This article helps you get up and running with Zendesk for Contact Center. Some of the processes mentioned below might need to be carried out by the Zendesk Professional Services team.
This article contains the following topics:
- Understanding Contact Center components
- Setting up Amazon Connect
- Creating a Contact Center account
- Linking Connect and Contact Center with a CloudFormation stack
- Setting up users and access
- Configuring Contact Center to send call recordings to Zendesk
- Adding a Contact Center admin user
- Configuring allowed domains in Connect
- Installing and configuring the Zendesk for Contact Center app
- Next steps
A PDF version of this guide is attached at the end of the article.
Understanding Contact Center components
Before you start, it’s important to know the key building blocks of Contact Center and how they interact. Contact Center runs on Amazon Connect, a cloud contact center that manages calls, chats, queues, and contact flows. There are several terms you'll need to be familiar with before you get started.
Setting up Amazon Connect
Connect is the cloud service that powers Contact Center. It manages calls, chats, queues, and contact flows. Each Contact Center customer must run a Connect instance in their own AWS account, and a Contact Center account can link to only one Connect instance.
You can automatically set up Connect, or manually set it up yourself.
Creating a Contact Center account
Admins can create a new Contact Center account tied to the client's Connect instance. This essentially onboards the client into the Contact Center system, establishing the one-to-one connection between Contact Center and Connect.
Linking Connect and Contact Center
To link Connect and Contact Center, use a CloudFormation stack provided by Zendesk. The stack is a pre-defined set of AWS resources and configurations that sets up everything you need.
See Linking Connect and Contact Center with a CloudFormation stack.
Setting up users and access
Users (agents or admins) need to sign into Contact Center, and Connect must allow the connection. Contact Center uses Amazon Cognito for agent authentication, including single sign-on (SSO).
Configuring Contact Center to send call recordings to Zendesk
Contact Center can send call recordings to Zendesk, where they can be accessed in a ticket. This action is known as writeback. To allow Contact Center to send call recordings back to Zendesk after a call, turn on the Voice Post Call Lambda in AWS.
See Configuring Contact Center to send call recordings to Zendesk.
Adding a Contact Center admin user
By default, newly created users are regular users. If a user has administrator privileges in Contact Center (meaning they can configure Contact Center settings, view dashboards, and so on), they must be added to the LMAdmin user pool group described in the following article.
Configuring allowed domains in Connect
Because Contact Center is a separate web app that links to Connect through a browser, you must whitelist the Contact Center domain in the Connect instance settings. This ensures that when an agent uses Contact Center, Connect recognizes it and permits the connection.
Installing and configuring the Zendesk for Contact Center app
The Contact Center app from the Zendesk Marketplace is the interface you'll use to control your contact center. Before you can use Contact Center, you must install the app and configure various settings.
See Installing and configuring the Zendesk for Contact Center app.
Next steps
Now you've completed the installation, here are some useful resources to get you started using Contact Center.