You can import email from one or more Gmail inboxes and automatically convert email messages to tickets. Zendesk Support will check for new email in your Gmail inbox every minute. Only new, unread email messages in the inbox will be converted into tickets.
All ticket notifications will be sent from your Gmail, using Google mail servers instead of Zendesk mail servers. This means that you do not need to set up SPF or DKIM to authorize Zendesk Support to send email on your behalf, because the email is sent directly from your Gmail account. All notifications will be in your Sent folder in your Gmail.
You can connect to multiple Gmail accounts. When you do, each Gmail address is automatically added as a support address. You do not need to manually add it. When you set up the connection you can chose to import the last 50 emails or not import any pre-existing emails.
Before you connect to your Gmail account, make sure you sign in to the Gmail account you want to connect to. If you sign in to a different Gmail account in the same browser as your instance of Zendesk Support, you will connect to the wrong account.
This article includes these topics:
About Google sending limits
Google limits daily sending to 500 messages for Gmail or 2000 for Google Apps. Unless you're a small business with low traffic, we recommend Google Apps for this integration. Check Google's support site for additional information.
If you approach the limit, based on the number of email notifications sent through your Gmail, you will receive a warning, and notifications will temporarily be sent from Zendesk mail servers instead of Google mail servers. If you continue to have this issue, you should consider deselecting the Send email via Gmail option and setting up forwarding and an SPF record to send notifications from Zendesk mail servers. Deselecting this option will make the Zendesk verification code you need to set up SPF visible. See Forwarding incoming email to Zendesk Support.
Connecting to your Gmail account
You can link one or more Gmail accounts. When you do, all new, unread email messages in the inbox are imported and converted to tickets.
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Channels > Email. - In the Support addresses section, click Add address, then select Connect external address.
- If requested, sign in to your Gmail account.
If you don't want to import any pre-existing emails as tickets, then deselect Create tickets from last 50 emails.
When this option is selected, the last 50 emails, regardless of read/unread status, will be imported as tickets. When it is not selected, no pre-existing emails will be imported as tickets.
- Click Sign in with Google.
- Follow the on-screen prompts to connect to your Gmail account.
- Click Finish.
Your Zendesk Support is connected to your Gmail account. Zendesk Support will check for new email in your Gmail inbox every minute and convert email messages to tickets. Ticket notifications will be sent from your Gmail.
If you want to connect to multiple accounts, repeat these steps.
Managing Gmail connections
You can disconnect a Gmail inbox at any time if you want to stop importing email from that inbox.
To disconnect a Gmail account
- On the Channels > Email page, locate the Gmail account in the Support addresses section.
- Hover over the address, and click Disconnect.
- Confirm you want to delete the connection by clicking Delete address.
If your Gmail account entry in the Support addresses section displays a warning saying it has been disconnected, you can reestablish the connection.
When you reconnect, any emails that already been imported will not imported again as duplicate tickets.
To reconnect a disabled Gmail account
- On the Channels > Email page, locate the Gmail account in the Support addresses section.
- Click connected to Google Mail, then click Reconnect.
If the Gmail account has disappeared from the Support addresses list, reconnect it using the instructions in Connecting to your Gmail account, above.
38 Comments
Hi guys,
I've connected my hello@company.com gmail account to Zendesk. I have not yet been able to set up an SPF although I will try to do this in due course. For now I was am trying out the functionality but I've got a query.
I sent an external test e-mail from test@company.com to hello@company.com and a ticket was created on Zendesk. I then did a 'public reply' in response in Zendesk. I was expecting this to be e-mailed back as a reply to test@company.com but this didn't happen.
What might be wrong? Shouldn't our response be sent back to them as an e-mail?
Thanks,
Conrad
Hey Conrad!
The first thing you'll want to do is check your triggers. Triggers are what send the responses out via email, so if you've disabled or changed any of them (specifically "Notify requester of comment update"), that could cause the notification not to be sent. You can click the "Show all events" button above the comments in the ticket to verify whether or not a trigger fired when the comment was added to the ticket.
If the notification trigger fired, check your spam folder to see if it got sent there.
If the notification trigger did not fire, you'll want to check your conditions and actions to make sure that everything is set up correctly. If you need help with this, just let me know - give me the ticket number and I'll take a peek for you. :)
Hope that helps!
Hi,
We have been a google apps customer for a few years now. Recently we started receiving the message stating that we reached our gmail sending limit. When I looked at our gmail logs I saw that we went over the 500 message limit for personal accounts but we were still well below our 2000 message limit.
When I went into the Zendesk email settings I saw that our email is listed as a "Gmail Account". I am thinking that Zendesk is not recognizing that we are a google apps customer and we are receiving the message in error.
This article is very helpful in setting up a gmail account but I cant figure out how to connect a Google Apps account
Any ideas?
Hey Cleveland!
I think this article will help you out: Google Apps for Business - Mail redirection to Zendesk Support - Best Practices.
Is there any way, when attached to a G Apps email via Zendesk, and a ticket is completed, to remove or archive the Gmail on the Gmail Platform as well. Otherwise I seem to be left with a lot of email bloat.
Hey, Scott -
Not at present, no. I'm not certain if that's something Google's API permits, but we could look at it. Generally this is one of the issue with the integration; using direct forwarding is cleaner, since messages can be automatically archived that way.
We're going to be switching to use Zendesk and have used Google Apps for years.
As a result, we have 1000s of old emails in our Gmail account. We don't want to delete all of that history for obvious reasons.
I've set up SPF and DKIM, so we're ready to make the switch, but haven't just yet.
My worry is that connecting Zendesk to use that support@ Gmail mailbox will import all of those ancient emails and initiate new Zendesk tickets from them. (Obviously, that would confuse customers and cause chaos.)
I've already "archived" and marked all of those emails as "read". My question: Will Zendesk ignore the old "Arhived" and/or "Read" Gmail threads like I hope it will?
Hey Scott,
Upon establishing the integration we will now retrieve the last 50 email messages and sort them by date, so no worries on thousands of emails coming in.
If you've set up an SPF and DKIM record, and do not want any imports, I recommend setting up a simple email forward instead, which would mitigate anything that you didn't want importing to come in. Here are two ways you can do so via Google Apps:
With the forward above, you would then be able to manually forward in any past emails that you would want to your system support address (support@{yourdomain}.zendesk.com), and have all news ones automatically go there.
If you are planning on having (or foreseeing) more than ~100 tickets a day, I would recommend forgoing the use of the connector regardless, due to the low message/notifications per day threshold (1500 per day limit, versus no limit for standard forwarding).
Hope that helps!
We are about to require Google's 2 Step Verification for all google accounts. Will this impact the connection to Zendesk? If so, how do we fix?
Hey Justin,
Enabling 2FA on Google's side will not impact the connection between Zendesk and the Google Authentication method -- It should be seamless when you turn it on! The only change of course would be the 2FA itself from Google's side.
Hope that helps!
The one email account I need to use for zendesk isn't showing up when I try and connect. I can see all of the other emails in there. I check my google admin and I can see it's got full access to zendesk. Any thoughts?
Hi John!
I've created a ticket for this question, as it will involve looking at account specific data.
You'll hear from me soon :)
I wanted to clarify one point in the documentation above. In our testing, it appears that any email in the inbox, read or unread, is imported into ZD. Is that expected?
Is there any way, when attached to a G Apps email via Zen desk, and a ticket is completed, to remove or archive the Gmail on the Gmail Platform as well. Otherwise I seem to be left with a lot of email bloat.Even I connect Recover gmail password Team.
It might be best to revise this article for people who find it. I set up my gmail account as per the instructions, and Zendesk sends every email to "Suspended Tickets." I looked up the reasons, and there is no workaround for this (At least at this time.)
Hi Charles, We apologize that you are having that issue. Ticket suspension is unrelated to the functioning of the Gmail Connector. Those same emails would become suspended if you forwarded them to us without using the Gmail Connector. Whatever is causing the suspension must be corrected at the sending or forwarding domains. If you have any more questions please open a ticket with us at support@zendesk.com.
What access is given to Zendesk if the sign in with Google to connect to G Suite option is used?
Hello,
That's a great feature. However, I believe it is not without bugs. Indeed, several times tickets were not created from emails I've received. I have troubles figuring out a pattern, but I hint at forwarded emails: when a customer forward an email to our support email address and add their requests, I believe this ticket stays as it is and no ticket is created because of the Fw: in the title of the email. Those emails do not have the "zendesk" label.
Would it be possible to inquire into this issue?
James,
When authorizing the Gmail connector in Zendesk, you are setting up a forwarding rule and allowing Zendesk to send email on behalf of your domain. Our system does not have access to read any other setups inside of your Gmail service. We only see the email that is forwarded to the address that you authorized.
Jaïs,
If you would send a request into support@zendesk.com along with some example emails, including the header information of those emails, we can look into this issue with you.
If we choose automatic ticket creation from our Gmail inbox, is the email removed from the Gmail inbox? In other words, can this email now only be answered through ZenDesk? Thank you
Hi Mark, We do not delete any data from your Gmail account, we add a "Zendesk" label, though if you wish to respond to emails from your Gmail inbox then the Gmail Connector is not a great choice. We recommend using Zendesk to respond to your customers once you have enabled the Gmail Connector, and yes, the email will be converted into a ticket in Zendesk, from which you can then respond.
@Jaïs Pingouroux you will probably find those tickets in the 'Suspended tickets' view in Zendesk. There is a 'feature' where Zendesk will suspend tickets according to internal rules which we cannot view, edit or control in any direct way. You can find out more here:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115008057747-Auto-Processing-Rules-for-Suspended-Tickets
Looks like I'm posting here again.
I read here that a notification would be sent to the connected address should the connection be interrupted. Is this still a feature? I had several addresses disconnected recently but did not see any email. What is the content of this message? Maybe I just didn't search for the right thing.
Thanks!
Hey Lee,
This feature should still be up and running. The email notification should be sent to your support address that you've set up notifying you that the integration is no longer working.
Can you confirm that these emails are not being delivered to your Spam folder by chance? Let us know if you continue to experience issues with your Support Address.
Thanks!
Hi again Brett,
I have several email accounts using the gmail connector. None received any notifications that I could find, including in spam.
Can you paste a snippet of the notification email here so I can know what to search for?
Thanks!
Hi Lee,
After doing some additional digging on my end it looks like Jessie and myself were incorrect in our previous response. Apologies for any confusion this may have caused you :-/ .
You will need to manually check the forwarding under Admin > Channels > Email, to be sure all is working properly. If you'd like to see a feature added, I encourage you to create a post here. Our product managers, frequently use those posts to try and make improvements to the Zendesk experience.
If you're experiencing issues with the Gmail Connector disconnecting, a more reliable gmail forwarding method can be found at the link here or here, if you'd like to use one of them.
Let me know if you have any other questions for me.
Hi,
Is the group feature of Gmail (or group alias) supported as a valid email address I can use to connect to Zendesk?
Thanks
Done! Thanks Brett
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360031650874-Gmail-connector-add-failure-notification
@Lee thanks so much!
@Julian Great question! Google Groups and Distribution lists are not supported as mentioned in the following article: Is using an email alias, distribution list, or Google group as a support address supported?
Cheers!
We've received notifications that the Gmail connector tool has been identified by Google for some kind of unauthorized behavior and will be blocked from accessing Gmail content beginning July 15. The messages are in Chinese (since that is the language of the accounts in question) so I won't post the message here but it looks like Gmail Connector needs some urgent updates!
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