Zendesk Support integration

Plans and permissions:

• Connect the Zendesk integration: Admin role, or a custom role with Configure third-party integrations set to Can configure third-party integrations
• Import people from Zendesk: Admin or Manager role, or a custom role with Manage team set to Create, edit, or delete any person or Create, edit, or delete certain people
• Set up queues for Zendesk tickets: Admin role, or a custom role with Queue configuration set to Can configure queues
• Connecting also needs an active Zendesk admin account.

Use the Zendesk integration to bring your Zendesk Support tickets into Assembled, so you can forecast volume, staff for it, and report on your team’s work. This article covers Zendesk Support, which you connect first. Zendesk Chat and Zendesk Talk are separate integrations that need Zendesk Support: see Zendesk Chat integration and Zendesk Talk integration. Zendesk Messaging tickets come in through Zendesk Support; see Zendesk Messaging.

To connect it, go to Configure > Third-party integrations.

How the Zendesk Support integration works

• Assembled connects to Zendesk with OAuth, using the Zendesk account of the person who connects it. That account must be an active Zendesk admin.
• Assembled asks Zendesk for read access, or read and write access if your company also uses Assembled’s AI agents or Copilot. The Zendesk card on Configure > Third-party integrations shows the access it has. To give Assembled write access, and for the settings AI agents and Copilot use, see Zendesk integration for AI agents and Copilot.
• Assembled reads your tickets through the Zendesk API, so your Zendesk API usage goes up.
• By default, Assembled makes up to 100 requests a minute to Zendesk, and up to 10 a minute to Zendesk’s incremental export endpoints. To change these limits, contact our team.
• If the Zendesk admin’s account is deleted or loses admin permissions, the integration stops syncing. Before that admin leaves, have another Zendesk admin reconnect the integration.
• Each ticket’s channel comes from its Zendesk channel (via) value. See How Zendesk data maps to Assembled.
• On its own, Zendesk Support gives Assembled only basic agent states. For detailed states for adherence, use the Assembled App for Zendesk or Zendesk unified agent statuses.

Prepare your Zendesk tickets

Before you connect, check with your Zendesk admin that your tickets are ready:

• Channel: every ticket needs a value in Zendesk’s channel field. Tickets without one aren’t brought into Assembled.
• Ticket fields for queues: if you’ll split Zendesk tickets into several queues in Assembled, make sure each ticket has the field you’ll split on: Group Id, Ticket Tag, Ticket Form Id, Brand Id, Via Channel, or Ticket Type. For background, see Zendesk’s About ticket fields.

Connect Zendesk Support

A Zendesk admin does these steps, signed in to Assembled.

1. Go to Configure > Third-party integrations and select Available.
2. On the Zendesk card, select Configure integration….
3. Enter your Zendesk subdomain. For example, the subdomain for https://assembled.zendesk.com is assembled.
4. Select Sign in on Zendesk, sign in to Zendesk with your admin account, and approve access for Assembled.
5. Back in Assembled, under Zendesk unified agent status, choose Turn it on or Maybe later, then select Next. For what this changes, see Zendesk unified agent statuses.
6. Select Done.

The Zendesk card moves to In use with a Connected tag, and Assembled starts backfilling your tickets.

Check that your Zendesk data is coming in

1. On Configure > Third-party integrations, check the Zendesk card. Each row, such as Tickets sync, should be green. If a row is red, hover over it to see the error. A 401 or 403 error usually means the Zendesk account that connected the integration lost access: reconnect it with a Zendesk admin account.
2. Go to Monitor > Real-time agent analysis. To see only team members from Zendesk, select Add filter and choose Source: Zendesk. Check that their states match what they’re doing in Zendesk.
3. Go to Schedule > Staffing timeline, choose a channel in Channels, and select the volume tab above the chart, such as New and reopened cases. Actual volume should follow your Zendesk ticket volume.

If agent states or volume are missing, or don’t match Zendesk, see Missing or incomplete integration data.

Add people from Zendesk

1. Go to Manage team > People management.
2. Select Add people, then Import from Zendesk.
3. Choose the people to import.

You can also add people one at a time with Add manually, in bulk with Import from CSV file, or through the API. For more, see People management.

People imported from Zendesk get a role based on their Zendesk role:

Set up queues for Zendesk tickets

Go to Configure > Queues and exclusions and add queues with rules for the Zendesk platform. For the steps, see Queues and exclusions.

Zendesk queue rules can use these ticket properties: Brand Id, Group Id, Ticket Form Id, Ticket Tag, Ticket Type, and Via Channel. If our team has set up custom ticket fields for your company, they’re listed too.

Set up agent states for Zendesk

Zendesk Support on its own sends only basic agent states. For detailed states that show what team members are working on, choose one of these:

• Assembled App for Zendesk: tracks whether each team member is on a ticket, elsewhere in Zendesk, or away from Zendesk. See Zendesk time tracking to turn it on, and Assembled App for Zendesk to install the app.
• Zendesk unified agent statuses: uses the statuses your team sets in Zendesk, including custom ones. See Zendesk unified agent statuses.

Then map the states to your events on Configure > Agent states. See Agent state mappings.

If a team member’s state in Assembled doesn’t match Zendesk, see A team member shows Offline, Logged in, or a stuck state.

How Zendesk data maps to Assembled

Channels

• Tickets with no channel aren’t brought into Assembled.
• If you also connect Zendesk Chat, chats come from the Zendesk Chat integration, and Zendesk Support tickets in the chat channel aren’t counted again. Zendesk Messaging tickets are counted from Zendesk Support.
• Phone tickets from Zendesk Support are combined with Zendesk Talk calls. See Zendesk Talk integration.
• To send a channel value to a different Assembled channel, contact our team.

First response time

Assembled uses Zendesk’s first reply time for each ticket, in calendar time, to the second when Zendesk provides it. The first response is the ticket’s creation time plus that reply time. Service level is measured against this first response time.

Ticket status