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How to integrate with Zendesk

Learn how to start forecasting and tracking agent performance via Zendesk

Jack Stewart avatar
Written by Jack Stewart
Updated over a week ago

What does the integration do?

Once connected, the system will pull historical data from Zendesk to:

  • Show your actual ticket count from Zendesk within Dialpad WFM

  • Generate forecasts and staffing requirements

  • Track agent performance and attendance within Zendesk

For Zendesk, forecasting and performance reporting require two different connections due to differing data sources.


How to set-up forecasting via Zendesk

Step 1: Provide your Zendesk subdomain

To connect Dialpad WFM to your Zendesk account, you'll need to provide us with your Zendesk subdomain. (Your subdomain is its unique identifier for your organisation in Zendesk.)

There are a couple of ways you can find this:

  • It’s usually included in your URL: https://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com

  • You can also get a list of Zendesk subdomains that your email address is associated with from the Remind me page.

πŸ’¬ Speak to us on Intercom and select 'Integration set-up help' to create a ticket.

Step 2: Connect Dialpad WFM to Zendesk

Once we've let you know your subdomain is added, you'll be ready to connect.

The forecasting connection is made via API:

  1. Login to Dialpad WFM

  2. Navigate to Settings > Connections

  3. Click the button labelled 'Connect to Zendesk'

  4. You’ll be taken to another screen to authorise your connection.

  5. Set-up is complete!

What's next?

The system will now download 12 months of historical ticket data from your Zendesk account. This process will take 24-48hrs to complete, depending on the volume of tickets in your account.

Step 3: Set-up your forecast with queues

Once this is complete, you next need to map your Zendesk tickets to queues.

A queue should represent the views, inboxes or queues your team work on in Zendesk, e.g. a tier 1 inbox, or a french language queue.

  1. Navigate to Forecasts > Queues.
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  2. Click the button labelled 'New queue'.
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  3. Name the queue. We recommend you use the same name you use in Zendesk.
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  4. The 'real-time' and 'non real-time' setting does not apply to Zendesk.
    ​

  5. Select 'Zendesk' from the connections dropdown.
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  6. You can now filter the tickets you want to include in this queue in the 'filter tickets' section. You can choose to filter tickets by:

    1. assignee_id – the name(s) of agents

    2. channel – e.g. Facebook, web forms

    3. created_at – enter a specific date

    4. group_id – your groups within Zendesk

    5. problem_id – a specific problem ID you use

    6. requester_id – the name of a specific requester(s)

    7. satisfaction_rating – a rating you use

    8. status – e.g. open, pending, closed

    9. tags - tags you use in Zendesk

    10. view_id - the views you have created in Zendesk
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  7. On the right hand side of the page, you will see a preview of the number of tickets you received in the last 7 days that match your filters. You can use this to check against data in your Zendesk account to ensure you've set up the filters correctly.
    ​

  8. Next, you need to enter the staffing parameters for this queue.
    These inputs turn ticket volumes into a staffing requirement.

    1. Average conversation time: enter the average handle time for the entire conversation.

    2. Concurrency: this is the average number of conversations agents work on at once. You can use the same number used in your routing rules here.

    3. Shrinkage: the is the % of scheduled time that's lost while agent's work on this queue. If you're not sure what you're shrinkage is, 30% is quite average across the industry.
      ​

  9. Finally, you need to enter the service level or SLA that you're trying to achieve.
    This a target % of all tickets that should meet your first response time target.
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  10. Your queue will now be set up and ready to use to forecast, track coverage and agent performance.


How to set-up agent tracking via Zendesk

Step 1: Request a connection link

The performance connection is made via webhooks.

To create this connection, our team will need to send you a link.

πŸ’¬ Speak to us on Intercom and select 'Integration set-up help' to create a ticket.

What's next?

Our team will generate a link and email it to you. You then need to authorise the new connection from Dialpad WFM to Zendesk.

Once connected the system will start tracking agent actions and behaviour in Zendesk. Data on their performance will be shown in the performance page.

Step 2: Link activities with queues

In order to correctly mark agent activity as 'on-task' or 'off-task', you need to define which activities are 'queue activities', i.e. agents should be working in Zendesk as this time.

  1. Navigate to the day view of the schedule

  2. Open the activities sidebar by clicking β€œAdd activities”

  3. Select the activity you want to link to a forecast and click the edit icon ✏️

  4. Toggle 'link to a forecast' on and select the relevant queue(s) from the dropdown

  5. Set-up is complete!

You can now monitor agent's Zendesk presence and activity in the real-time page and performance page.


FAQs

Why do I need two connections?

The system Dialpad WFM uses to forecast only pulls the historical volume of tickets and basic metadata. The data is only updated once every 24hrs.

To track agent activity, more information is needed, such as the status changes of tickets and who it was assigned to. This data is updated every 2-5mins.

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