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
Casey
Hi Sean,
Our Slack Integration Endpoint has recently failed and was disabled due to the amount of failures, the 1st being recorded in Oct 2021 and the last before deactivation being recorded Dec 2021:
From this article, it is noted that the failure of our Slack Integration Endpoint is due to a software update on Zendesk's end - the link to fix this error in the aforementioned article is broken - article no longer exists.
Any assistance to correct this would be hugely appreciated.
Thank you!
0
Sean Bourke
Hi Casey,
Thanks for flagging this.
The article for manually re-enabling the target is no longer available, however targets can now be reenabled by disabling and re-enabling the Slack app. If you browse to <subdomain>.zendesk.com/agent/admin/apps/manage and toggle the Slack App to disabled, then enabled, the target should become active again.
We are currently working on moving Slack Targets and Triggers to ZIS, which should improve reliability. If you are interested in being a candidate for early migration, please let me know and I'll get in touch.
0
Brian Ahn
Hello
I want get message in two slack channel
Each channel can get other ticket which divided with zendesk tag.
How can I solve this problem
0
Graham Pearce
We find that when a New Ticket is updated and moved to Open that we do not get a message in the Slack channel. All other updates work fine. Is this a known issue?
0
Sean Bourke
Hi Brian Ahn,
You can define the support group for which each channel will receive notifications. By identifying or limiting the notification settings to the relevant support groups, you can refine the notification types which will be shared in a channel.
At the moment we do not support notification settings by Tags, but I've recorded this as feedback for future consideration.
0
Sean Bourke
Hi Graham Pearce,
If you open /zendesk settings in that channel and review the existing configuration, do you see the selection of a ticket in an Open state? The integration has a notification set for each ticket state and will only notify for those which are configured.
0
Graham Pearce
All notifications are configured and work, except the first transition from New to Open.
0
Jonathan K
Hi Zendesk team.
I wonder if there is a way to activate the notifications about certain tickets for only certain channels in Slack? Ie. We use a ticket field called, say, Billing inquiries and we want Zendesk to send the notifications about tickets with that category to the channel in Slack called the Billing team. Is it possible to set that? I have checked our Zendesk account and it appears like there could be something useful under Triggers but I could not figure that out.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
0
Sean Bourke
Hi Jonathan K,
The Trigger/Target combinations created by the Slack App are non-customisable, as they are primarily utilised to inform the integration of when a ticket is created or modified.
In your circumstance, it may be appropriate to utilise Support Groups as a differentiation between these teams and their channels. When establishing a notification configuration in Slack via the /zendesk settings command, you can select one or more support groups for which to limit notifications for that channel.
1
Benny Samuel
Who do I contact for Slack/Zendesk help? I followed some of the other Community guidelines for how to set up email triggers when a Slack is responded to, but those triggers are not working. I followed the examples pretty closely if not identically. In certain cases, I'll get an email when I respond to the Slack I initiated within Zendesk (so if I write from the Zendesk ticket out to the Slack channel, I'll get an email, but I don't get an email when Slack responds back. Is this a Slack issue (and so I have to contact Slack) or is this a ZD thing?
0
Sean Bourke
Hi Benny Samuel,
I've created a Zendesk ticket from your comment for follow-up.
0
Cesar Jimenez
Can you please provide guidance on how to stop this app from using my account to leave internal notes on tickets? We'd like to change the account used by the app to a different account.
0
Sean Bourke
Hi Cesar Jimenez,
Appreciate that this behaviour isn't ideal - we're looking into it. At the moment, internal comments are posted as the user who has completed the Zendesk Slack App authentication/setup.
If you'd like to change this to another user or a placeholder, you complete the Change Subdomain setup from /zendesk settings in Slack and authenticate/grant permissions as another user.
0
Mads Hansen
@...
Hi, any new on the Shared Channel feature in Slack?
As mentioned by @... https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408833756698/comments/4408849248666
0
Anthony Amaro
Can we change the zendesk form in the slack channel? I'd like to set a specified form to be filled out versus a generic one.
0
Sean Bourke
Hi Mads Hansen,
We are currently working on some enhancements to the existing Slack integration which will enable support for external customers to create tickets in Slack Connect channels. More information will be available soon.
1
Sean Bourke
Hey Anthony Amaro,
Thanks for your feedback. To help me better understand your use case, it would be great to know:
0
Anthony Amaro
@... We have 6 forms at the moment. I'd like to have 2-3 forms available inn the slack ticket creation.
1
Vlad Shlosberg
hey Anthony Amaro, if you want a bit more customization between Slack and Zendesk, Foqal.io does support displaying different Zendesk forms (or multiple forms) in different Slack channels. Also, keep in mind that those tickets are bi-directionally synchronized - so a message sent in Slack updates the Zendesk ticket and vice versa.
Here is a page that talks a bit more about the Slack + Zenesk integration if you like:
https://www.foqal.io/landing/slack-zendesk
Be happy to talk more about this and give a quick demo if you click the Book a Call button on that page.
0
Ronald
I'm a Zendesk admin but not a Slack workspace admin...I've inherited a new Zendesk that already had the Slack integration setup. Hoping somebody can help clarify:
"The Slack ticket trigger" is read only. Is this trigger required to be exactly as currently configured or can this be configured from the Slack app setup?
The trigger is setup to fire upon ticket creation or ticket update. I'd really rather not send the request to Slack upon ticket update because as far as I can tell we don't post any of the update messages in any Slack channel (and I can't imagine any scenario we will need to). Besides, I would prefer to simply build another trigger entierly to congifure specific conditions for when to post an update to Slack from on the Zendesk side, rather than send everything to Slack and then set the conditional logic for what to do on the Slack side.
1
Sean Bourke
Hi Ronald,
At the moment, all notifications are configured in Slack via the /zendesk settings command. The app-created trigger is utilised to inform the integration of whenever a ticket is created or updated - so that a notification can occur if required. As such, it cannot be modified.
We are working on some significant enhancements to the Slack integration and one of the things we're looking to improve is the flexibility to define broader criteria for Slack notifications.
0
Kayt Edwards
Is it possible to connect our company Zendesk to a channel in another company's Slack that we access through Connections?
0
Marc Howe
Could someone provide an update on
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408833756698/comments/4408849222426?
0
Sean Bourke
Hey Kayt Edwards,
Are you referring to utilising Slack Connect channels with the Zendesk integration? What type of functionality would you be looking to enable in these channels? There are some functions which work today and others which are not supported due to compatibility.
0
Kayt Edwards
Thanks @... we have a third party who does our development for us. We communicate with them via a channel they set up for us which we see under Slack Connections. It would be really helpful to have Zendesk side conversations with them
0
Sean Bourke
Hey Kayt Edwards,
It should be possible to initiate side conversations in a Slack Connect channel, as long as your workspace is the owner for that channel. If the developer/other worksplace is the owner, then the Zendesk App may not have the required permissions to retrieve replies/conversations.
Regards,
Sean
0
robM
How to configure zendesk slack bot to only send messages when New zendesk tickets are created?
Can we re-configure the slack bot after installation? It has been very hard to find docs on that.
0
Sean Bourke
Hey robM,
Notifications can be configured via the /zendesk settings command from within Slack. Under the Zendesk Support section, you will have the option to Add Channel and if you already have some channels configured, you'll see the Edit Existing Settings option.
Within this, you can select the option to only display notifications when a Ticket is Created for a support group.
1
Gareth Elsby
Would it be possible to add an app setting to hide link previews when the app is posting to a Slack channel, please? We're using slack side convos quite heavily in the support team and paste many troubleshooting links in each post. This creates a wall of link previews for each side convo.
Thanks!
0
James Molina
Can the integration limit which channels in a slack account are able to create a ticket or does it have to be all channels within an account?
For example if we have multiple Slack channels but only want ticket creation to be available for the 'Support" Slack channel is that possible?
1