Zendesk Ticketing

Overview

The Zendesk Ticketing app enables end users to create email support requests that are sent to your Zendesk Support team as Handoff tickets. This integration gives you control over the information shared with your Zendesk Support environment and allows you to customize tickets directly from your AI Agent.

Capabilities & configuration

The Zendesk Ticketing Handoff provides the following capabilities for creating and customizing support tickets.

Email channel threading

When using the Zendesk Ticketing block for Email channel Handoffs, you can configure the SMTP Connector to allow human agent replies to continue in the same email thread as the original end-user conversation. This provides a more consistent experience for end users and reduces confusion caused by broken or split threads.

• With the SMTP Connector configured: Human agents can reply from the same BYOD address as the AI Agent, and replies continue in the same email thread.
• Without the SMTP Connector: Human agents must use a different email address than the BYOD address configured for the AI Agent. Replies to escalated conversations are sent in a separate email thread.

Ticket customizations

The Zendesk Ticketing app supports the following ticket customizations:

• Set the ticket Subject
• Set the Request Type
• Update the Ticket Status

How a Zendesk Ticketing Handoff works

The primary goal of a ticketing Handoff is to collect information from the end user to share with your support team. You need to capture the end user’s contact information and their issue details. Once this is done, the Zendesk Ticketing app can complete the process by sharing that information with your Zendesk environment.

The Zendesk Ticketing app is a passive block. This means that it does not capture any data from the end user by itself. Any end user information you wish to pass to your Zendesk environment using the Zendesk Ticketing app must be collected separately as variables.

The following blocks are necessary to build a Zendesk Ticketing Handoff.

Capture blocks

Capture blocks capture information directly from the end user and save it as a variable.

You can capture anything you think is relevant for the support request ticket; however, there are three pieces of end user information you must capture for an effective ticketing experience:

• Name
• Email
• Support issue

The Name and Email variables are critical requirements. Without them, the Ticketing app is not considered complete and the Save button won’t illuminate. Though Support Issue is not a block requirement, in most cases it is essential that you capture this information. Without it, the Zendesk agent assigned to the ticket may not know what the support request is about.

The Fetch Chat Metadata block

The Fetch Chat Metadata block is necessary to capture conversation transcript and metadata, and save it as a local, global, or sensitive variable.

Attaching the end user info and the chat transcript to a Handoff dialog is only possible by using the Fetch Metadata block.

The Zendesk Ticketing app

The Zendesk Ticketing app is the main component of a Zendesk Support request Handoff, also known as a ticketing Handoff. Once triggered, a ticketing Handoff gathers the support request information from an end user. This information is then used to create a support ticket in your Zendesk environment. The Zendesk Ticketing app’s job is to connect with the Zendesk API, which in turn takes that information and creates the ticket.

Quick start

Complete these steps to set up a Zendesk Ticketing Handoff. See Implementation & usage for detailed instructions.

Implementation & usage

Configure the Zendesk Ticketing app and set up the Handoff block by completing the following steps.

Step 1: Configure the Zendesk Ticketing app

Connect Ada with your Zendesk Support account to use the Zendesk Ticketing app.

You’ll need the following information from Zendesk:

• Your company’s Zendesk subdomain

• A neutral Zendesk admin email

• A Zendesk API token

To configure the Zendesk Ticketing app:

1. On the Ada dashboard, go to Config > AI AGENT > Handoffs. Then, on the Integrations tab, beside Zendesk Ticketing, click Connect.

   The Zendesk Ticketing window appears.

2. In the Zendesk Ticketing window, enter your Zendesk Subdomain.

3. Enter your team’s Zendesk Login Email. This must be an admin level account.

   Use a general admin account that’s not associated with a specific person. If, for any reason, you downgrade or remove this person’s Zendesk account, then the integration will break and support tickets are no longer sent. On the other hand, a general admin account is not very likely to have its admin privileges revoked.

4. Enter your Zendesk API Token.

   If you need to create a new token, be sure to use the same admin account you used to connect Ada with your Zendesk account.

5. Click Save.

Step 2: Gather required information

Gather the end user information required to create a Zendesk ticket.

The following end user information is necessary to create a Zendesk ticket:

• The end user’s name
• The end user’s email
• The chat transcript

You can gather the end user’s name and email address by using Capture blocks to ask them for it directly. Remember to place the Capture blocks before the Zendesk Ticketing app block.

The chat transcript, however, must be captured using the Fetch Chat Metadata block to save it as a variable. This variable can then be attached to the ticket, typically in the Comment field.

Configure the Fetch Chat Metadata block

Add the Fetch Chat Metadata block to capture conversation data.

To configure the Fetch Chat Metadata block:

1. Click the Select Action drop-down menu, then click Fetch Chat Metadata.

2. Under Select Variables for Inputs, add the chatter_token metavariable to the Chatter Token field.

3. (Optional) Under Save Response as Variables, click the Select Optional Variable drop-down menu, and select the options you’d like to capture in variables.

   Unlike the original Zendesk Ticketing block, this new block does not automatically capture the chat transcript or end user info (i.e., the metadata that is immediately recorded from an end user’s browser/device). You must select the optional variables in this step in order to pass them to the Zendesk ticket.

4. Assign variables to the options you selected in step 3.

   It is best practice to give variables the same names as the field titles. Use chat_transcript and chatter_info, respectively.

5. Under Fallback Answer, click Edit response to update the Error Fallback dialog to serve your end users in case of a connection error with the Zendesk API.

6. Click Save.

Step 3: Use the Zendesk Ticketing app block

Add the Zendesk Ticketing app block to your Handoff to create support tickets.

To add and configure the Zendesk Ticketing app block:

1. On the Ada Dashboard, drag and drop the Zendesk Ticketing App block into your Handoff Answer.

2. Click the Select Action drop-down menu, then click Create Ticket.

   The Select Variables for Inputs section appears.

3. Complete the mandatory input fields, and any optional input fields as needed. Use the following tables to understand the requirements for each field.

   You may see more inputs in your Optional Inputs drop-down menu than the three constant options listed in the table below. The menu populates with additional input options dynamically, based on what is available in your Zendesk Support environment.

   Mandatory Input	Description
   Comment	Add the chat transcript variable from the Fetch Chat Metadata block. You can also add plaintext notes. You can use line breaks in your comment for tidier formatting. To do so, add \n wherever you want the line break to occur.
   Chatter’s Name	Add the Name variable. This could be a variable captured with the Capture block, or a metavariable passed from the end user’s account.
   Chatter’s Email	Add the email variable, captured either using a Capture block, or passed from your database as a metavariable.

   Optional Input	Description
   Attach Comment To	Add one of the following to indicate where to attach the comment: internal note public reply By default, comments are attached to internal notes.
   File Data Token	Used to attach file upload data. Add the File Data Token variable generated by the File Upload App.
   Tags	Use this field to add Tags to your tickets. You can type in plain text, or use variables. Separate each tag with a comma. Use underscores instead of spaces in tags (e.g., accounts,forgot_password,sign_in_issues) Avoid special characters in tags. For more information on how special characters work in tags, see Working with ticket tags at Zendesk’s documentation.
   Email CCs	Use this field to pass CC’d recipients from an email conversation directly into a Zendesk ticket at Handoff, without requiring a custom field in Zendesk. When configured with the email_latest_cc_list variable, all CC’d participants are automatically included on the ticket, ensuring they receive replies from human agents after Handoff. This field is only relevant when using the Zendesk Ticketing block for Email channel Handoffs involving multiple participant conversations.
   Custom Fields	When you create custom fields in your tickets, Zendesk automatically populates the names into your block. Then, you can associate those field names with the tag values you want to populate them with. For more information, see Adding custom fields to your tickets and support request form at Zendesk’s documentation. If you have conditional fields in your ticket, ensure that each field has a tag in it. If a conditional field doesn’t have a tag associated with it, the Handoff won’t work. For more information, see Creating conditional ticket fields at Zendesk’s documentation. Similarly, ensure that every field that’s marked as Required in Zendesk has a tag associated with it. Otherwise, the Handoff won’t work. When passing tag values into custom fields, make sure you use the same tag names that you have configured in those fields. A common mistake is using the display label (e.g., Forgot password) instead of the tag value (e.g. forgot_password), which prevents the tag from properly appearing on the ticket.

   

4. Under Save Response as Variables, click the Select Optional Variables drop-down menu, then select Ticket ID.

5. Click Choose a Variable, and select an existing variable, or create a new variable, to capture the Zendesk ticket’s Ticket ID.

6. Under Fallback Answer, click the Choose an Answer drop-down menu, then select a variable to display if an error occurs during the block’s operation.

7. Beside Count as Handoff, enable the toggle to include these Handoffs in your AI Agent’s reporting.

8. Click Save.

You’re done! The Zendesk Ticketing App block is now configured for creating support tickets.