reply is added. These apply to tickets SurveyRock creates. If the requester is the respondent, the respondent gets those emails.

To change that, a Zendesk admin edits the triggers under Admin Center, Objects and rules, Business rules, Triggers.

Testing a Zendesk step

Test on a workflow has two modes. Simulate, the default, runs every step without sending anything: a Zendesk step shows the ticket it would create or change and leaves Zendesk as it is. Live runs the workflow once for real with your test payload, so a Zendesk step creates or changes a real ticket, and Zendesk’s triggers run as they do for any ticket. Before a Live run starts, SurveyRock lists everything it will send, including the Zendesk account each step uses, and runs only once you confirm. A published, enabled workflow always changes Zendesk.

Open a linked ticket from an Action

When a workspace has a Zendesk account connected, an Action shows a Create Zendesk ticket button. The ticket uses the Action’s title as its subject and its description as the ticket’s first comment. The requester is the Zendesk agent who connected the account, so Zendesk’s triggers may email that agent.

The Action then shows the linked ticket’s number with a link to open it in Zendesk. The link is one way: changes to the ticket are not copied back to the Action.

Staying connected

Zendesk’s access lasts 30 minutes at a time, and SurveyRock renews it on its own. If Zendesk stops accepting the renewal (the agent was removed, or someone revoked SurveyRock’s access in Zendesk), the step says to reconnect, and the Zendesk card in Workspace Settings shows a Reconnect button.

Disconnect

In Workspace Settings, Integrations, Zendesk, click Disconnect next to the account. Workflow steps that use it stop until it is connected again, and Actions can no longer open a ticket there.

Related: Integrations, Freshdesk.