You can enable Zendesk to send all ticket information (for tickets with the status New, Open, On-Hold, or Solved) to Salesforce using a target. This is useful for including Zendesk tickets in support analytics generated through the Salesforce reporting module.
If you want to see Zendesk ticket information without sending the ticket information into Salesforce, you can add a Visualforce page with a list of tickets. For information, see Adding ticket view to your Salesforce Account, Contact, Lead, and Opportunity layouts.
The following video explains how to view and send Zendesk Support tickets to Salesforce.
To read about other Zendesk for Salesforce features, see Choosing Zendesk for Salesforce features.
For links to all of our Salesforce documentation, see Salesforce integration resources.
Setting the matching criteria for ticket requester and ticket organization
To enable auto-matching for ticket sending
- In the section Ticket association to Salesforce records, click to select Use auto-matching criteria for searching Salesforce records.
This ensures that both Lead and Contact records in Salesforce will be searched for a matching requester in Zendesk. Users can set up to three criteria for searching (OR logical condition will be used when more than one criteria is set). If you do not check this option, the default criteria will be used:
-
Organization Name (in Zendesk) will match with Account Name (in Salesforce)
-
Requester Email (in Zendesk) will match with Contact/Lead Email (in Salesforce)
-
- If no existing record is found for the match, you may opt to create new records for the ticket’s requester and organization. To do this, click to select Create Contacts or Leads and Accounts.
- Next, use the Create requester as drop-down to choose whether to create the Requester as Contact or Lead:
- Created Contact records can be associated to a default Account by setting the Default Account setting:
All changes are automatically saved.
Editing your target and trigger in Zendesk
When you installed the Salesforce app in Zendesk, Zendesk automatically created a Salesforce target that you will use to send information to Salesforce.
Zendesk also automatically created a trigger named Create a record in Salesforce when ticket is solved in your Zendesk. As the name implies, this trigger creates a new Salesforce Zendesk ticket whenever a ticket is solved.
To modify your Salesforce target
- In Zendesk, click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Settings > Extensions.
- Under the Targets tab, locate the Salesforce target extension, and click Edit.
- Use the drop-down menu to select Send full ticket details as a custom object.
- Click Submit.
- In Zendesk, click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Business Rules > Triggers.
- Find the new trigger, Create a record in Salesforce when ticket is solved, and click the trigger name to edit it.
- Modify the conditions of this trigger as needed, then click Save.
Now when you solve a ticket, a Salesforce Zendesk ticket is created in your Salesforce organization.
Customizing the Zendesk ticket in Salesforce
- Zendesk Ticket ID
- Status
- Subject
- Priority
- Requester
- Organization name
- Group
- Assignee
- Tags
- Description
- Comments
- Date/Time created
- Date/Time update
- Date/Time solved
- Date/Time initially assigned
- Resolution time (calendar & business)
- Requester wait time (calendar & business)
- Agent wait time (calendar & business)
- Hold time (calendar & business)
- Reply time (calendar & business)
- Form id
- Brand
The Salesforce target also sends all data from custom fields into Salesforce. To take advantage of this feature, you need to expose custom data on the Zendesk Ticket option by completing some steps for each custom field.
- In Salesforce, go to the Administration Setup page.
- In the left panel, under Build, select Create > Objects.
- Click the Zendesk Ticket object (not Edit).
- In the Custom Fields & Relationships section, click New.
- Select a Data Type for your new field, then click Next.
In most cases, Text, Text Area, or Number is appropriate. For Zendesk drop-down fields, a Text field is sufficient. Only the selected value will be synced, not all the options in the list.
- Enter a Field Label.
Matching the Field Label to the Zendesk Custom Field Name is preferred, but not required.
- Complete the other mandatory fields, then click Next.
- Click Next again, then click Save.
- Click the Zendesk tab in the Zendesk for Salesforce app.
- In the Ticket Sending to Salesforce section, click Get Custom Ticket Fields.
A list of custom fields from your Zendesk account appears. Note: You must have already created custom fields in Zendesk.
- Deselect the Create Contacts and Accounts in Salesforce checkbox if you do not want to create a new Contact or Account in Salesforce when no match is found for the ticket's requester or organization.
By default, when Zendesk sends ticket information to Salesforce, if an exact email match is not found between the ticket requester and a Contact (not a lead) a new Contact is created in Salesforce. Likewise, if an exact email match is not found between the organization and an Account, a new Account is created in Salesforce.
- If you opt to create new Contacts for unmatched ticket requesters, you can enter an existing Account as the Default Account for new Contacts if no organization is present in Zendesk. You can also click the Account lookup icon to set the default Account.
Setting a default Account will prevent orphaned Accounts from being created.
- Map your custom Zendesk field to the new field you created on the Salesforce Zendesk Ticket object.
- Click Save.
When a ticket is sent into Salesforce via the target in Zendesk, your custom field data will automatically populate according to these mappings.
Editing from the Zendesk Ticket object
While tickets are synced in either direction between Zendesk and Salesforce, the Zendesk Ticket objects are only synced one-way: from Zendesk to Salesforce. Making changes directly to the Zendesk Ticket object will not update information in Zendesk.
You can, however, access and edit the ticket from Salesforce by clicking "edit ticket details." Your changes will be saved directly in Zendesk.
- In Salesforce, open a Zendesk Ticket record, then click Personal Settings.
- In the Authentication section, enter your Zendesk login and password, then click Save.
Note: You must be an Agent or a Light Agent in Zendesk to edit tickets. Light Agents are limited to adding private comments in tickets.
- In the Zendesk Ticket record, click Edit Ticket Details.
- Click Edit.
Alternatively, click New if you want to create a new ticket in Zendesk.Note: You cannot edit Closed tickets.
- Make any changes you'd like, then click Save.
You are redirected to the Zendesk Ticket.
65 Comments
I created two new date field in Zendesk, however i cannot get them to sync to SF. I have created them in SF and have them on the page layout, however the data does not sync over. I have two fields so i tried one as a DAte and one as a Date/Time and neither are working. Next steps?
Hi Ben! You can configure Salesforce to show Zendesk ticket data on a Visualforce page. If you do that, then custom date fields should be displayed correctly on the ticket. Unfortunately, syncing a Zendesk date field with a Salesforce field or ticket object is not supported at this time.
Hello! My company is looking into setting up integration with Salesforce, but we use Zendesk as our primary support platform and we'd prefer to deal with tickets there. Is there a way to export tickets from Salesforce into Zendesk, instead of the other way around?
Hello Alice!
Unfortunately there is no way to sync ticket data from Salesforce to Zendesk via the integration at this time. That being said you could look at exporting the ticket data from salesforce, and then you could use the Zendesk API to import the data back into your Zendesk account.
You can find more about our ticketing API at the link below.
https://developer.zendesk.com/rest_api/docs/core/introduction
I'm in the midst of setting up the portion of this integration that will create Accounts and Contacts in Salesforce when Zendesk passes it a ticket that does not have an Account with a matching name and/or a Contact with a matching email address. However, I would like to keep a VERY CLOSE EYE on the Accounts and Contacts that are getting created in Salesforce. Is there any information that gets stamped on the Salesforce record that indicates that it came from this integration? (I could probably just look for records where my Salesforce user is the creator, since I did the oauth, but I'd prefer to use a way that's more reliable throughout the future for us to audit these records that are getting created.)
Hi Ben,
I only have one Zendesk option in Salesforce - and it is only called Zendesk - I am not sure What I am missing to get the 3 options.
Hi Ben and Alice,
We support out of the box integration from Salesforce and Zendesk. You can visit our product OIM (OpsHub Integration Manager) in the Zendesk marketplace. https://www.zendesk.com/apps/opshub-integration-manager-oim/.
- Simple mapping of custom fields and data syncing.
- Syncing of entities from Zendesk to Salesforce and vice a versa(Bidirectional).
- Support of comments and attachment syncs.
- History Supported.
- No special API configuration
We also provide many other features. To explore the features you can reach out to us for your custom demo here : http://www.opshub.com/demo-request/
Thanks
OpsHub
Is there any way that we can match a Zendesk Organisation to a Salesforce Account via a custom mapping? Our Accounts in SFDC do not match Zendesk, but we would still like to send ticket data, not just view it via visualforce. I would envisage support entering the Account ID from Salesforce into a custom Zendesk field for mapping purposes.
We need the tickets themselves so that we can use salesforce for reporting and output information using a document generation tool.
Thanks
Hi CI27,
To understand your problem statement, a ticket should be synced according to the organization of Zendesk mapped with the account of Salesforce, and support will add the Account Id in custom field while creating a new Zendesk ticket.
It is possible by OIM (Opshub Integration Manager) to sync the ticket data though the Salesforce account and Zendesk Organization are different.
You can reach out to us here and we can discuss the use case in detail and display a demo
Thanks
Opshub Support
@CI27
Yes, that's possible.
You can use the new Bulk Sync feature to sync organizations and users between Zendesk and Salesforce. It has flexible matching criteria, so you can match on whatever field you like (up to free criteria). Once synced, a Salesforce ID will be placed on objects in Zendesk.
So the next time a ticket is sent from Zendesk to Salesforce, that Salesforce ID will be used to determine the account against which to log the ticket in Salesforce.
You can find more information about Bulk Sync here.
The very first step here says there will be a new trigger called "Create a record in Salesforce when ticket is solved," and I do not have that? I have followed all the instructions up to this point.
What am I missing?
Hello Mike,
When connecting to Salesforce the trigger is created but by default it's set to Inactive. When you get a moment go to the admin section (gear icon)>business rules> triggers and check the inactive tab. (kindly see the image below)
If the trigger is there, you can activate it by hovering over the trigger title and clicking the three dot icon to the right, then click activate.
If the trigger is not there, please let me know and we can take this into a ticket for further investigation.
Hi, I am new to Zendesk, I would like to review the current configure between SFDC and ZD, our current pattern is user create new organisation in ZD which we never sync to SFDC before, and I would like to sync Organization to Account. Here I have some questions:-
1. we manual create organisation in ZD, but we are using customer code instead of account name, in this case, should I use the bulk sync to update the organisation (map to Account Name in SFDC).
2, once the organisation name update, and enable update to "Accounts - organisation" , will those organisation on-going sync with SFDC?
Hello, I am facing lill problem in finding App Setup option in left panel as shown in this documentation:
Here is my screen :
And when I click on "Manage App" option as shown in this picture:
It still does not have an option of Zendesk ticket as shown in this documentation.
Hi Atul!
Hopefully this isn't a silly question...did you check the drop-down menu under your name in the upper right corner of the screen?
I ask because in the screenshots Erin accessed the setup menu through the dropdown on her name.
Let us know if you don't see the setup option there and we'll dig deeper!
Hi,
I am trying to get Zendesk Tickets into Salesforce. I have followed these directions and tried adjusting the active trigger, but I am still not having success. I actually got one ticket to go over, and I have no clue what made that one different from the others. I want all the tickets to integrate to Salesforce. Am I missing something?
Jenny
Welcome to the Community, Jennifer!
My first thought is that the tickets that didn't get sent over have an attribute that prevents the trigger from firing, whereas the one that did get sent did not have that same attribute. But that's just an educated guess...I'll see if I can get somebody more knowledgable about Salesforce to weigh in.
You mention "When Zendesk sends ticket information to Salesforce, if an exact email match is not found between the ticket requester and a Contact (not a lead), you can automatically create a new Contact in Salesforce, if you want. If you opt to create new Contacts for unmatched ticket requesters, you can also set a default Account for those new Contacts."
However I can't seem to find any instructions for how to turn on this feature - please could you help!
Hi Scott
That feature can be enabled within the General settings for the integration as shown below:
If you leave the Default Account blank, it should create a new Account based on the Organization from Zendesk.
Please let us know if this helps to answer your question!
Under the section for Editing your target and trigger in Zendesk I see step 4. Use the Ticket Information drop-down menu to select Send full ticket details as a custom option.
What/where is the Ticket Information drop-down menu? What screen is this located on?
Hey Katherine!
It looks like Yuri created a ticket for you about this. Let us know if you need anything else!
Is there anyway to send attachments to Salesforce as well? Ideally this could include files attached in end-users' emails, as well as attachments added by agents. thanks.
Hey Ping -
Zendesk will let you make those attachments, but unfortunately they do not show up in Salesforce. So, no, there's not currently a way to send attachments to Salesforce.
Hi Nicole,
Thanks for your reply. I've created a ticket on the topic for more information, especially if it's possible to obtain the links to attachments, which are not available on tickets created in Salesforce by Zendesk. If this is not feasible either, I will have to look into the possibility of fetching the links through Zendesk API calls from Salesforce triggers and classes.
Thanks.
Hey Ping -
Sounds like a good plan. Let us know if there's anything else we can help with!
Hi, I followed all the instructions, step by step and finished the configuration, however there are no tickets being logged into SF. Where should they normally be seen and how can I know what's wrong?
My settings look exactly as the settings explained above, so I have no idea why this is not working...
Hi Valentina,
I'm a member of our support team and I'd like to help you troubleshoot this within a ticket. I'll be reaching out to you shortly therein.
Thanks for letting us know you're having difficulties!
Hi,
I have completed whole setup and my trigger is working fine sending all the tickets getting close to Salesforce as per my condition.
I would like help in sending archive tickets which already exists in Zendesk and are closed before trigger was created.
I do have Automation created to send ticket whose status is closed and does not contain customTag (My current trigger add custom Tag to tickets sent over to Salesforce so it doesn't go in a loop for automation). But i haven't seen any archive ticket coming to Salesforce using Automation rule. Any help is grateful.
Thanks,
Hi Saizad,
I'm afraid I don't know of any native way to re-send that ticket object over to Salesforce from within Zendesk once they've reached the archived status. Per our documentation on ticket archiving, rules (which include Triggers & Automations) do not act on archived tickets.
If your account is on the Professional/Enterprise plan levels, it should be possible to export those tickets and import them into Salesforce using a tool such as DataLoader, or leverage our API to do something similar. The specifics of that import process are outside what we're able to help with, but perhaps someone in our Community has found a good workaround for this.
Hopefully this helps get you closer to a viable solution!
Hi, I'm relatively new to Zendesk and would like my associates to have the option to send some of their tickets to SF. Is that an option or is it all or nothing? I appreciate the insight!
Thanks,
Kathy
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