Setting up your Facebook channel

The Zendesk Facebook channel lets customers make support requests using Facebook. It also lets your agents see and respond to customer Wall posts and comments from within your Zendesk.

The Facebook channel supports Facebook Pages, which are different from personal timelines. Facebook Pages help businesses, organizations, and brands share their stories and connect with people. See this Facebook article to learn more about the differences. You can create and manage a Facebook Page from your personal account.

You can add up to fifteen Facebook Pages to the Facebook channel. You have to be an administrator or have appropriate role permissions to set up the Facebook channel in Zendesk.

Topics covered in this article:

• How the Facebook channel works
• Setting up the Facebook channel
• Editing your Facebook channel
• Adding another Facebook Page
• Managing Facebook tickets with business rules
• Troubleshooting

You can also watch this short video.

Setting Up the Facebook Channel (01:19)

Tip: Fine Tuning: Learn how to maximize social media support with Lisa Muccigrosso's Fine tuning: How to provide great support through social media.

How the Facebook channel works

After setting up your Facebook channel, your Zendesk monitors your organization's Facebook Page. Every new Wall post or direct message automatically becomes a Zendesk Support ticket. If the posting user is not already a user in your Zendesk, he or she becomes a new user in your Zendesk. If your channel has multiple Facebook pages and a new user posts on more than one page, a separate user account is created for each page on which that user posts.

When you, or an end-user posts to your wall, a ticket is created and the following happens:

• For standard wall posts, only comments received in the first week after the post will be added to the ticket
• Comments received after the first week are not added to the ticket and no new ticket is created
• If you post an ad to your wall, a ticket is created. Comments are recorded in the ticket for one year after the posting. However, if you close the ticket, comments will no longer be recorded

If you would like comments to be added as new tickets, you can enable the Comments as Tickets feature under Admin > Channels > Facebook > Edit. Replies to that comment are then added to the created ticket.

An agent working in Zendesk can respond to a Wall post by adding a public comment to the ticket in Zendesk Support. The agent's response is added as a comment to the Facebook post. In the following Wall post, for example, an agent answered the user's question in the Zendesk Support agent interface.

Here's the corresponding ticket in the agent interface:

You can set up a view in your Zendesk to see all your Facebook tickets in one place.

In addition to automatically converting Wall posts to tickets, you can set up your Facebook channel so that private messages sent to the Facebook Page become tickets. This means that a user can ask a private question, and an agent can have a one-on-one conversation with the user. Users click the Message button on your Facebook Page to send a private message.

Facebook limits how Pages can communicate publicly and privately with users. So, if you receive a ticket from a Wall post, when you reply in the ticket, your response will be added as a comment to that Wall post. And if you receive a ticket from a private message, when you reply in the ticket, your response will be a private message. You cannot respond to a Wall post with a private message in the ticket. And likewise, you cannot respond to a private message with a Wall post in the ticket.

Note: Attachments cannot be added to public replies in Facebook tickets, including replies to posts, comments, and direct messages.

Setting up the Facebook channel

To set up your Facebook channel to monitor a Facebook page

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Channels > Facebook.
2. Click the Add your first Facebook Page link. If you already have a Facebook page, click Add
3. Enter your Facebook credentials, if you are not already logged in.
4. When asked, be sure you grant Zendesk access to your account.
5. In the Add Facebook Pages to your account window, locate the page you want to add, and select the permissions you want to include:

   

6. Click Add for the Facebook Page you'd like to link to your Zendesk.
7. If you have multiple Facebook Pages, click Add for another Facebook Page or close the window.

   The Facebook Page you added appears on your Facebook Channel page. You can edit the settings now, if you'd like. By default, any Wall post is converted to a ticket, including those by the page owner.

Editing your Facebook channel

To edit your Facebook channel settings for Wall posts, ads, and private messages

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Channels > Facebook.
2. Click Edit beside the Facebook Page you'd like to edit settings for.
3. In the Include Wall posts section, select No if you don't want Wall posts automatically converted to tickets. Otherwise, leave it as is.
4. Select Comments on a post are added to the same ticket to add responses on Wall posts as replies to the Wall post's ticket.
5. Select Comments on a post create new tickets to add responses on Wall posts as new tickets.
6. Select Include hidden posts to review posts that haven't been approved by the page as tickets in Zendesk Support.
7. Deselect Include Wall posts authored by the Page if you don't want posts by the Facebook Page owner converted to tickets.
8. Select Include unpublished posts to review unpublished posts (also known as dark posts) as tickets in Zendesk Support. This will also allow Facebook ads to convert to tickets.
9. In the Include private messages section, select Yes if you want private messages converted to tickets.
10. Click Update Page settings.
    Note: If you don't see the Message button on your Facebook Page, you need to enable it. In your Facebook Page, select Manage > Edit Page, then select Show Message button and click Save Changes.

Adding another Facebook Page

You can monitor up to 15 Facebook Pages from your Zendesk account. Keep in mind that there are still limits that Facebook places on traffic from external sources, so it is possible that your account might make too many requests. This has more to do with how many posts and messages you retrieve than how many pages you enable. Also, keep in mind that if a new user posts on more than one page, a separate user account is created for each page on which that user posts.

To add another Facebook Page to your Facebook channel

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Channels > Facebook.
2. Click Add new Page.
3. Enter your Facebook credentials, if you are not already logged in.
4. In the Add Facebook Pages dialog box, select Import recent activity if you want to create tickets from existing messages or posts. Zendesk will import the last week of activity (up to 250 tickets).
5. Click Add beside the Page you'd like to add.

   The Facebook Page appears in Facebook Channel page.

Managing Facebook tickets with business rules

Just like with tickets from other Zendesk channels, you can set up business rules, like views, automations, and triggers, to manage your Facebook tickets. In addition to the actions and conditions available for all tickets, there are a few Facebook-specific options you can use:

• Ticket: Channel values:
  • Facebook Post returns tickets created from posts.
  • Facebook Private Message returns tickets created from private messages.
• Ticket: Integration account lets you pick a specific Facebook account if you’ve added more than one. This condition also has options for Twitter and channel integrations like Google Play.

For general information about setting up business rules, see the following articles:

• Creating and managing triggers
• Streamlining workflow with time-based events and automations
• Using views to manage ticket workflow

Troubleshooting

If you need help fixing a problem with your Facebook channel, see Troubleshooting issues with your Facebook channel.