Salesforce: Choosing Zendesk for Salesforce features

After you've installed the Zendesk for Salesforce app you can choose the functionality you'd like to set up. The integration is designed so that you can choose the features you need and skip the ones you don't.

Note: If you have not installed the Zendesk for Salesforce app you must do that before you can set up any of the features described here. See Installing the Zendesk for Salesforce app Installing the Zendesk for Salesforce app in Salesforce.

This article describes the common use cases for the functionality you can use when you integrate with Salesforce. After you get a better understanding of the features, you can configure the ones that make sense for you.

This article covers the following topics:

• View Salesforce data in Zendesk
• View Zendesk tickets in Salesforce
• Create and edit Zendesk tickets in Salesforce
• Salesforce Account to Zendesk organization ongoing sync
• Salesforce Contact/Lead to Zendesk user sync

View Salesforce data in Zendesk

A lot of Zendesk customers want to expose additional information about their users in a Zendesk ticket. This enables agents to see user information at a glance in the apps panel of a Zendesk ticket. User information might include subscription level, whether a particular account has an open opportunity, or additional customer notes. You can configure the Salesforce information that is exposed in Zendesk.

To configure Salesforce data in Zendesk, see Installing and configuring the app in Zendesk.

View Zendesk tickets in Salesforce

Let's face it—your Sales reps live in Salesforce, but they want to know whether their Accounts have open tickets in Zendesk. These days the line between sales and support is very thin. The integration provides a couple of different options for exposing Zendesk data in Salesforce depending on your needs.

You only need to configure one of these two options. Read through the advantages and disadvantages of each before you decide.

Option 1: Send Zendesk tickets into Salesforce

This is the most powerful of the two options for viewing Zendesk data in Salesforce.

This option uses the Zendesk Ticket custom object in Salesforce and creates new records that match tickets in your Zendesk. The ticket requester is automatically matched to a Contact, and the ticket’s organization is automatically matched to an Account. This enables you to easily see tickets from the Contact and Account pages.

This also enables you to use Salesforce reports to report on Zendesk data and to report across Zendesk and Salesforce data. This is especially powerful if you are on the Enterprise edition of Salesforce. You can also create custom workflows based on this data.

If you are concerned about running up against storage limits in Salesforce, however, this might not be the best option for you. This option also shows only new tickets going forward; there is no way to import closed tickets.

To send Zendesk tickets into Salesforce, see Setting up sending Zendesk tickets into Salesforce.

Option 2: View Zendesk tickets using Account, Contact, and Lead Visualforce Pages

This option queries Zendesk in real time from the Account, Contact, Lead, and Opportunity pages, and does not send any Zendesk data into Salesforce. Instead of automatically matching Contacts with requesters and Accounts with organizations, this option enables you to choose the matching scheme with which to find and display tickets.

This might be a better option for Zendesk customers whose Accounts do not exactly match Zendesk organizations, or customers who do not use organizations at all in Zendesk.

You cannot create custom workflows or reports based on Zendesk data with this option.

To configure Zendesk ticket information in Visualforce pages, see Adding ticket view to your Account, Contact, Lead, and Opportunity layouts.

Create and edit Zendesk tickets in Salesforce

If you configured viewing Zendesk tickets in Salesforce (either option 1 or 2 above), your Sales reps also have the ability to create and edit Zendesk tickets from Salesforce.

This means Sales reps can actively engage in tickets with their customers (or create a ticket on behalf of a customer) without ever leaving Salesforce.

To configure the ability to create and edit Zendesk tickets in Salesforce, see the section "Creating and updating tickets in Salesforce" in Adding ticket view to your Account, Contact, Lead, and Opportunity layouts.

Salesforce Account to Zendesk organization ongoing sync

This is a one-way sync from Salesforce to Zendesk that keeps organizations in sync with your Accounts.

Many customers store valuable information about the companies they do business with in Salesforce, such as subscriptions, support level entitlements, or even locations. By enabling this sync, you can add this information into your Zendesk organizations to help drive workflows. For example, if you want a trigger to automatically reassign tickets from companies with “Gold” service entitlement to a different group, you might want to enable this sync.

There are some limitations to the sync. The integration matches Accounts to organizations one-for-one, based on name, and expects all Accounts to have a unique name. However, not all Salesforce implementations adhere to those rules. So if you have Accounts with duplicate names, this might not be the right feature for you. Also, the integration does not support Parent Accounts, so all Accounts will be treated as organizations in Zendesk.

You can filter the Accounts that are synced into Zendesk based on record type or an Account drop-down of your choosing.

Note: This is an advanced feature. New Salesforce installations or smaller Salesforce organizations with clean data can go ahead and give it a try. However, for more complex Salesforce organizations, we highly recommend that you contact your Zendesk account manager to determine whether this feature is right for you and to get implementation assistance.

To configure Account to organization syncing, see Configuring user and organization syncing in Salesforce.

Salesforce Contact/Lead to Zendesk user sync

This is a one-way sync from Salesforce to Zendesk that keeps users in sync with your Contacts and Leads.

Many customers store valuable information about the people they do business with in Salesforce, such as VIP flags. By enabling this sync, you can add this information into your Zendesk users to help drive workflow. For example, if you want a trigger to automatically increase the priority of tickets from users marked as VIP, you might want to enable this sync.

There are some limitations to the sync. The integration matches Contacts/Leads to users one-for-one based on email address, and expects all Contacts/Leads to have a unique email address. However, not all Salesforce implementations adhere to those rules. So if you have multiple Contacts that share the same email address (for example, [e-mail]), this might not be the right feature for you. Also, the integration does not support Person Accounts; these are treated as organizations in Zendesk rather than users.

You can filter the Contacts and Leads that are synced into Zendesk based on record type or an Contact/Lead drop-down of your choosing.

Note: This is an advanced feature. New Salesforce installations and smaller Salesforce organizations with clean data can go ahead and give it a try. However, for more complex Salesforce organizations, we highly recommend that you contact your Zendesk account manager to determine whether this feature is right for you and to get implementation assistance.

To configure Contact/Lead to user syncing, see Configuring user and organization syncing in Salesforce.