- Enable your registered or unregistered (anonymous) Zendesk Support users to submit support requests from within the Wordpress administrator dashboard (see Setting up anonymous ticket submissions with Zendesk Support for Wordpress).
- Convert blog comments into tickets and add a public comment that can also be posted as a reply in the blog post.
- View all of the tickets in the tickets widget, which is added to the administrator dashboard.
- View details for each ticket and then open them in Zendesk Support to make updates.
- Add a contact form to the administrator dashboard so that your site users can quickly make support requests.
- Set the visibility permissions for each type of registered Wordpress site user (administrators, editors, authors, contributors, subscribers), allowing them to either see the tickets widget or the contact form.
- Add the Web Widget to your Wordpress site.
- Enable your users to sign in to Zendesk Support using single sign-on (SSO) (see Setting up single sign-on (SS0) for Wordpress Wordpress).
Installing the Zendesk Support for Wordpress plugin
The Zendesk Support for Wordpress plugin can be added to your Wordpress site just like any other plugin. Plugins are only supported in self-hosted Wordpress sites (wordpress.org), not free hosted sites on wordpress.com.
- Download the plugin at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/zendesk/.
- Log in to your Wordpress site as an administrator. Note: If you installed a beta version of the Zendesk Support for Wordpress plugin, delete it in Wordpress before installing the new version.
- In the dashboard, select Plugin > Add New.
- Select Upload.
- Click Browse to select the file you downloaded (zendesk.zip).
- Click Install Now.
- After the file is uploaded and installed, click Activate.
The next step is to configure the plugin with your account information and then select the features that you want to enable.
Configuring the plugin settings
Activating the plugin adds a new panel to the Wordpress administrator dashboard, as shown here:
You need to configure your subdomain to access Zendesk Support in Wordpress.
- Click the set up link and you'll be prompted to enter your subdomain.
- Enter your subdomain.Note: If you use host mapping, this is automatically detected when you save the account settings.
- Click Save Settings.
You will next be prompted to optionally set the visibility permissions for your registered site users, customize the contact form, allow support requests from unregistered (anonymous) users, and to add the Web Widget to your Wordpress site.
For information about allowing anonymous users to submit requests, see Setting up anonymous ticket submissions with Zendesk Support for Wordpress.
You can set these options immediately or later by selecting the Zendesk Support settings from the Zendesk Support for Wordpress panel, as shown here:
Setting the dashboard widget visibility by user type
You can add either the contact form or the Zendesk Support widget to the dashboards of the registered users (administrators, editors, authors, contributors, subscribers) of your Wordpress site. The contact form allows them to submit support requests directly from Wordpress and the ticket widget allows users who are also Zendesk Support agents to view tickets and quickly access Zendesk Support to make ticket updates. In other words, the contact form is for users who need to submit support requests and the tickets widget is for agents to manage tickets.
- When you initially set up the plugin, the settings page is displayed after you've configured Zendesk Support. You can otherwise access this page by selecting Settings from the Zendesk panel. Visibility permissions are set in the Dashboard Widget Visibility section.
- For each type of registered site user you can specify the following:
- Don't display anything
- Show a contact form
- Show the tickets widget
- Choose a visibility setting for all user types:
- Administrators
- Editors
- Authors
- Contributors
- Subscribers
- Click Save Changes.
Customizing the contact form
Using the contact form, your registered site users can submit support requests.
- Select Settings from the Zendesk Support panel.
- In the Contact Form Settings section, enter text for the form title, summary label, details label, and submit button label.
- Click Save Settings.
Adding the Web Widget to your Wordpress site
Using the Zendesk Support for Wordpress plugin, you can also easily add the Web Widget to your Wordpress site. After integrate your Wordpress site with Zendesk Support, the Web Widget code is automatically pulled into Wordpress.
- If you haven't already done so, set up Zendesk Support Web Widget (see Using Web Widget to embed customer service in your website).
- In Wordpress, select Settings from the Zendesk panel.
- Select one of the following
Web
Widget display settings:
- Do not display the Web Widget anywhere (this is the default)
- Display the Web Widget on all posts and pages
- I will decide where the Web Widget displays using a template tag
- If
you selected to use a template tag, you can then place the Web Widget where you would
like it on your site using the following template tag:
<?php if ( function_exists( 'the_zendesk_webwidget' ) ) the_zendesk_webwidget(); ?>
- Click Save Settings.
The Web Widget behaves as it would when added to any other web site. You can, for example, configure it to also allow users to chat with agents and to search your knowledge base.
Submitting a request from the dashboard
Registered site users who have been granted permission to see Zendesk Support contact form (shown above) on their dashboards, may submit support requests. These users can either be registered users in Zendesk Support or you can allow unregistered (anonymous) users to submit requests (see Setting up anonymous ticket submissions with Zendesk Support for Wordpress).
Users simply fill out the contact form and click Submit. If you've configured the plugin to allow anonymous submissions, then the requester is not prompted to sign in to Zendesk Support; an agent acts as the delegate for anonymous requests. If not, all your users must sign in before submitting requests. After a request is submitted, the requester receives the usual email notification.
Using the ticket widget
Using the tickets widget, agents can view tickets using all of the shared views in Zendesk Support.
By selecting Change View you see and can switch to any of the shared views in Zendesk Support.
By clicking on a ticket, you see summary information about the ticket and make updates.
Converting a blog post comment into a ticket
You can convert blog comments into tickets in the dashboard. Only comments that have been submitted along with an email address can be converted into a ticket. The commenter's email address is used to add them to your instance of Zendesk Support and enable follow up communication about the ticket.
- In the Wordpress administrator dashboard, select the Comments.
- Locate the comment you want to convert to a ticket and click Convert to Zendesk Ticket.
- You'll be prompted to enter a comment, which can be posted as a response in the post.
Enter your comment and then optionally select either or both of these two options:
- Make this a public comment in the ticket
- Post as a reply on this blog post
- Click Create Ticket.
All follow up on the ticket occurs within Zendesk Support.
Comments
12 comments
I've integrated my Wordpress and Zendesk accounts, and I enabled the Web Widget. When I click the button, I only see the Contact Form. I do not see the Help box first, where I can type search text and see a list of topics in Zendesk that match. I am linking to a sandbox version of Zendesk. I created a temporary Zendesk site, and when I configure my Wordpress site to work with that site, it works fine. Is there a setting in Zendesk that may be disabling the Web Widget? Thank you.
Hi Cheryl!
This sounds like you don't have the web widget configured to display Help Center articles. To turn that on, go to your Zendesk account, Admin (the cog) > Widget > Configuration.
Once there, make sure the Help Center button is switched on. Since you say you tested the same widget on a test account and it works, we may need to investigate further into what's specifically going on with your account. Feel free to open up a ticket with us if you continue to have problems!
Hi Shannon,
Thank you for the response. After some additional testing, I realized that I wasn't seeing the search results because our Zendesk site requires a login. Then I found that there is a beta version of the plugin that does support restricted sites. I sent a request for a download of the beta plugin, but I have not gotten a response yet.
Thank you!!
Hey Guys!
I am going to have my site ( https://bahargate.biz/ ) in other languages. Some of them are RTL such as Arabic and Farsi and some others are LTR.
As Enfold is a translation ready theme, could you guys let me know the steps (1- 2 – 3 …) I need to take to create my website in other languages. I’ll start with Farsi.
Thanks,
Mohammad
Hey Mohammad -
Welcome to the Zendesk Community! Here's our documentation on configuring your Help Center to support multiple languages.
Enfold is a Wordpress theme, so if your questions are specific to that, you may need to reach out to them directly. While we do offer localization (i.e. Zendesk can determine where you are in the world and serve up the proper language site) we do not provide the translation services.
Hopefully some other community members who have set up translated sites can jump in offer some help, too!
It would be really nice to have the option to add custom ticket fields to the contact form. Or, to redirect the user to the Help Center Submit a Request form instead of being stuck with the form above.
On my Wordpress site, the tickets widget on Admin cannot authenticate. I don't understand how manual authentication can be required if SSO is enabled? Notice also that there's an empty red error notification above the widget. I've deactivated all plugins...same result. I've changed themes...same result. SSO works...but this tickets widget won't authenticate. I've been communicating with Zendesk support agents for 2 days now.
Edited by Zendesk to remove screenshot with personal information in it.
Hey William!
I looked at your ticket and saw that you actually got this resolved by going to Channels > API and enabling Password Access. I'm glad you were able to get it figured out!
I'm going to go ahead and remove your screenshot, though...it's got your email address in there and we don't want anybody using it for nefarious purposes.
Let us know if you need anything else!
Hi,
I added the Zendesk plugin to my wordpress site and i am having issues logging in. When I log into zendesk directly, I use Gsuite however the plugin asks for a username and password but doesnt take my gsuite login. How can i log into the plugin since i do not have a login?
Thanks
@donny,
See below, you should be able to use a Zendesk username and password as long as you do not have this option selected. (Found under Security)
You may need to disable the gsuite to create a password? Can you then reset your password on Zendesk? Will this then allow you to log in?
Hey Andrew,
I was able to create a password but i keep getting this message when i try to log into the plugin:
"We could not authenticate you with Zendesk, please try again!"
I was able to log into zendesk with the same username and password so I am not sure what is going on. any help would be great.
Hello Donny, does it work with the Gsuite off? Or still not at all?
I havent tried this for quite a while. Are you an Admin?
Let me know - if I have a bit of spare time, I might try connecting my account to a WP install. You can contact me directly using https://bizstudio.co.nz
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