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.
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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
David Gillespie
Hi Patrick Arrastia ,
Sorry to hear that you've encountered this issue with Side Conversations!
The best course of action is to continue working with our Advocacy team to get this resolved. I can see there's been some conversation and updates from today, they should be able to help identify the problem and escalate to our engineering teams as required.
Thanks David
0
Patrick Arrastia
Sounds good, thanks for the reply @...
0
Nicolas Distefano
Hi team,
I think the integration could be much better. This is our current experience:
As of now we have 70+ groups of agents, and almost each one of them wants to receive a Slack notification in their own private channels every time a ticket is created/updated.
To do this, they have to:
1. Contact an Admin.
2. Invite Zendesk app to their private channel.
3. Invite the Admin to their private channel.
4. Tell the Admin what notifications they want.
5. Admin has to go to Triggers and wait for the private channel to show up in the list of channels (sometimes it takes an hour to sync).
6. Wait for the Admin to manually configure the trigger by cloning an existing one.
7. Test it.
Imagine this for us, the support team (and only admins), to do it for the 70+ groups, because we can't give them Admin just to do that and we do not want anyone else to access Triggers as there are critical workflows configured.
The normal experience (not the greatest but the normal one) should be like this:
1. Any Agent wants to configure notifications for himself/herself or his/her group.
2. The Agent goes to Slack and types /zendesk notify
3. A pop up appears:
3.a. Choose Zendesk instance.
3.b. Choose type of notification (Individual/Channel).
3.c. Choose channel (unless chosen Individual before).
3.d. Choose conditions of event to notify (Ticket created/Ticket updated).
If Zendesk app needs more permissions on Slack to do it, that's ok. It's a ticket management tool, it has priority over almost any other thing. There are way less critical tools with way more permissions in Slack.
Zendesk really needs to improve this integration.
Hope this comment helps.
Thanks!
5
Wes Spooner
Is it possible to configure the Slack integration using a single Zendesk account with multiple brands to map to separate Slack Workspaces? When I try to use a different brand subdomain for connecting a Zendesk account, I get an error that the help center for that subdomain is disabled.
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