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Setting up the Zendesk for Salesforce integration

Darren Chan
  • Edited

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The Zendesk for Salesforce integration connects your Salesforce accounts to Zendesk accounts. It allows Zendesk tickets to be viewed in Salesforce from an Account, Contact, Lead, or Opportunity page. You can also create and edit Zendesk tickets, and sync Salesforce accounts to Zendesk organization data. For more information about the benefits and the limitations of the Zendesk for Salesforce integration, see Guide to integrating Zendesk and Salesforce.

The Zendesk for Salesforce integration is available if you are using Salesforce edition: Performance, Unlimited, Enterprise, or Developer Edition (or other editions with Salesforce API rights, such as Professional with the API add-on).

You must be a Zendesk Support administrator and Salesforce administrator to set up your integration. The setup process requires performing a series of tasks:

  1. Checking your Salesforce session settings
  2. Connecting Zendesk to Salesforce
  3. Setting up user access to Zendesk tickets in Salesforce
Note: The integration will work in both Salesforce Lightning and Classic. However, this article only provides instructions for Lightning, which is the newer interface recommended by Salesforce.
If you are using the Salesforce for Zendesk app in Zendesk Support, following the procedures described below also sets up the app's connection.

If you need to disconnect your integration, see Disconnecting and reconnecting the integration.

Related information:

Checking your Salesforce session settings

The integration requires your Salesforce session settings to be not set to a locked IP address. If your session settings remain locked, your integration will be disconnected once a session expires.

To disable Salesforce sessions being locked to an IP address

  1. Log in to your Salesforce account.
  2. Click the cog () in the upper right pane, then click Setup.
  3. In the left navigation pane under SETTINGS > Security, select Session Settings.
  4. Review and ensure the Lock sessions to the IP address from which they originated checkbox is not selected.

Connecting Zendesk to Salesforce

Admin Center is where you set up and configure your integration, including the integration location. It is recommended to test the integration with your Zendesk sandbox account and Salesforce sandbox account first.

To connect Zendesk to Salesforce

  1. In Admin Center, click Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Integrations > Integrations.
  2. Click Connect next to the Salesforce integration.
  3. Select the Salesforce instance to set up the integration.

    Note: You can only connect one Salesforce account to one Zendesk account. So if you test the integration on a sandbox account, you need to disconnect the integration and reconnect to your production account.
  4. Click Install managed package. This opens Salesforce in a new web browser tab. The package installs Lightning and Visualforce components, which are used for the Ticket View feature. You will be asked to log in to Salesforce if you are not already logged in. Do this in a private web browser window to ensure that there is only one active Salesforce session.

    Note: We recommend selecting Install for All Users. Users who are not granted access cannot view Zendesk tickets in Salesforce.
  5. Click Install.
  6. When the package has finished installing, click Done.
  7. Return to Admin Center, accept the Built by Zendesk Terms of Use, then click Connect.
  8. On the Allow Access? screen, click Allow.

Setting up user access to Zendesk tickets in Salesforce

After setting up your connection between Zendesk and Salesforce, you need to define which user profiles in Salesforce can view Zendesk tickets.

To select user profiles to view Zendesk tickets

  1. In Salesforce, click the cog () in the upper right pane, then click Setup.
  2. In the left navigation pane under PLATFORM TOOLS, select Apps > Connected Apps > Manage Connected Apps.
  3. Click the Salesforce Integration for Zendesk app.

  4. Click Edit Policies.
  5. Under OAuth Policies, set Permitted Users to Admin approved users are pre-authorized and click Save. This is a required setting.

  6. Return to the Manage Connected Apps page, then click the Salesforce Integration for Zendesk app.
  7. Under Profiles, select Manage Profiles.
  8. Select the user profiles in Salesforce that can view Zendesk tickets. You must select the System Administrator profile. User profiles that are not selected will not be able to view Zendesk tickets.

  9. Click Save.

Your setup is now complete. Next, you can continue with the following:

Note: If the Zendesk admin who connected the integration has their role downgraded, the integration will cease to function. It will require the integration to be disconnected, then reconnected in Admin Center by another Zendesk admin.

Disconnecting and reconnecting the integration

The Zendesk for Salesforce integration can be disconnected in the Admin Center. Once disconnected, your configuration settings are still retained if you decide to set it up again. If you're reconnecting the integration, you'll need to enable syncing and activate the Salesforce trigger again.

To disconnect the integration
  1. In Admin Center, click Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Integrations > Integrations.
  2. In Salesforce integration, click Configure.
  3. Click Disconnect in the upper right. Confirmation of the disconnection is displayed.

To reconnect the integration

  1. In Admin Center, click Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Integrations > Integrations.
  2. In the Salesforce integration, click Connect.
  3. On the Salesforce integration setup page, click Connect.
  4. Re-enable syncing for the following settings:
  5. Activate your Salesforce trigger again.
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71 Comments

  • Dwight Bussman
    Zendesk Customer Care
    HeyO Yoram & Dan, 

    I know that our integration does a "LIKE" match for the Ticket View (it's really performing a search based on the matching criteria), so tickets belonging to all 3 of these Zendesk organizations would appear under an IT account's ticket view if matching based on name: 
    • Ithica College
    • IT Support, Inc.
    • It's A Great Company
    because each has a name that begins with the string it
     
    In terms of the Data Sync, I believe that uses an exact match based on matching criteria for the initial sync, but subsequent syncs rely on a "sync relationship" - basically if an account has ever synced to an organization, and both still exist, it is presumed to be linked to that organization. This behavior allows for a change to the account's name syncing over to update a linked organization's name (when matching based on name). For more details about these "sync relationships" please see https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4935435219098-Salesforce-data-sync-error-Name-or-Email-has-already-been-taken which outlines some of the errors that can occur as a result of those.
     
    Finally - I completely agree that it'd be great to have matching based on External ID. I raised this need a few years back, but can definitely revisit that with the team. I recommend posting that feature request in our Product Feedback Forum for Apps & Integrations so that other folks can vote in support of that. This allows our developers to prioritize work on things for which there's the greatest need.
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  • Yoram

    Hi Dwight,

    Thanks for the comment.
    I will update the thread once I have the support's feedback.

    I have shared with support a video capture of the issue.

    I guess you have access to the support tickets, so if you want to take a look, it is documented in ticket #1577614

    Have a great day

    Yoram

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  • Yoram

    OK.. I got an answer from Dwight after he investigated the issue.

    I am passing his analysis, here for your knowledge.

    Thanks Dwight!!!

     

    The matching criteria defined in Admin Center are used for the first sync of an account to Zendesk. 
     
    Once an account has synced successfully, Zendesk stores a "sync relationship" between the account ID and the zendesk organization ID to which it was matched for that sync. When an account goes to sync a second time, the integration sees that this "sync relationship" exists, confirms that the organization in question hasn't been deleted, and then updates the organization based on ID. This update occurs even if the organization no longer matches based on the matching criteria. 
     
    So here's what the see happening in my instance:
     
    Back in March of 2022, an organization was created called "Conpany A" (using a fake name due to privecy concenrs).
     
    While the name set thusly, the account 0011v00002eumEySSA with the matching name of "Conpany A" synced and matched to that organization as expected.

    On 2023-03-25, we changed the name of that Zendesk organization to be "Conpany A (Child)". 
     
    After that time, the account 0012400000Y3uyCDDF synced from SFDC, and its name matched to the current name of the organization. 
     
    At this point, a sync relationship exists for each of those two accounts pointing at the same organization which is why you're seeing both of them sync there.

     

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  • Ashoka Poojari

    Can someone provide some documentation or steps to send Salesforce Lead Data to Zendesk through integration ?

    0
  • Audrey Ann Cipriano
    • Edited
    Zendesk Customer Care

    Hi Ashoka Poojari welcome to our Community! 

    You may check this link to our doc on configuring data from Salesforce to Zendesk :) Thanks!

    0
  • Alexander.S

    Does this connector make use of existing Zendesk API caps or limits, and if so, which limits?

    0
  • Dwight Bussman
    Zendesk Customer Care

    HeyO Alexander.S

    Several features of our SFDC integration make API requests to Zendesk endpoints, all of which are counted against our REST API Rate Limits: 

    The Sidebar App and Ticket Sync features do not hit Zendesk APIs, but instead hit SFDC APIs and would be subject to their rate-limits.

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  • Shane Weber

    Hello, I am now working with a ZD instance that I did not setup, and am doing some reviews of user access.  I see our SFDC admin also has ZD admin access, and they say it was from the initial integration.  Is there any impact to removing their admin access to ZD, will it break the integration?  Is there a way to tell?

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  • Dwight Bussman
    Zendesk Customer Care

    HeyO Shane Weber

    If the user who connected the integration has their role downgraded (on either side - Zendesk or Salesforce), it will mean that some portions of the integration will no longer function properly

    That's why we have this caveat within the article above:

    Fortunately the "fix" for this is to disconnect & reconnect the integration within Admin Center. You could even do that proactively (prior to downgrading the current user) within an incognito window just to be certain you're aware of the user who actually performed that connection. We're working to make it easier to find details about the connecting user IDs within the product, but for the time being that'd be the fastest way to do so. 

    If you didn't want to do that disconnect/reconnect, here's a way to find out which users are in use:

    • to see the Zendesk user who connected the integration you can enable account/contact syncing, sync a record over, and see which user created that record in the audit log (if your plan level doesn't have access to audit logs, Advocacy can check that within logs on our side)

    • to see the SFDC user who connected it, you can enable ticket syncing and see which user is listed as the "Case Owner". You can also spot this based on activity within the Connected Apps Oauth Usage in SFDC.
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  • Shane Weber

    Thanks Dwight Bussman, we are a professional plan and don't think we have audit logs in that plan after reviewing the link. 

    How can I reach out to the Advocacy team.  

    0
  • Dwight Bussman
    Zendesk Customer Care

    HeyO Shane Weber - oops! Sorry. I meant to include that in my earlier response. Here's a link to the process for contacting support. I'll keep an eye out for that ticket as I think I can collect that pretty info pretty quickly.

    0

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