Before connecting your bot in Ultimate's Dashboard to the virtual agent's admin account in Zendesk Chat, make sure you have finished the preparation of creating an admin account for the bot in Zendesk.

Prerequisites: You must be on the Enterprise or Premium (legacy) pricing plan 

If you've enabled Zendesk Messaging, you'll need a license for Sunshine Conversations. You'll also need to connect your bot to Sunshine Conversations instead of Zendesk

 

Our approach is to integrate natively with Zendesk Chat, meaning we act as a virtual agent within the platform. 

This article covers the steps to take to connect your bot in Ultimate's Dashboard to the virtual agent's account you created during preparation:

  • Step 1: Login to Zendesk Chat as the virtual agent
  • Step 2: Enable the departments in Zendesk Chat for routing
  • Step 3: Configure your Chat widget
    • The snippet code to hide department dropdown menu
    • Why hide departments
  • Step 4: Authorize Zendesk Chat
  • Step 5: Configure integration parameters 
  • Step 6: Enable Automation Engine

Step 1: Login to Zendesk Chat as the virtual agent

Login to Zendesk using the virtual agent's admin account you created during preparation.

Note: If you typically connect to Zendesk with SSO, open Zendesk in an incognito window and log in as the bot this way.

Reset password

If you don't remember the credentials of the virtual agent's admin account, follow the steps here to reset the bot account's password. You will need access to the virtual agent's email to reset this.

 

Step 2: Enable the groups in Zendesk Chat for routing

After the virtual agent group and human group have been created, enable them in Zendesk Chat on launch day.

To do so:

  • Go to Zendesk Chat > Settings > Groups
  • Click the name of the group you want to enable
  • Click Enable in messaging

 

Step 3: Configure the chat widget

After you have added the widget to your website or Help Center, the widget needs to be configured to: 

  • make all incoming chats pre-select the virtual agent's department 
  • hide the department dropdown menu in pre-chat form

We have created a snippet code for you to add to your website or Help Center to configure the chat widget. The snippet code we created preselects the bot department when the virtual agent is online and preselects the human department when the virtual agent is offline. If you have different needs, let us know at support@ultimate.ai.

The snippet code to hide department dropdown menu

Edit the snippet below by replacing the placeholders of department names (replace me with the name of the virtual department, replace me with the name of the human department) in the first two lines with the actual names of your departments.

This snippet has to be implemented in the source code of your website or help center.

If you're not sure how to do this, follow the steps here. 

<script>
    var VIRTUAL_AGENT_NAME = 'replace me with name of the virtual department';
    var HUMAN_DEPARTMENT_NAME = 'replace me with name of human department';

    zE('webWidget:on', 'chat:departmentStatus', function(dept) {
        if (dept.name === VIRTUAL_AGENT_NAME && dept.status === 'online') {
            zE('webWidget', 'updateSettings', {
                webWidget: {
                    chat: {
                        departments: {
                            enabled: [''],
                            select: VIRTUAL_AGENT_NAME
                        },
                    }
                }
            });
        } else if (dept.name === VIRTUAL_AGENT_NAME && dept.status !== 'online') {
            zE('webWidget', 'updateSettings', {
                webWidget: {
                    chat: {
                        departments: {
                            enabled: [''],
                            select: HUMAN_DEPARTMENT_NAME
                        },
                    }
                }
            });
        }
    });
</script>

Why hide departments?

This is to prevent the chat visitors from having the option to choose a department from the dropdown menu in the pre-chat form and therefore avoid any prejudice.

Below is what it looks like with and without the dropdown menu:

With department dropdown menu:

Without department dropdown menu:

 

 

department_shown.png

 

 

department_hidden.png

 

Step 4: Authorize Zendesk Chat

Note - This can only be completed by someone who is a Client Admin within Ultimate, as CRM Integration Settings are only available to that role. Find out more about user roles here.

  1. Login to the Zendesk Chat as the bot 

  2. Login to Ultimate’s Dashboard and select your bot

  3. Go to Settings > CRM Integration, scroll down to Authorization, and click Unauthorize Zendesk Chat if available

    • This is to clear the way for the bot account in case your bot was connected to Zendesk Chat with another account previously to import data

  4. Add your Zendesk subdomain

    • Your subdomain can be found in the URL of your Zendesk: https://YOURSUBDOMAIN.zendesk.com/

    • Example - https://support.ultimate.ai/hc/en-us - support is the sub-domain for us

Note: Please write only your subdomain and not the whole URL

  1. Click Authorize

    • Zendesk Chat will open a new tab and ask you to allow Ultimate to access Zendesk Chat
    • Make sure you are logged in as the new bot before continuing

  2. Click Allow in the new tab
    mceclip0.png

  3. Once you've allowed access, the subdomain will grey out and the button becomes "Unauthorize Zendesk Chat". See screenshot below for example:
    mceclip0.png
  4. Log out from Zendesk so the bot in Dashboard can take over after enabling automation engine in Step 6

Step 5: Configure integration parameters 

In Ultimate's Dashboard:

  1. Under Integration Settings, click Integration Parameters
  2. In the drawer, under Connection Settings, select the human department and bot department you created/enabled in step 2, respectively  
    • Authorization Access Token * - Ignore
    • Transfer Department - Select the human agent department that conversations should be escalated to
    • Bot Department - Select the bot department
    • Zendesk Tags - Ignore. This refers to the skill tag of skill-based routing
    • Escalation Rules - Determine when chats should be escalated based on agent statusScreenshot_2023-03-30_at_11.07.44.png
  3. Click Save  

Step 6: Enable Automation Engine

Enable the Automation Engine by switching the toggle on. Give it a second until you see Saved!

mceclip1.png

 

✅  Congratulations! Your bot is now officially part of your team as the virtual agent! 

Time to test it by chatting to it via the chat widget on your website or help center.

If the bot doesn't join the chat, have a look at Troubleshooting - Zendesk Chat.

Powered by Zendesk