Installing and configuring the Salesforce app for Zendesk Support

What's my plan?

Suite

Team, Growth, Professional, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus

Support

Team, Professional, or Enterprise

Note: The app does not currently support Salesforce account hierarchy.

This article contains the following topics:

• About the Salesforce app for Zendesk Support
• Installing, connecting, and turning on the Salesforce app
• Configuring the Salesforce app
  • Configuring the Salesforce data cache refresh rate
  • Allowing agents to refresh the cache manually
  • Adding Salesforce objects to the app
  • Matching fields
  • Filtering the related objects
  • Reordering, editing, or removing objects

About the Salesforce app for Zendesk Support

The Zendesk for Salesforce app allows agents to view Salesforce information from a ticket in Zendesk. For agents to see the app in the sidebar, you need to install the app, connect your Zendesk account to Salesforce, and then turn on the app. See Installing and connecting the Salesforce app.

With a ticket open in Zendesk, click the Apps button on the upper-right side of the ticket page. The Salesforce app is displayed in the right sidebar. The app is visible only on existing tickets.

The app supports connecting multiple Salesforce organizations to a Zendesk instance, allowing agents to see Salesforce data for all your organizations in the sidebar of a ticket. Multiple connections are only supported for the sidebar app and not for other integration use cases.

Installing, connecting, and turning on the Salesforce app

Follow the procedures in this section if you’re installing the Salesforce app in Zendesk for the first time or re-installing the app.

If you’re connecting multiple Salesforce organizations to your Zendesk instance, repeat steps 2-3 for each organization you’d like to connect to Zendesk.

There are three steps to installing and turning on the app:

1. Connecting your Zendesk Support instance to Salesforce
2. Installing and activating the Salesforce app
3. Enable role and group restrictions

Connecting your Zendesk Support instance to Salesforce

After installing the Salesforce app, you need to connect Zendesk to Salesforce. You must have appropriate Salesforce credentials to perform this task.

For instructions, see Connecting your Salesforce organization to Zendesk.

Installing and activating the Salesforce app

Turning on the Salesforce app makes it visible to agents in existing tickets. If you still have yet to configure the app, return to this step when you're ready. You can also turn off the app if you need to hide it temporarily.

To turn on the Salesforce app

1. In Admin Center, click Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Integrations > Integrations.
2. Click the Salesforce link.
3. If you have multiple connections, click the name of the connection you are setting up.
4. Click the Support app tab.
5. Select Turn on Salesforce app for Zendesk Support to install the app and make it visible to agents. Deselect this option to turn off the app.

   

6. Click Save.

Enable role and group restrictions

If required, select and configure role and group restrictions for the Salesforce app.

To enable role restrictions

1. In Admin Center, click Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Apps > Zendesk Support apps.
2. For the Salesforce app, click the gear drop-down menu and click Change settings.

   

3. Select and configure role restrictions and group restrictions.
   • To restrict access to the app by role, select Enable role restrictions, then select the roles that should have access.
   • To restrict access to the app by group, select Enable group restrictions, then select the groups that should have access.

Configuring the Salesforce app

You can customize the data displayed in the Salesforce app and how often the data is refreshed by configuring the app settings discussed in this section. Only Zendesk admins and team members in a custom role with permission can configure the app.

After changing the ticket or app configuration, it can take up to 60 minutes for recently viewed tickets to appear updated in the Salesforce app. For information on changing this rate, see Configuring the Salesforce data cache refresh rate.

Configuring the Salesforce data cache refresh rate

When you open a Zendesk ticket, the app fetches and displays Salesforce data you selected in the procedure Adding Salesforce objects to the app. The app uses the Salesforce API to pull records. To reduce the API load, data is refreshed every 60 minutes by default.

The data refresh setting allows you to define how long Salesforce data is cached in the Zendesk database. During the caching window, changes in Salesforce will not be reflected in the app. After the caching period, the data will be fetched the next time an agent visits the ticket.

• A shorter refresh rate means data is collected from Salesforce more often and is more likely to be up to date. However, this can impact the Salesforce API limits.
• A longer refresh rate means data is collected less often but reduces the risk of reaching the Salesforce API limits.

To configure the Salesforce app data refresh setting

1. In Admin Center, click Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Integrations > Integrations.
2. Click the Salesforce link.
3. If you have multiple connections, click the name of the connection you are setting up.
4. Click the Support app tab.
5. Under Set data caching duration, select the data refresh setting from the drop-down list.
   
   
6. Click Save.

Allowing agents to refresh the cache manually

You can allow agents to refresh the cache manually so they can instantly fetch updated customer details from Salesforce to Zendesk Support.

To allow agents to refresh cached data from Salesforce

1. In Admin Center, click Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Integrations > Integrations.
2. Click the Salesforce link.
3. If you have multiple connections, click the name of the connection you are setting up.
4. Click the Support app tab.
5. Select Manually update the cached data from Salesforce as needed.
6. Click Save.

Adding Salesforce objects to the app

Initially, the Salesforce app displays no data. Zendesk admins must configure the app to show the Salesforce data agents want to see when working on tickets. This process entails adding the Salesforce data objects to the app and filtering and arranging them so they display how they'd like.

To add Salesforce objects to the app

1. In Admin Center, click Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Integrations > Integrations.
2. Click the Salesforce link.
3. If you have multiple connections, click the name of the connection you are setting up.
4. Click the Support app tab.
5. In the Manage data section, click Add Salesforce object.

   

6. In the Select object field, select the name of the object (or record type) you'd like to add from the drop-down list, then click Next.

   

7. In the Map fields section, select the Zendesk and Salesforce fields the app should use to find matching records, then click Next. See Matching fields.
8. In the Select fields to display section, select the Salesforce fields you’d like to display in the app. Begin typing to display available fields, and select them from the drop-down list as they appear. You can reorder them later. When you’re done adding fields, click Next.
   Note: Adding more than five fields may slow data retrieval and cause timeouts or errors.

   

9. In the Apply filters step, select the fields for each object you’d like to filter results for, then click Next. See Filtering the returned objects.
10. Click Add.

Matching fields

The purpose of the Match fields section is to specify the Zendesk and Salesforce fields that the app should use to find matching records. Select fields that make sense for your use case.

For any Zendesk ticket, Zendesk attempts to find a record in Salesforce with data in the selected object and field that exactly matches the data in the specified Zendesk field. In the case of a drop-down field, the field tag value is used instead of the title.

When you’re finished mapping fields, click Save (if you’re editing the Salesforce object) or Next (if you’re adding a new Salesforce object).

Note: You can't map a Salesforce field to a custom user field or a custom organization field for record lookup. Additionally, mapping numeric fields is not supported. It's possible to add a lookup record that returns no records. This is where the Record ID in Salesforce is returned instead of the actual value of the field. For more information, see Salesforce: Syncing lookup field information to Zendesk Support.

Filtering the related objects

You can filter the related objects in the app by date and value. Filters can be helpful if you'd like to narrow results by specific values and provide agents with better visibility into the correct records. For example, if a customer has purchased 100 products, applying a filter for products valued over $1000 and purchased after a specific date will narrow the results, allowing the agent to find the most relevant information.

To filter related objects

1. In Admin Center, click Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Integrations > Integrations.
2. Click the Salesforce link.
3. If you have multiple connections, click the name of the connection you are setting up.
4. Click the Support app tab.
5. Click the options menu icon () next to the object you want to filter, then click Edit.
6. In the Apply filters step, expand the related object you want to filter, then set the filtering conditions. For example, if you filter opportunities, you could show opportunities won by setting Won is true.

   

7. Click Save.

Reordering, editing, or removing objects

You can reorder, edit, and remove objects within the app configuration. Make sure you click Save after making changes.

• Click the grabber icon () to drag and drop objects and fields within objects to reorder them. The order represented in the configuration will determine the order of fields displayed in the Salesforce app.
• To delete an object from the app, click Delete from the drop-down menu, then click Delete object to confirm.
• To edit an object, click Edit. The name of the object will be read only, but all other fields can be modified, including field matching and filters.