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Tip: Get Notified in Slack when @Mentioned on a Ticket



image avatar

Chandra Robrock

Most Helpful - 2021Community Moderator

Posted Feb 11, 2021

The Problem 

Tickets I was @mentioned on were slipping through the cracks. The in-app notifications were helpful when I was in the Zendesk UI, but I spend 40% of my time outside of the queue. Email notifications were also a challenge due to the volume of tickets I handle each week. It was difficult to keep up. 

The Solution 

Utilizing a trigger, Slack webhook, and a Zendesk webhook I was able to implement a solution that would notify me in Slack each time I was @mentioned on a ticket. 

Instructions 

Step 1

If you don’t have one already, you’ll need to create a Slack webhook. Note: You might need your Slack Admin to help you set up the actual webhook in Slack. 

For this specific solution, I’d recommend using a webhook for your personal Slack DMs, but you can definitely pipe these notifications into any Slack channel of your choosing. 

Step 2

Next, you'll want to create a Zendesk webhook based on a Slack webhook URL. To do this, navigate to the Webooks page: Admin Center > Apps and Integrations > Webhooks, and click Actions > Create Webhook. Next, enter:

  • Name for this webhook
  • The Endpoint URL which is your Slack Webhook URL.
  • Set Request method to POST

Click Create and then Complete setup on the following screen.

Step 3

Create a new trigger to notify this webhook using the following Conditions:

  • Comment is Private
  • Comment Text contains the following string <<your name>> 

Note: If you have an Alias Name setup in your Zendesk User Profile, you’ll want to use your Alias Name for the Comment Text condition. At the time of writing this, Zendesk will look for the Alias name associated with the @mentioned user rather than the actual comment text.

For the Action, you'll select Notify Active Webhook and then locate the webhook you just created. For the JSON body, you can enter any JSON content that you’d like to include within this notification. For example:

{
"attachments":[
{
"fallback":"You've been mentioned on a ticket",
"pretext":"You've been mentioned on a ticket",
"color":"#D00000",
"fields":[
{
"title":"Subject: {{ticket.title}}",
"value":"{{ticket.url}}",
"short":false
}
]
}
]
}

Step 4

Test this trigger out to make sure it’s working as expected. 

That's it!

It’s a simple solution, but it’s been really helpful for myself and a few of my colleagues so that we can keep a closer tab on the tickets that need our attention. I hope this tip is helpful for other community members. 


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14

14 comments

Official

image avatar

David

Zendesk Customer Care

Suzanne James

To achieve a direct ping (mention) in Slack when you are mentioned in a Zendesk ticket, you're on the right track by configuring the JSON message for posting in a Slack channel. However, just including "@Suzanne" in the JSON message doesn't automatically translate to a mention in Slack due to how Slack handles user mentions in their API.

In Slack, to mention a user, you need to use the user's unique ID rather than their username. User IDs in Slack start with "U" followed by a series of letters and numbers (e.g., U123ABCD).

Here's how you can adjust your approach:

  1. Find Your Slack User ID:

    • You can find your user ID by clicking on your name in Slack, going to your profile, then clicking on "More" and choosing "Copy member ID."
  2. Adjust the JSON Payload:

    • Once you have your user ID, you need to adjust the JSON payload to use the Slack format for mentioning a user. Instead of "@Suzanne", you would use something like "<@U123ABCD>", where "U123ABCD" is your user ID.

Here’s an example of how your JSON message should look:

{ "fallback": "<@U123ABCD> You've been mentioned on a ticket", "pretext": "<@U123ABCD> You've been mentioned on a ticket", ... }
  1. Configure Zendesk to Slack Integration:

    • Ensure that your Zendesk to Slack integration is correctly set up to send these notifications as intended. This might involve configuring webhooks or using Zendesk's built-in Slack integration features.
  2. Check Slack App Permissions:

    • Ensure that the Slack app (which is posting these messages to your channel) has permissions to mention users. Depending on your Slack workspace settings, there might be restrictions on which apps can mention users or post certain types of messages.
  3. Test Your Configuration:

    • After making these changes, test the configuration by having someone mention you in a Zendesk ticket to see if the Slack notification correctly mentions you.


That should handle take care of it!  

0


This is really cool, and we would have a similar need/use-case. But we don't use Slack. Does something like this work for MS Teams?

0


This is cool, but it would be great if you could please provide us with a screenshot and the exact details you used for the HTTP target you created so we could easily just copy the setup instead of having to wade our way through it in a separate article. :)

0


image avatar

Chandra Robrock

Most Helpful - 2021Community Moderator

Kelsey Davis I did some searching and, based on this Zendesk community post back from 2018, it sounds like you can create an HTTP target for MS Teams. Once that's setup, you'll be able to follow the remaining steps in this post to get it setup.

Amie B. That's a great call! The actual JSON I'm using is pulling in some custom organization & ticket fields which is why I didn't include it initially.

I went ahead and removed those fields and the below JSON should help get you what you need. You can definitely tweak it as needed or desired though!

{
"attachments":[
{
"fallback":"You've been mentioned on a ticket",
"pretext":"You've been mentioned on a ticket",
"color":"#D00000",
"fields":[
{
"title":"Subject: {{ticket.title}}",
"value":"{{ticket.url}}",
"short":false
}
]
}
]
}

0


Awesomeness! Thanks for updating the article with that for us. Much easier now to give this one a whirl. :D

0


Popping in here to add an alternative method: use Slack's email forwarding feature

On Slack, open your Preferences and go to
Messages &Media.
Scroll all the way down to the
Bring Emails into Slack section.
Click the Get a Forwarding Address and copy the e-mail address.

 

On Gmail, open your
settings and go to
Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
Click on
Add a Forwarding Address and paste the address you copied from Slack. Click Proceed.

From there, you can create a search filter and have it forward to your slack address. 

1


The help article linked is broken or not accessible. Is there an alternative link that can be provided so i can understand on how to set this up? Thanks. 

 

https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115011298868-Example-Integrating-the-HTTP-Target-with-Slack

3


2


Any plans for making those articles accessible to us?

0


image avatar

Chandra Robrock

Most Helpful - 2021Community Moderator

Jared Young Danielle Biondo Bruno Lima - Apologies for the delayed response! The previous email notifications got lost in my inbox. 

I wrote this user tip back in 2021 and, since then, Zendesk deprecated the HTTP target feature, which would explain why they also archived the help article I previously referenced.

I'll make note to edit this tip to reflect their newer Webhooks feature but, in the meantime, you can follow Step 1 & 2 of this help article: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4763619757978-How-can-I-receive-notifications-in-Slack-when-a-ticket-is-rated-negatively-

I'll post another update once I've had a chance to update this User Tip accordingly. 

0


image avatar

Danielle Biondo

Zendesk Luminary

Hi Chandra Robrock thank you! We found that article and this is what we setup currently and is working for us. Appreciate the response! 

0


Thanks! I solved it thanks to 😆

0


When I am @ mentioned in a ticket reply, I have it configured to post in a slack channel and have added the keyword "Suzanne" to my slack settings. Is it possible to set it up to ping me in Slack? 

I've tried formatting the JSON message to say:
"fallback":"@Suzanne You've been mentioned on a ticket",
"pretext":"@Suzanne You've been mentioned on a ticket",

@Suzanne is my Slack name. 

But the notification only shows in my slack Activity feed. 

Thanks!

0


Hey everyone! 👋

If you’ve ever wanted to get Zendesk mentions sent straight to Slack, we’ve just launched an app that does exactly that! No more missed comments or slow responses—everything goes right into your Slack channel.

Check it out on the marketplace if you’re interested: ZenMention 😊

Let me know if you have any feedback!

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