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Zendesk Connector

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​IMPORTANT NOTE: Gainsight is upgrading Connectors 2.0 with Horizon Experience. This article applies to tenants which have been upgraded to the Horizon Experience for Connectors 2.0. If you are using Connectors 2.0 with the previous version, you can find the documentation here.

This article explains how to create a connection from Gainsight to Zendesk, create a data job, merge datasets, and configure job or Job chains in Gainsight. You can also learn about Out of the Box (OOB) Jobs provided by Gainsight in the Zendesk Integration.

Note: This document provides general guidance on creating a Connection and setting up Jobs because the use case of each job is different and needs unique configuration. For detailed information on creating any Job, refer to the Configuration of Connectors in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

Overview

Zendesk's support ticketing system is designed to help track, prioritize, and solve customer support interactions. It helps you nurture your customer relationships with personalized, responsive support across any channel.

Gainsight integration with Zendesk allows you to sync support data from Zendesk objects such as Tickets, Organizations, Users, and Agents, to Gainsight. Once Zendesk data is synced, generate strategic reports on these objects, trigger health scores based on support data, and more.

In addition, this integration helps Zendesk users view the Gainsight Customer 360 page in Zendesk. This integration provides information and collaboration tools to Customer Support and Customer Success, that delivers the best customer experience.

Benefits of the integration include:

  • Seeing the full picture of Customer Success with Zendesk data in Gainsight.
  • Coordinating across Customer Success and Support Teams by creating and linking Call to Actions (CTA) to Zendesk tickets from both the apps.
  • Syncing data like tickets created along with their status and priority, is crucial for understanding the health of your customers in Gainsight.

Create Connection

To create a connection with Zendesk and sync data with Gainsight such as tickets, users, organizations, and agents:

  1. Navigate to Administration > Connectors 2.0.
  2. Click Create Connection. Create Connection dialog appears.
  3. From the Connector dropdown list, select Zendesk.
  4. Enter Name of the Connection.
  5. Enter the address of the Zendesk in the Site Address field.
  6. Click Authorize to validate the connection.
  1. After you click Authorize, the Zendesk Oatuh pop-up window appears, and complete the authorization by entering the Zendesk org credentials.

Zendesk_Oauth.png

Note: To complete the authorization, ensure that you are an Admin and not an Agent or an End-User. Otherwise, Zendesk ticket sync will not work as expected.

  1. After Sign in, click Allow to grant permission to the Gainsight app to access your Zendesk account. Once the authorization is successful, a confirmation message appears. The Gainsight app now gets integrated with Zendesk.

Zendesk_Oauth2.png

For more information, refer to the Connections List Page in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

Out of the Box Jobs

Gainsight provides OOB jobs in the Jobs page to sync important data such as Tickets and Users, which are required for the assessment of data in Gainsight. Following are the two OOB jobs and their mapping details:

  • Sync Zendesk Tickets with Gainsight (OOB)
  • Sync Zendesk Users with Gainsight (OOB)

Sync Zendesk Tickets with Gainsight (OOB)

Gainsight provides an OOB job in the Jobs page to sync Zendesk tickets with Gainsight. In the Tickets OOB job, to get the data on Zendesk Tickets created by each User or Agent in an Organization, the following configurations are provided out of the box:

  1. Four datasets are created on the four Objects (Organizations, Tickets, Users, and Agents).
  2. These datasets are merged as explained below and then mapped to the target Gainsight object.
  3. Source fields from the output dataset are mapped with the target Gainsight fields through Direct Mappings as explained and shown below.
  4. Derived mapping is used to populate the Gainsight GSID of the Users and Agents who created the tickets in the target object.

Zendesk_OOB.png

Preparation of Datasets

The following fields are selected in each Zendesk object while creating a dataset:

Zendesk Organization fields Zendesk Ticket fields Zendesk User fields Zendesk Agent fields
Name Assignee ID Email Email
External ID Created At External ID ID
ID ID ID  
  Priority    
  Organization ID    
  Problem ID    
  Request ID    
  Updated At    
  ID    
  Subject    
  Status    
  Type    
  Description    

Fields in Merge and the Criteria

The following are the fields and merge criteria selected in the each objects merge:

  • Organizations+Tickets:

Join Type: Right

Organizations Tickets
Name Assignee ID, Created At, Priority, Organization ID, Problem ID, Request ID, Subject, Status, Type, Description
Merge Criteria: Organization : Tickets = ID : Organization ID
  • Organizations+Tickets+Users:

Join Type: Left

Organizations Users
Assignee ID, Created At, Priority, Organization ID, Problem ID, Request ID, Updated At, Subject, Status, Type, Description, Name Email
Merge Criteria: Organization+Tickets : Users = Requester ID : ID
  • Organizations+Users+Tickets+Agents:

Join Type: Left

Organizations+Users+Tickets Agents
Assignee ID, Created At, ID, Priority, Organization ID, Problem ID, Request ID, Updated At, Subject, Status, Type, Description, Name  
Merge Criteria: Organization+Users+Tickets : Agents = Assignee ID : ID

Add to Destination Configuration

In the configuration of the Add to Destination, Gainsight offers out of the box direct mappings and derived mappings as explained below.

Direct Mappings

The following table shows direct field mappings between the Output dataset (Organizations+Tickets+Users+Agents) and the target Gainsight object, when you sync Merged Data (Organizations+Tickets+Users+Agents) with Gainsight.

Zendesk Source Fields from Merged Data Add to Destination (Case)
Subject Case Subject
Description Case Description
Priority Case Priority
Status Case Status
ID External ID
Note: Include in Identifiers check box is selected.
Created At Created Date at source
Updated At Modified Date at source
Type Case Type

Derived Mappings

In the OOB Derived Mapping tab, the following table shows the values that are selected for the derived mapping configurations:

Fields Values
Target Field: Assignee ID (GSID)
Select Source Email
Select Lookup Compound Field Mapping
Source Object User
MATCH BY SOURCE Email
MATCH BY OBJECT Email
When Multiple Matches Occur Mark record with an error
When No Matches Are found Insert Null Value(s)
Select Target Field Assignee ID
Target Field: Company ID (GSID)
Select Source name
Select Lookup Compound Field Mapping
Source Object Company
MATCH BY SOURCE name
MATCH BY OBJECT Name
When Multiple Matches Occur Mark record with an error
When No Matches Are found Reject Record
Select Target Field Company ID
Target Field: Requester ID (GSID)
Select Source

Email
Select Lookup Compound Field Mapping
Source Object Person
MATCH BY SOURCE Email
MATCH BY OBJECT Email
When Multiple Matches Occur Mark record with an error
When No Matches Are found Insert Null Value(s)
Select Target Field Requester ID

For more information on how to configure the data jobs, refer to the Preparation of Connector Jobs in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

Sync Zendesk Users with Gainsight (OOB)

Gainsight provides an OOB job in the Jobs page to sync Zendesk Users with Gainsight. In the User OOB Job:

  1. Zendesk User object is selected as the source object in the dataset preparation and the following source fields are selected.
  2. A filter is added to filter the tickets created by Agents.
  3. The Zendesk source fields are mapped with the Gainsight target fields through the Add Destination configuration.

Following are the fields and their mapping in the Add to Destination:

Zendesk User Fields Target Fields in Gainsight (User)
Email Username
Note: Include in Identifiers check box is selected.
Active Active
Name Name
ID ID

For more information on how to configure the data jobs, refer to the Preparation of Connector Jobs in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

Create a Custom Job

From the Jobs page, create jobs to sync data from any Zendesk source object with Gainsight. Create a dataset from one source object, similarly create as many datasets as you need to create a Job. For more information, refer to the Preparation of Connector Jobs in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

Note: (Optional) Create multiple data jobs as required. If the data jobs in a connection are dependent on each other, create a Job chain in a sequence and configure the schedule for the Job Chain. For more information, refer to Job Chain Page in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

Merge Datasets

Merge two datasets together and create an output dataset. For example, merge Tickets and User datasets to sync the details of users created the tickets and number of tickets created by each user. For more information on Merge, refer to the Preparation of Connector Jobs in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

Transform Data 

In the Preparation step of a connector job, admins can Transform data and Add Case Fields to get more meaningful insights from the customer data. 

Example Business use case: The Transform function provides the capability to create or modify new case fields. The new case fields can be used to modify the external field as per the consumption requirement in Gainsight’s data model. Case fields can be defined to populate different values for different case conditions. For example, External picklist values such as New, Open, and Closed can be modified to Active and Inactive to match Gainsight’s picklist values.

For more information on Transform Data, refer to the Preparation of Connector Jobs in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

Add Destination

Once the final output dataset is prepared, add a destination to the output dataset to sync data from the source to the target Gainsight object. For more information on Add Destination, refer to the Preparation of Connector Jobs in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

Direct Mappings

In the Direct Mapping, you should map fields from the output dataset to the target Gainsight object in the field mappings. Data sync happens from the fields of the source system to the target fields of Gainsight, based on the configured field mappings. For more information on Direct Mappings, refer to the Preparation of Connector Jobs in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

Derived Mapping

This is optional and you must configure the derived mappings only if you want to populate values into the target fields of data type GSID. GSID values are populated from the same or another object through lookup. In this stage, create Lookup mapping in a data sync job. You can have a lookup to the same object or another standard object and match up to six columns. Once the required matching is performed, you can fetch Gainsight IDs (GSIDs) from the lookup object into GSID data type fields. For more information on the Derived Mappings, refer to the Preparation of Connector Jobs in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

Note: To use Derived Mappings, your Target Object must have at least one field of data type GSID.

Configure Job or Job Chain

Configure the schedule of a data job or Job chain as required. For more information, refer to the Configure Job or Job Chain Schedule in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

If you create a Job Chain by adding multiple Jobs in a sequence and add a schedule to the Job Chain, the schedule of the individual jobs is not honored.

Job Activities

View the Execution and Update Activities of all the data jobs in the Activity page. Download the logs of the job execution from this page to help troubleshoot the configuration issues. For more information, refer to the Activity Page in the Additional Resources section at the end of this article.

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