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Authenticate users in messaging widget when they are logged into the Help Center
Posted Oct 10, 2023
Please give a quick overview of your product feature request or feedback and note who in your org is affected by this issue
When we soon add the messaging widget to our application and to the help center, I need end users who are already authenticated in the help center to also be authenticated in the web widget in the Help Center. As it is today, a user who is already logged into their end user account in the help center is not authenticated in the messaging widget in the help center, so they can't see their past conversations or any of the other benefits of being logged in.
What problem do you see this solving?
Without this, I can't show the messaging widget to customers on the help center. Them not automatically being authenticated in the messaging widget when they are already logged into the Help Center seems like the most basic thing that needs to be supported by Zendesk. As it stands today, it would be such a horrible and confusing user experience that I am forced to not show the messaging widget on the Help Center.
When was the last time you were affected by this lack of functionality, or specific tool? What happened? How often does this problem occur and how does this impact your business?
Zendesk is starting to really roll out messaging and I imagine we are getting close to being forced to move to messaging. As we've been working through the configuration and technical implementation, we realized it isn't even authenticating/recognizing users who are already logged into the Help Center.
Are you currently using a workaround to solve this problem? (If yes, please explain) (1-2 sentences)
We just aren't going to show the messaging widget in the Help Center. We'll have it in our app, but I want it in both for a cohesive and consistent user experience, but that isn't possible.
What would be your ideal solution to this problem? How would it work or function?
It's simple. If I log into the Help Center and then launch the messaging widget there, I should be authenticated in the messaging widget.
37
22 comments
Official
Mick O'Donnell
Hi Tatiana & Ethan,
Thats fair feedback. We are activately working to close this gap in the product so that users who are authenticated in Help Center are automatically authenticated in the Zendesk Web Widget as well. This should provide the help seamless authentication experience that you're looking for, and enable better personalization for the end user as you stated.
It's not possible to share an expected delivery date for this improvement at the moment, but we are targeting a 2024 delivery. Please continue to follow this thread for updates.
2
Shawna James
5
Tatiana Christensen
Hello, it's not clear for me how the zendesk widget bot can offer a personalized experience if the person in the conversation is not authenticated despite being logged on the help center?
1
Tatiana Christensen
Thank you, Mick. That's good news.
I just opened a support case on what we should do in the meantime. Our goal is to be able to set up API flows based on user variables as part of our AI intent pilot.
0
Zach Alexander
I too, think this is incredibly important. I hate re-entering information on web sites when I have already provided it. Please update this ASAP!
1
Verónica Castellanos
Hello!
Any news on release dates? We are really looking forward to this.
Mick O'Donnell
0
Pam Morrissey
Chiming in here - Can we please have an update on this? We too are desperately in the position where we need this to get resolved to use the messenger tool/AI.
Thank you,
Pam
0
Shawna James
0
Sean Tierney
We would love to see this available. Right now, it is a show-stopper for us adopting Messaging.
2
Tomasz Szwed
something is happening but still does not working for me
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/6739639144730-Announcing-authenticating-messaging-end-users-using-signed-email
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/6604813452570-Announcing-restricted-content-support-for-Zendesk-bots-article-recommendations-and-generative-replies
0
John Witt
Similar to Agent Workspace, Zendesk is using Messaging as a base for other features (Agent AI), but we can't use the Messaging widget because of this. It makes no sense to move to Messaging if we can't use Agent AI / new widget. We've been delaying this for months as the current JWT implementation is a service in someone's garage that we can't deploy to prod. It's a big enough issue that a partner has a solution - does Zendesk really expect us to pay $300-600/mo if we can't host the JWT solution ourselves? Messaging and Help Center Authentication App Integration with Zendesk Support
1
Jérémy
Hi everyone,
This external resource has proven to be enlightening for many customers trying to work around this limitation in the past so I'd like to mention it here just in case it could help someone finding this thread while we are working on unifying authentication processes.
It provides a snippet on how one may approach implementing Messaging authentication in the help center theme.
1
Andreas Eichert
I'm not an expert but this implementation seems to be not in line with general security requirements if you can just generate a JWT token from the frontend on an unauthenticated endpoint based on submitting
external_id
,email
, andname.
Looks to me like you can easily impersonate other users.
1
John Witt
Thanks Jeremy, but you still need an external server to host private key, which is the issue. Smaller companies may be able to host on smaller providers, but larger companies with Security concerns cannot. You also need crossdomain=true unless the server is in your domain.
1
John Witt
Andreas Eichert This is why you need the private server. You can check that the request only comes from a specific domain, or if you can host it in your own domain you can disable CORS. But you are correct in that anyone who can access that server from a trusted source can impersonate any user.
1
Shawna James
Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your feedback. This has been logged for our PM team to review. For others who may be interested in this feature request, please add your support by upvoting this post and/or adding your use case to the comments below. Thank you again!
1
Rocio Andujar
This functionality is very important; it should be implemented as soon as possible, especially for cases with closed environments, where only logged-in users can submit requests.
3
Maulik
This is very important and from a customer experience POV its a broken experience where we have to ask for contact details again when customer has already signed in.
Other platforms have a very simple flow and they are automatically updating user details, please take a look at that as well.
1
Ana Krystel Soberano
Any update on this? We have the script going but our issue now is we need to have a server that can host the JWT. We need to have a seamless authentication process.
1
이지훈(maclaude)
Tick tock tock tock~
There are only two weeks left in 2024.
Will this request carry over to 2025?
2
Maulik
Need this feature ASAP! The entire experience of asking customers to enter details again is not an ideal experience. It defeats the purpose of asking customers to sign-in.
0
Predz (StarRez Inc.)
+1 for this one. Our Help Centre is locked down and users must be authenticated to access it. Having the Messaging widget create new users every time a chat is initiated isn't acceptable in our situation. We cannot move over to Messaging and/or start using Bots and the AI Agent in Chat without this.
0