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Overview

The Zendesk integration imports solved and closed tickets from your Zendesk account, including their comments, tags, and custom ticket fields. Tickets that are still open, pending, or on hold are imported after they’re solved or closed. Each Zendesk group you select becomes a dataset. A workspace admin creates the Zendesk source once for the whole workspace, and channels then add its groups. Learn more about Sources →

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Before you start

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In Dovetail

  • A workspace admin creates the source. Other users can request it.
  • The credentials you connect with are shared by the whole workspace. See Shared credentials for how to choose an account.

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In Zendesk

  • A Zendesk role that can view every ticket you want to import. Roles are in Zendesk under Admin Center → People → Team → Roles. Typically this is an Agent role with these settings in its Tickets section:
    • Tickets they can access: All within their brand membership, including those in private groups
    • Commenting permissions: Public and private comments
    • Manage ticket fields: Enabled
  • A dedicated agent account. The source imports only the tickets that the connecting account can view. We recommend a dedicated Zendesk agent account with the role above, so the source’s access doesn’t change when a person’s role or team changes.
  • Your Zendesk subdomain. This is the part before .zendesk.com in your Zendesk URL, for example acme from acme.zendesk.com.
  • One subdomain per source. A Zendesk source connects to one Zendesk subdomain. If your workspace already has a Zendesk source, add groups to it instead of creating another. See Create a source.

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Create the Zendesk source

1

Open Sources and select Zendesk

In the sidebar, select Sources, then select Zendesk.
2

Connect Zendesk

Select Continue, then enter your Zendesk subdomain, for example acme, and select Continue. You’re taken to Zendesk to sign in and approve access.
3

Choose groups and an import period

In Select Zendesk groups, choose one or more groups, or choose All groups. Select tags is optional. See Datasets. Then choose an Import period. See Import period.
4

Choose who can use the source

Choose who can use the source, then select Next. See Create a source.
5

Create the source

Choose whether to auto-redact sensitive information in the source’s data, then select Create source. The first import starts right away. See Redact data from sources.

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Authentication and permissions

Zendesk connects with OAuth. Dovetail requests one scope: Dovetail needs read rather than the narrower tickets:read scope so it can find tickets, including archived ones, with Zendesk’s search API. Dovetail only reads from Zendesk. It doesn’t add comments, change tickets, or change ticket fields. The source runs on the Zendesk account of the user who connects it. To change the account or credentials, see Reconnect a source.

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Datasets

Each Zendesk group you select becomes its own dataset, and every group you select is imported. A channel can add some or all of the source’s groups. To import only tickets with certain tags, choose them in Select tags. Leave Select tags empty to import every ticket in the selected groups. To add more groups later, open the source and select Add group. See Add datasets.

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What gets imported

Each solved or closed Zendesk ticket becomes one data point.

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Always imported

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Imported when present

Dovetail imports up to the first 20 comments on a ticket, with a limit of 10,000 characters across them. Comments past the limit are left out from the end, and the first comment is always kept.

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Not imported

  • Tickets that aren’t solved or closed yet. A ticket is imported once it’s solved or closed.
  • Attachments and side conversations.
  • Customer satisfaction (CSAT) ratings and their comments.
  • Assignee, submitter, and requester organization.
  • Priority, unless you capture it in a custom field.
To rename the fields above or change their types, see Source fields. Need a field that isn’t on this list? Let us know.

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Customer emails

Tickets created by email include the requester’s email address. This data includes customer email addresses, so Dovetail can link data points to contacts. See Create contacts from source data.

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Sync behavior

The first import starts when the source is created. After that, the source syncs about every hour. See Manage a source.
  • Import period. The import period applies to each ticket’s solved date, not its created date. A ticket created months ago but solved within the import period is imported.
  • Ongoing sync. Each sync imports tickets solved since the previous sync. A ticket that’s open, pending, or on hold is picked up by the first sync after it’s solved or closed.
  • Rate limiting. Zendesk’s API rate limit is shared by every app connected to your Zendesk account. If Zendesk limits a request, Dovetail continues from that point on a later sync, so a large first import can take a while.

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Troubleshooting

Dovetail doesn’t accept my Zendesk subdomain. Enter only the part before .zendesk.com, for example acme, not the full URL. I can’t approve access when I sign in to Zendesk. Your Zendesk account may have single sign-on (SSO) or other restrictions that block OAuth apps. Ask a Zendesk admin, or connect with an account whose access isn’t restricted. The source shows that Dovetail’s Zendesk user can’t view some tickets. The connecting account lost access to some tickets. In Zendesk, check that the account still has the role described in Before you start, then select Sync now. If the source needs to be reconnected, see Reconnect a source. No tickets appeared after I created the source. Check that the groups you chose have tickets that were solved or closed within the import period, and that the connecting account can view those tickets. A large first import can take a while to finish. See Missing or outdated data. Fewer tickets were imported than I expected. The import period uses each ticket’s solved date, so a recent ticket that isn’t solved yet isn’t imported. Tickets in groups the source doesn’t include, and tickets the connecting account can’t view, aren’t imported either. Zendesk isn’t available when I set up a channel. See Troubleshoot sources.

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Revoke access in Zendesk

To revoke Dovetail’s access, open Admin Center → Apps and integrations → APIs → External OAuth clients in Zendesk. Find Dovetail, open its options menu, select View token, and delete its tokens. After you delete them, the source can’t import new tickets. To pause or delete the source in Dovetail, see Manage a source. To take its data out of one channel, see Channel setup.

Sources

What a source is, and how its data reaches channels.

Channel setup

Add the source’s groups to a channel, or remove them.

Manage a source

Check a source’s status, sync it, pause it, or add groups.

Voice of customer

Bring support tickets together with other customer feedback in Channels.