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Data Importer: Use Org ID as identifier instead of external_id when updating orgs
Posted Mar 28, 2024
Feature Request Summary:
When using Data Importer to bulk update organizations, I want to use the Zendesk Org ID as the record identifier instead of the external_id. Organizations do not always have external_id's, but they always have an organization id. It doesn't make sense to me that I cannot use the organization's primary key (organization id) when updating records via Data Importer.
Description/Use Cases:
- The issues I'm running into with Data Importer for my use case are:
- Some organizations I want to update via Data Importer do not have an external_id.
- I need to update the external_id to a different value, but that doesn't appear to be an option.
- Using Data Importer, how do I update organizations that do not already have an external_id?
- Using Data Importer, how do I change the external_id of an organization to a different value?
- Can I use the Zendesk Org ID instead of the external_id to identify which organizations are updated via data Importer?
I submitted the issues and questions listed above to Zendesk support, and this was their response:
- If organizations are without an external_id, you can set one using the Zendesk API before utilizing the Data Importer tool.
- Changing an organization's external_id is not directly supported by the Data Importer tool. You'll need to utilize the Zendesk API for updating the external_id.
- The Data Importer tool necessitates the use of external_id for organization identification. The use of Zendesk Org ID for this purpose is not supported.
Business impact of limitation or missing feature:
I have over 40,000 organization records that require updating. This task requires me to update the system and custom organization fields, the external_id, and add an external_id value where one isn't already populated.
Because of the Data Importer limitations, I'm now creating a custom application that will read a csv of organization records and send an API call to this endpoint for each organization id listed in the csv.
This endpoint uses the organization id to identify which record should be updated. It seems bizarre to me that Data Importer would rely on an optional organization field (external_id) to update organizations instead of the record's primary key (organization id).
9
5 comments
Official
Carl Joseph
Hi Chris Fassano, thank you for taking the time to provide us with this feedback. I apologize for the delay on our end in providing you with a response to your feature request.
This is a great feature request and I have added it to the backlog for future consideration. This means that we will think about adding it as a priority later in our planning cycle. We are going to leave this post open for comment to allow others to provide their feedback and use cases, however please note as is stated in our Community Guidelines that we can not commit to prioritizing any one piece of feedback we receive in the community.
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!
2
Emily Ruth
I cannot find the external ID for orgs, its not in the org details or included in the org export
0
Chris Fassano
@emily - external ID is an optional field on the organization record and it can only be populated when created or updated via API. If you did not include an external ID value when creating the org via API, it will not display the external id field on the org.
0
Jim Uomini
Is it possible to report on the external_id in Explore?
Answered my own question: You can report on External ID in Explore and can export it with the Advanced Search app.
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