Bulk importing users

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71 Comments

  • Kristen

    Hello @... and @...! I am trying to delete the phone numbers for all 23k end_users that we have. I wrote a script to be able to iterate through users, pull their user identity id if it is a phone number, and then delete it via API. However, I'm noticing despite a status code 204, in many cases, I still see the phone number from the UI, despite it no longer being available when I've queried it via API. On other occasions, deleting the user identity does remove the phone number from the UI. This leaves me to believe that sometimes phone numbers (not yet clear when) are stored on both the phone field of the user AND as a user identity, and that deleting user identity does not actually remove it from the user. It is really hard to get clarity on how you all are actually storing the phone number. Could someone from the Zendesk team please elucidate for me how to permanently delete phone numbers and/or hide it from our agents?

    1
  • Carl McDowell
    Zendesk Customer Care

    Hi @...,

    A phone number can be stored as a direct line or a shared line. We go into some more detail here: Understanding how phone numbers are linked to end-user profiles

    However I don't think that solves the issue you are facing, and it may be worth taking this into a ticket to figure out the answer.

    I'll reach out to you from the ticket I create about your issue. Once we find the solution we can post it back here.

    1
  • Beatriz Bravo Gallardo

    Hello, 
    We used to replace all our user's tag just with the csv, is there a simple way to have the overwriting behavior using the csv? 

    0
  • Dave Dyson

    Hi Beatriz,

    Unfortunately, updating users via CSV can only append new user tags, it cannot overwrite existing user tags. See Updating existing user profile data

    In order to bulk-update the user tags of a number of users at once, you'd need to use the API: Create Or Update Many Users

    If you haven't used the API before, this introduction could be helpful: Introduction

    0
  • CJ Johnson

    What about groups? They are not mentioned. 

    1
  • CJ Johnson

    Zendesk Support tells me it's actually "impossible" to update groups using this method. If it's not impossible (which I suspect it's not), can you please update this article with some clearer instructions on how to import restrictions like groups? 

    1
  • Brett Bowser
    Zendesk Community Manager

    Hey CJ, 

    You are correct and you cannot set an agent's group via CSV bulk import. There are only two options available for updating a users group:

    • One would be to manually set the agent's group via the agent interface.
    • The other one would be to use our group memberships API endpoint, although this would involve a bit of code work on your part.

    Since this article is specifically addressing bulk importing users, I'm thinking we will want to create a separate article that discusses how someone can update group assignments in bulk outside of a CSV file.

    Appreciate you bringing this to our attention!

    -1
  • Heather Rommel
    Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Product Manager Whisperer - 2021

    Hi CJ Johnson,

    I thought I'd mention one of my favorite ways to update Agents' groups is to go to Admin -> Manage -> People and select Groups. Or go here: https://YOURDOMAIN.zendesk.com/agent/admin/people and select Groups

    Select the Group you want to update - and click edit all the way to the right of the screen. There, you can simply check the Agents you want to add to a group.

    0
  • CJ Johnson

    @...
    Maybe it would be good then, to remove all the references in this article that say you can do this? Based on the article comments this certainly used to be possible, so it's extremely confusing to have left it in. This deprecation/removal does not appear to be mentioned in any release notes either. 

    1
  • CJ Johnson

    @...

    Unfortunately, that's a non-starter. I'm not going to click 100-200 names by hand every time I need to make mass updates, one because that's really tedious, and two, because it's prone to human error. Getting a CSV import file with errors on the ones that failed for this task is highly, highly preferable, although given that it was apparently removed, and would overwrite, not append groups, previously, I'm not sure that really met my needs either. I'll likely end up spending some time writing out some API scripts to accomplish this task, though it won't be quite as nice or accessible to less technical folks. 

    2
  • CJ Johnson

    This article is *still* outdated and claims you can update groups using the import. 

    1
  • Dave Dyson

    Hi CJ –

    Thanks for your feedback here, we've adjusted the text about on groups in agent restrictions above, and removed Devan's response from last year. Hopefully that will make things more clear (and provide some guidance on how you can add agents to groups).

    0
  • Mark Molloy

    I am attempting my first bulk import of end-user data. The organization and some end-users exist. The original bulk edit was done b/4 I arrived on the scene and the person is long retired.

    Here are my questions:

    Do the CSV fields have to be in the order listed in this article or just be present somewhere in the CSV?

    Can the header row have initial caps or must it be in lowercase?

    To allay my manager's concern: The import will affect only the organizations and users in the CSV file, correct?

    0
  • Sonny
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hi Mark, 
     
    Thank you for contacting Zendesk!
     
    We have tested this and it looks like the order of the columns doesn't matter, specifically, when we switched the Notes and email columns and didn't have any issues with the import. So as long as the required columns are included, it doesn't look like it'll matter the order of the columns.
     
    Additionally, our Notes column had a capitalized "n" in "Notes" and that didn't affect anything either. So that could mean the headers can have capitalization :)
     
    For the third question, the answer is yes, the import of the organizations and users should only affect those listed in the file. This is assuming you're importing NEW data and not updating data. So for example, if you already have 100 users and 5 organizations, importing 5 new users won't have and affect on the existing 100. If you update the 5 existing organizations however, then this may affect any linked users that were linked to those existing orgs that were then updated. 
     
    Hope this answers your questions! Let me know if you'd like clarification on any of the above information. 
    1
  • Mark Molloy

    Sonny,

    Thank you and Happy New Year! 

    Mark

    0
  • info

    Seriously,

    Please update your guys support. I spent over 20 minutes following the bottom and to do this, it was under settings - then customers. Not what this says below.

     

    To prevent the welcome email message being sent to users

    1. In Admin Center, click the People icon () in the sidebar, then select Configuration > End users
    1
  • Mark Molloy

    Thanks for the info.

    0
  • Danielle

    Hi Zendesk,

    I uploaded a CSV to add end-users and it was uploaded successfully.

    Part of the CSV was the phone numbers- added the international prefix, but when going through the users it looks like the number wasn't added.

    What could be the problem?

    0
  • Orlando C

    Hi Danielle

    I created a ticket for your use case so we can further investigate your issue. Please check your email and we can start working on this together. Thank you!

    0
  • Diego Fusetto

    Hi

    Is it possibile update tickets fields in the same way ?

    0
  • Irena K

    Hi,

    We're planning to switch to Zendesk from another customer support tool. What is the best way to import all customer conversations? I don't think the bulk import would work for this...

    Thanks! 

    0
  • Dane
    Zendesk Engineering
    Hi Diego,
     
    The best option to update bulk tickets were indicated in Managing tickets in bulk
     
    @Irena,
     
    Thank you for considering using Zendesk. Migrating information to Zendesk needs a lot of preparation. We have all the options for migration in How can I migrate information from another platform into Zendesk? We also have our Zendesk Partners to help you with the entire migration process.
     
    Hope this helps!

     

    1
  • Steve Bramblet

    Hi there - we are using bulk import to import a user attached to multiple companies.
    We have Enterprise version of Zendesk.
    However when using bulk import it's giving this error:

    Multiple organizations were provided. Only one or none is accepted.

    From what I can tell the file is formatted correctly?

    1
  • Brett Bowser
    Zendesk Community Manager
    Hey Steve,

    We will most likely need to take a look at the file you're referencing to see what is happening here.

    Can you try contacting our Customer Care team via the method shared in this article: Contacting Zendesk Customer Support
     
    Let me know if you have any other questions in the meantime!
     
    0
  • François Bellavance

    Hi,

    I am updating users with new emails because we changed domain name and it's working lik a charm. What about usernames with letters like é, à, ça inside? I have a user named Gaétan in our tests. How can I parse him in the CSV file?

    0
  • François Bellavance

    Oh and each have now a new email adress. currently it's @csdps.qc.ca their primary. How can I make the new @cssps.gouv.qc.ca as the primary? Even if it's first in the list, it only adds it as secondary.

    0
  • mfg

    If I import users' emails with the domain of an existing organization, will they automatically be assigned to that org? (It would be helpful to have a note about this included above.)

    0
  • François Bellavance

    Is there a way to export all the users and modify the file for reimport? We are changing our domain name this weekend, I don't want to change all emails manually.

    0
  • Gab Guinto
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hi François,
     
    I'm afraid there's no native option for exporting a CSV file of all end users unless you have the have the Legacy add-on Customer Lists. You can check out this comment by one of our Community Manager in another thread about the available export options for user data. You may export the data in JSON or XML and convert the data to CSV, and then edit the CSV file to match the sample CSV for user import.
    0
  • Gab Guinto
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hi Dan,
     
    For updating users, the identifier is email. If you have an external_id for your users, then you can also use that as identifier.
    1

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