Setting up your Facebook channel

Fastpath: Admin > Channels > Facebook

Note: You must have a Zendesk Support Team, Professional, or Enterprise plan in order to purchase the Social Messaging add-on. The Zendesk Support Suite includes the Social Messaging add-on at no additional cost. For more information, see About Zendesk product add-ons.

All Zendesk customers on all Support plan types can add at least one Facebook account to Zendesk Support, so that public messages like Facebook Wall posts and comments will become tickets. Your agents will be able to see and respond to these tickets from the Support interface, just like any other ticket.

If you have the Social Messaging add-on, however, or if you have been grandfathered, you can add multiple Facebook accounts, instead of just one. You will also be able to receive private messages sent through Facebook Messenger from those accounts. To learn more about the specific limits for your account, scroll down and read Facebook page limits with Support.

Note: You must have the Social Messaging add-on or a grandfathered account to send and receive private messages through Facebook Messenger.

You must be an administrator to add a Facebook account to Support.

This article includes these sections:

• Facebook page limits with Support
• How the Facebook channel works
• Public messaging with Facebook
• Private messaging with Facebook
• Setting up the Facebook channel
• Editing your Facebook channel
• Adding another Facebook Page
• Managing Facebook tickets with business rules
• Troubleshooting

Related articles:

• Installing and setting up the Social Messaging add-on
• Using social messaging channels (Social Messaging add-on)

Facebook page limits with Support

The number of Facebook accounts that you can add to your Support account, and whether private is supported, depends on whether you have the Social Messaging add-on or a grandfathered account. For example, if you want to add more than one Facebook account, or receive private messages sent through Facebook Messenger, you may need to buy the Social Messaging add-on.

If you don't have the Social Messaging add-on, you can still use Facebook with Support, but you can only add one Facebook account, and only public messaging is supported (for example, Facebook Wall posts).

Note the following limits:

• With the Social Messaging add-on: You are allowed to have 15 Facebook Pages. Both public and private messaging (for example, with Facebook Messenger) are supported.

• Support without the Social Messaging add-on: You are allowed to have one Facebook Page. Only public messaging is supported. Private messages are not supported.

  Note: If you were a customer as of January 31, 2020 with an existing Facebook integration, you are currently allowed to add up to 15 Facebook Pages, and both public and private messaging are supported.

For information about what type of Support plans you need have in order to buy the Social Messaging add-on, and what Suite plans include the Social Messaging add-on, see About Zendesk product add-ons.

How the Facebook channel works

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. To learn more about the differences, see this Facebook article. You can create and manage a Facebook Page from your personal account.

After you add a Facebook account to Support, Support monitors messaging activity on the Facebook account. Each new Wall post (a public message) on the Facebook account becomes a ticket in Support. With some plans, private messages sent to the Facebook account through Facebook Messenger will also become tickets.

Facebook limits how Pages can communicate publicly and privately with users. For example, if you receive a ticket from a Wall post, when you reply in the ticket, your response is added as a comment to that Wall post. If you receive a ticket from a private message, when you reply in the ticket, your response is 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.

If the posting user is not already a user in your account, they becomes a new user in your account. 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.

You can't add attachments to public replies in Facebook tickets, including replies to posts, comments, and direct messages.

Public messaging with Facebook

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 Support can respond to a Wall post by adding a public comment to the ticket in 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 Support agent interface.

Here's the corresponding ticket in the agent interface:

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

Private messaging with Facebook

If your account supports private messaging, private messages that are sent to your Facebook Pages through Facebook Messenger 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 Send Message button on the Facebook Page to send a private message.

If you aren't sure whether your account supports private messaging, see Facebook page limits with Support.

Setting up the Facebook channel

To set up your Facebook channel to monitor a Facebook account

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 Facebook Pages from your Support 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 these 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.