Add-on | AI agents - Advanced |
Before connecting your AI agent in the AI agents - Advanced Dashboard to the AI agent's admin account in Zendesk Chat, make sure you have finished the preparation of creating an admin account for the AI agent 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 AI agent to Sunshine Conversations instead of Zendesk
Our approach is to integrate natively with Zendesk Chat, meaning we act as an AI agent within the platform.
This article covers the steps to take to connect your AI agent in the AI agents - Advanced Dashboard to the AI agent's account you created during preparation:
- Step 1: Login to Zendesk Chat as the AI agent
- Step 2: Enable the departments in Zendesk Chat for routing
- Step 3: Configure your Chat widget
- Step 4: Authorize Zendesk Chat
- Step 5: Configure integration parameters
- Step 6: Enable Automation Engine
Step 1: Login to Zendesk Chat as the AI agent
Login to Zendesk using the AI 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 AI agent this way.
Reset password
If you don't remember the credentials of the AI agent's admin account, follow the steps here to reset the AI agent account's password. You will need access to the AI agent's email to reset this.
Step 2: Enable the groups in Zendesk Chat for routing
After the AI 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 AI 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 AI agent department when the AI agent is online and preselects the human department when the AI agent is offline.
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 AI 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: |
|
|
Step 4: Authorize Zendesk Chat
Note - This can only be completed by someone who is a Client Admin within AI agents - Advanced, as CRM Integration Settings are only available to that role. Find out more about user roles here.
-
Log in to the Zendesk Chat as the AI agent
-
Log in to the AI agents - Advanced Dashboard and select your AI agent
-
Go to Settings > CRM Integration, scroll down to Authorization, and click Unauthorize Zendesk Chat if available
- This is to clear the way for the AI agent account in case your AI agent was connected to Zendesk Chat with another account previously to import data
-
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
-
Click Authorize
- Zendesk Chat will open a new tab and ask you to allow AI agents - Advanced to access Zendesk Chat
- Make sure you are logged in as the new AI agent before continuing
-
Click Allow in the new tab
- Once you've allowed access, the subdomain will grey out and the button becomes "Unauthorize Zendesk Chat". See screenshot below for example:
- Log out from Zendesk so the AI agent in Dashboard can take over after enabling automation engine in Step 6
Step 5: Configure integration parameters
In the AI agents - Advanced Dashboard:
- Under Integration Settings, click Integration Parameters
- In the drawer, under Connection Settings, select the human department and AI agent 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
- AI agent Department - Select the AI agent 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 status
- Click Save
Step 6: Enable Automation Engine
Enable the Automation Engine by switching the toggle on. Give it a second until you see Saved!
✅ Congratulations! Your AI agent is now officially part of your team as the AI agent!
Time to test it by chatting to it via the chat widget on your website or help center.
If the AI agent doesn't join the chat, have a look at Troubleshooting - Zendesk Chat.
1 comment
Catalin Prata
Can I integrate Ultimate chat into Android nativelly using zendesk sdk for android? Thank you!
0