Slack for Zendesk Support is a Built-by-Zendesk integration that can connect one or more Zendesk subdomains to multiple Slack workspaces. It allows you to interact with Zendesk Support tickets in your Slack channels.
This article covers the following topics:
Related articles:
About the Slack for Zendesk Support integration
The Slack for Zendesk Support integration includes the following features:
- Ticket event notifications in Slack: Slack users can see information about Zendesk Support ticket events in specified Slack channels. Using triggers, Zendesk administrators can configure which conditions will send notifications, the Slack channels to send them to, and the information included in the notification message.
- Create new tickets directly from Slack: This feature is designed to cater to an internal use case where Slack users want to raise a new Support ticket directly from Slack. See Creating tickets in Slack.
- Side conversations: Agents can use side conversations in a ticket to initiate and participate in Slack threads.
- Answer Bot for Slack: The Answer Bot for Slack integration is included in the Slack for Zendesk Support integration and utilizes Answer Bot to listen on selected Slack channels. It resolves questions by providing article suggestions from your Guide knowledge base.
- Support for multiple connections: You can connect multiple Zendesk accounts to one or more Slack workspaces.
Considerations when connecting multiple accounts
It's common for organizations to have internal teams with their own Zendesk accounts but share a single Slack workspace. Similarly, a company can have just one Zendesk account and collaborate in several Slack workspaces.
The good news is that the integration is flexible and allows you to use one or more Slack workspaces to respond to customer inquiries sourced from multiple Zendesk accounts.
- When installing the integration, you add one Slack-to-Zendesk connection at a time.
- When adding new connections between Zendesk and Slack, create triggers for the Slack ticket notifications you want to send.
- If you're using Answer Bot for Slack and a question is posted in a channel, users will receive article suggestions from all your help centers. Article suggestions aren't combined into a single response from Answer Bot—users will see multiple Answer Bots responding.
- If you plan to use Slack in side conversations, you must turn on side conversations for each Slack workspace.
- The integration supports multi-workspace channels, which are shared among multiple workspaces in an Enterprise Grid organization. However, it does not support organization-shared channels, which are configured to be shared among all workspaces in an Enterprise Grid organization (applies to Slack Enterprise Grid plans only).
Installing the integration to add a connection between Slack and Zendesk
To install the integration, you must have administrative privileges in Zendesk Support and have permission to install apps in the Slack workspace. Additionally, the integration cannot be installed on a shared Slack workspace (a workspace you don't own but have been invited to as an external user).
The installation adds a connection between one Zendesk account and one Slack workspace. To add multiple connections, run the installation for each connection. For example, if your company uses one Slack workspace with three Zendesk accounts, run the installation three times to make these connections.
After the integration is installed, tickets can be created from any Slack channel, but the app needs to be added to each channel that requires notifications and Answer Bot.
To connect Slack and Zendesk
- In Admin Center, click
Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Integrations > Integrations.
- Click the options menu icon (
) next to Slack, then click View.
- Click Connect workspace.
- If your company uses multiple Slack workspaces, make sure the drop-down list in the
upper right corner displays the name of the workspace you'd like to connect to Zendesk,
then click Allow.
- Enter the subdomain of the Zendesk account to connect to the workspace, then
click Continue.
You can connect additional Zendesk accounts to the workspace after you finish setting up this connection. Connections are added one at a time.
- At Allow Slack to access your Zendesk account?, click Allow.
The installation is complete.
- Click Set up in Zendesk Admin Center to configure this connection, or repeat this procedure to add more connections.
Removing a connection between Zendesk and Slack
If you no longer want to use the Zendesk app in a Slack workspace, disconnect the integration for that workspace. You can disconnect from Admin Center or Slack; the result is the same. It's important to note that you won’t receive ticket notifications in your channels for that workspace or be able to create tickets from Slack.
Your configuration settings will not be lost even if you reinstall the app. However, you will have to re-add the app to Slack channels.
To disconnect using Admin Center
- In Admin Center, click
Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Integrations > Integrations.
- Click the options menu icon (
) next to Slack, then click View.
- Click Configure under the name of the Slack workspace to disconnect.
- Click Actions, then click Disconnect from the drop-down menu.
- Click Disconnect in the confirmation message.
To disconnect using Slack
- Sign in to your Slack workspace.
- Under Apps, click Zendesk.
- Under Connected Zendesk accounts, click Disconnect for the account you'd like to disconnect.
154 comments
Priya Muthukrishnan
Hi,
Is it possible to enable the option to "Create a ticket" or "Add an internal note" from only specific slack channels instead of all the channels?
1
Hanna Gesar
Hello! Is it still not possible to get ticket updates to Slack threads when using the Zendesk <> Slack integration? Our users are only using Slack for support and we would like to have one source for them to receive ticket updates and such as well but can't find a way to solve this
0
Sean Bourke
Hey Priya Muthukrishnan and James Molina,
As these behaviours are associated to Slack Shortcuts (the drop down list), they cannot be limited to specific channels, however Slack may soon support this functionality. It would be great to understand this a little more - would you only want the shortcuts available in channels where the Zendesk app has been added, or a more specific subset of channels?
0
James Molina
@Sean Bourke We have clients that want to limit the channels that End Users can create tickets within. Often this happens with internal support workflows so there are many channels within a company for different purposes but they want to limit ticket creation to a single "support" channel. Not everyone has access to all channels and this helps focus conversations by channel.
0
Lindsay A
We have been using this app for years and it's worked great for 1 slack channel updates. We recently tried to use the app to post to 2 different channels in 1 slack workspace and it appears that we can't customize the app to post different tickets to the different channels. Is there a way to do this?
Example: #ticket-notifications: This should post tickets that are new or updated for our advanced support team.
#solved-by-basic: This should post tickets that are solved by the basic support team.
Thanks!
0
Ronald
Hi Lindsay A
Good question! I believe currently the only way to post a notification to a specific Slack channel is based on ticket group assignment condition in the Zendesk for Slack application settings. I'm currently posting Slack updates for every single ticket created to one channel #zendesk-tickets and tickets that were assigned to a specific ticket group only are being posted to a different specified Slack channel #level-2-tickets
I think you'd be able to accomplish what you want as it sounds like your tickets are being assigned to specific ticket groups which could be mapped to corresponding Slack channels.
I believe ticket group is currently the only condition that can be used to point a notification to a different Slack channel. Which is a limitation I'm eager to see addressed. But it sounds like you can do what you need to do with the integration's current capability.
0
Lindsay A
Well, that's exciting! Because I was changing the group, this did work for me. Though, It was not clear that it would when setting it up, which is why I reached out. Thank you Ronald for the quick response and helpful information.
0
Ronald
Lindsay A I agree it's not clear at all and I don't like the way the notification configuration is done within the Slack app command and how the Slack webhook is posted to Slack for every single ticket update.
I would personally like more control over this integration from the Zendesk side. Send the webhook request to Slack based on any of the normal trigger conditions and post to different Slack channels or even DM specific Slack users based on any of the normal ticket conditions such as custom field values or assignee.
A few months ago @... alluded to improvements to the Slack integration. I'm interested to see what that ends up looking like.
0
Kiran Mehta
How can I get the organization name to show up in the slack channel integration?
Using the default "Slack Ticket Trigger" - we are able to get basic information of a new/updated ticket to show up in a slack channel. I would like to have some additional fields to show up in slack as well e.g. organization name.
The default "Slack Ticket Trigger" is not editable. So I created a new trigger that posts to the slack endpoint. In the JSON payload, I added the:
"organization_name" : "{{ticket.organization.name}}"
as recommended in the "supported placeholder" list.
I do get a new slack message every time this trigger is activated, but I still don't see the organization name in the slack message.
Trying to configure slack's /zendesk settings doesn't provide any options for selecting which fields to show.
Recommendations?
0
Megha Joshi
Hi! Are there any plans to release an update in 2022 or 2023 for there to be multiple ZenDesk instances be active in Slack -- we're running into an issue where our IT team, HR team, and a Product are all needing to use the ZenDesk<>Slack integration.
1
Vlad Shlosberg
Megha Joshi - What a lot of companies do if they need to support multiple Zendesk instances is use the native Zendesk<> Slack integration for one of their teams and use third party integrations for others. For example - Foqal 100% integrated with Zendesk and is often used by IT and HR teams to bi-directionally synchronize tickets between Slack and Zendesk. Check out:
Zendesk Integration: https://www.foqal.io/landing/slack-zendesk - (skip video to 00:35)
Generally about support: https://www.foqal.io/solutions/helpdesk
Hope this helps
0
Brandon D.
Hey everyone,
I've recently installed the Zendesk App within Slack and have been testing it for a few days. I'm only interested in getting slack notifications Upon Ticket Creation and this has worked for the majority of tickets we've received recently.
However, I've started to realize that a handful of tickets are not making their way into Slack, even though I can see the default Slack App trigger firing in the event history.
The common trend these tickets share is being created using the same Ticket Form through our Help Center and all being marked as High Priority (based on our triggers).
To note, I've tested other Forms on the Submit a request page, and they work fine!
We also only have one group defined in our Zendesk instance, so it shouldn't be a configuration issue in Slack where the group was not selected.
Is there any reason why one particular form or priority level would be excluded like this?
TIA!
0
Sean Bourke
Hi Brandon D.,
Thanks for sharing this. The Slack Trigger Event (+ Webhook notification) will be triggered for every ticket event, regardless of whether it relates to an existing configuration.
In this circumstance, I'd recommend modifying the Assignee configuration to have a broader scope for that Slack channel. For example, if you only have one support group, selecting All support groups will ensure that any new tickets being created will come into that group.
0
Naomi
Hello,
I'm trying to edit the Slack-Zendesk integration so that we can receive notifications in the Slack channel when user's re-open tickets by responding to tickets i.e. if the ticket is in Pending, On Hold, Solved or Closed and a user responds, we would like to receive a notification in Slack regarding the re-opened ticket.
Does this feature exist? If so, where can I find the instructions to do so?
If not, could we please get that feature added?
Thanks
0
Dave Dyson
You can get pretty close with the above instructions -- in step 5 of the configuration instructions above, there's a drop-down list that lets to select when notifications are sent, and you can select updates to pending, solved, or on-hold tickets. To get updates for when a customer responds to a Closed ticket, that would be included under "Ticket is created" (since that's what happens in that case), although that would also send notifications for brand-new tickets as well.
1
Albert Alvarez
There is any way to show the customer's Organization name or requester email when a case comes in?
2
Alan Butcher
Hello, I am also interested in Kiran's post from above, as well as Albert's about adding an organization name to the Slack Ticket Trigger. Anyone have a good answer for that?
0
Sean Bourke
Hey Alan Butcher,
Just to confirm - are you looking to add Organisation to the notification which is sent from Zendesk to Slack? If so, we've just enabled the ability to notify Slack from triggers, including the ability to add custom values to the notification (such as the requester's organisation).
0
Tom Walker
FYI, this link is dead:
0
Kristie Sweeney
Thanks for reporting the broken link Tom Walker! It is now fixed.
0
Francisco Moreira
Can there be a restriction on the integration based on channels we want to include? Meaning we wouldnt want Zendesk to connect with the whole workspace
0
David Gillespie
Hi Francisco Moriera,
Yes. The integration must first be invited to any channel in order to work in the channel. Here's the steps you need to take to add it to channels in Slack.
Thanks,
David
0
Jessica Chase
We have two separate Zendesk instances and one Slack workspace, can we connect both Zendesk instances to a single Slack workspace?
0
Gabriel Manlapig
At this time, we don't support multiple Zendesk account integration in a single Slack account.
I've taken a look and found that other users are discussing similar needs here:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/1500000013282-Attach-multiple-Zendesk-domains-single-Slack-team
You can up-vote that original post and add your detailed use-case to the conversation. Threads with a high level of engagement ultimately get flagged for product managers to review when they go through roadmap planning.
0
Vlad Shlosberg
Hey Jessica Chase - the Native Zendesk + Slack currently does not currently support multiple Zendesk accounts for a single Slack workspace. What companies typically do is use the native Slack+Zendesk integration for one of their Zendesk instances and use a 3rd party tool like Foqal (https://www.foqal.io/landing/slack-zendesk) for the other Zendesk + Slack instances.
0
Kevin Froleiks
This is helpful but I am wondering if it's possible to do the opposite, have messages in a certain slack channel automatically create a zendesk ticket?
2
Vlad Shlosberg
Hey Kevin Froleiks -
You can either set it up so that all comments create tickets, only certain comments create tickets, or you can have the author of the message in Slack decide if that should be a ticket. You can also make the tickets bi-directional - so when an Agent updates the ticket in Zendesk, it updates the thread in Slack. However, I don't think a lot of that is possible in the native Slack<>Zendesk integration, for that you can also use Foqal - see the demo video here of how that looks: https://www.foqal.io/landing/slack-zendesk
1
Molly Katolas
We're noticing that there's no longer an option to close the ticket preview from within Slack. There used to be an x in the top left of the comment where you could close out the preview, but it's no longer showing. Is this intentional?
0
Kelli
Is it possible with the slack integration to add a conditional setting that considers who the commenter/responder is? We want the internal replies threaded in slack, but they are also posting to the channel, which is confusing and unnecessary for our purposes.
0
Vlad Shlosberg
Kelli - are you trying to filter out the messages from being added to the Slack thread or from being stored in Zendesk? As in - do you want to consider who the message is coming from in Zendesk before adding it to the Slack thread, or do you want to consider who the message is coming from in Slack before adding it to the Zendesk ticket?
0