The Slack for Zendesk integration includes the Answer Bot for Slack integration.
The integration implements Answer Bot in Slack so you can get help without waiting for someone to reply. It listens on selected Slack channels and resolves questions by providing article suggestions from your Guide knowledge base.
Answer Bot for Slack is a free feature which is available in the Slack for Zendesk integration if you are on the Professional plan.
This article includes the following topics:
About the Answer Bot for Slack integration
This feature is built on top of the Slack for Zendesk integration. It is automatically available when you install the Slack for Zendesk integration. Once your Slack administrator has added Answer Bot to a channel they can see settings by entering the command /zendesk settings in the Zendesk app channel in Slack.
Enabling Answer Bot on a Slack channel
Answer Bot is configured to specific Slack channels in the Zendesk Apps channel. Only a Slack administrator can configure Answer Bot for Slack. This configuration applies for public and private channels.
Don't forget that you need to install the Slack for Zendesk integration for this feature to be available.
To enable Answer Bot on a specific channel
- In the Zendesk App channel, enter /zendesk settings to display the app settings.
- In Answer Bot, click Add channel.
Note: If your Slack workspace has a lot of channels, after clicking Add Channel, please wait up to 10 seconds for the channel dropdown to show.
- In Which channel(s) would you like me to listen to and suggest articles for?, select the channel from the dropdown list, and click Next.
- From the dropdown list, select the brand articles to recommend in the channel, and click Done.
Removing Answer Bot from a Slack channel
Answer Bot can be removed from a Slack channel by a Slack administrator.
To disable Answer Bot on a Slack channel
- In the Zendesk App channel, enter /zendesk settings to display the app settings.
- Click Edit existing settings, and select the channel from the dropdown list.
- Click Remove Answer Bot.
Asking a question in Slack
To ask a question using Answer Bot in Slack
- Post a question in the Slack channel which contains at least five words ending with a question mark. Answer Bot responds to the question by starting a thread.
- Click Yes or No to indicate whether your question is answered.
- If more than one article is found, click More suggestions. Additional articles are listed.
- Click the article number button if it answers your question, or None of the above if a suitable answer is not provided.
Viewing feedback to a question
Your response to article suggestions is visible in the form of a green tick or red cross emoji reaction after the question. This is particularly useful in a busy Slack channel. This indicates to other members of the channel whether the question was successfully resolved or if it needs someone to respond.
If the suggestion doesn’t answer your question, you can create a ticket directly from Slack by clicking on Submit a Request. For more information on submitting tickets in Slack and viewing tickets created in Slack, see Using the Slack for Zendesk integration.
FAQs
Can I connect multiple Zendesk instances to my Slack workspace?
No. You can only connect one Zendesk instance to a Slack workspace.
Can Answer Bot respond in a direct message (DM)?
Answer Bot only listens on Slack channels and does not interact with a DM.
How do I create a view in Zendesk Support that shows only tickets created by the integration?
When you create a ticket via the integration, a tag is automatically added to your ticket: "created_from_slack". You can use this tag as a filter in your Views in Zendesk Support.
How can I find out how many questions are being deflected by Answer Bot?
This capability is not currently available, but will be available in Zendesk Explore in the future.
15 Comments
Big +1 to Nicole above.
My team would LOVE to integrate this into ZenDesk but with the base permissions set within Help Center not working in the Slack integration we are moving away from it as we'd have to completely migrate all internal documents out of our Help Center to avoid user visibility on things they shouldn't see.
Ha! Michael, I've literally been migrating all of our internal articles out of Zendesk this past week! It's a workaround but definitely not ideal b/c our agents would rather see all articles in the same place.
Did this ever get fixed?
Hi Christopher Bosma,
Could you please share the issue you're experiencing with Answer Bot for Slack?
It looks good now, Sean.
This issue was actually in our Zendesk - something misconfigured on our end with the Slack integration. We've set our Slack integration back up with Zendesk and channels are now receiving tickets.
Hey Christopher Bosma,
Thanks for the update, great to hear everything is working as expected now.
How does this work if we have one instance of Zendesk with multiple brands? Does it allow you to pick which brand you want the answerbot to offer articles from?
Are there any roadmap plans to resolve the permissions issue?
Hey Janiece Caldwell,
When setting up Answer Bot in Slack, you are able to select the help center brand which should be utilised in that channel's responses.
We're working on improving the integration to include the ability to filter article recommendations more granularly. More information will be available in the coming months.
Can anyone describe how the Answer Bot manages to generate its matched articles? I'm not finding the suggestions to be very good and I'm wondering if there are techniques to optimize our articles for the Answer Bot's search/matching criteria. It doesn't seem like the Labels added to articles have any noticeable effect on the likelihood of getting a good match.
BTW, I found the functionality for the first time through the Slack integration setup. It sounds super useful, in theory, and I wish I had found it sooner!
This article may be of help: Understanding how Answer Bot works with your content
Hey Chris Lauff,
Thanks for your feedback. We're currently exploring adding the ability to better refine content searches in Answer Bot by enabling the selection of both Segments and Labels in the Answer Bot configuration. This should support more targeted scoping of search for a channel (for example being able to limit HR labelled articles within a #ask-hr channel).
As we have more information regarding this, I'll update this thread.
Why doesn't answer bot give suggestions to every question that fits the criteria?
I asked two different questions and answer bot had no response for us.
We use this as a tool to see where we have knowledge gaps, so when someone asks a question, and we don't have an article for it, we write one.
Hi royaleagle team!
I went ahead & created a ticket for your behalf as this might need further troubleshooting. Please keep an eye out for our email!
If we have the Zendesk bot active with the Slack integration but not enabled in Zendesk configuration.
Is it added value to add triggers for the bot to improve the answering of the bot in Slack?
Hey Christian de Heij,
The responses within Slack will also provide an ability to respond on whether the article recommendation was useful or not, which should support the answer responses.
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