Vanilla and Zendesk
There are several ways that you can use your Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla) account with your Zendesk account in order to maximize the features and functionality of both accounts.
- The Zendesk integration is the foundation of this cross-account relationship and the anchor point for other features and functionality.
- The Zendesk addon builds upon the integration by adding features that automate and simplify some of the permissions-based user activities in your Vanilla community.
- 📝 NOTE: This is the focus of this article.
- The Zendesk Guide Search Connector is the "federated search" component that you can use in order to include your Zendesk knowledge base content in your Vanilla community-based searches.
📝 NOTE: This article describes the Zendesk-specific features that you can enable and the Zendesk-specific permissions that you can set in order to manage who can use these features.
Pre-requisites
In order to use this addon:
- you must have a Zendesk account and
- the Zendesk integration must be set up and operational, as described in Zendesk integration.
Configure Zendesk addon settings
⚠️ IMPORTANT: Be sure to have the Unique Identifier and the Secret that you saved during the set-up process in Zendesk Integration in the section, Set-up steps in Zendesk.
1. Access the Dashboard and navigate to Settings > Addons > Addons > Zendesk.
2. Make sure that the addon is enabled (shown below) and click the settings icon.
3. Click Edit Credentials to add (or update) your credentials.
4. On the Zendesk Credentials dialog:
- Your Zendesk URL - specify the full, unique URL of your Zendesk account site.
- Make sure that the URL includes the https (secure) protocol.
- Unique Identifier - type or paste the unique ID that you'd previously saved.
- Secret - type or paste the unique Secret that you'd previously saved.
- Click Save.
After specifying your Zendesk account credentials, there are four optional settings on the page; these are described in the sections below.
Enable Global Login
Toggle ON if you want all staff users to use one Zendesk connection.
📝 NOTE: If any staff user has a connection already established: i) that user's name displays here as an existing connection and ii) all staff users will use that existing connection, irrespective of whether this option is toggled ON.
- If this option is not enabled, staff users will not be able to escalate discussions and comments as tickets to your Zendesk ticketing system, except for those staff users who have their own individual connections to Zendesk set up in their Vanilla Profile (/profile/connections), in which case, those connections will work — but only for those users.
This setting is linked to the Zendesk Create Article and Zendesk Escalate Own Content permissions (described below) and has to be ON in order for them to work.
Escalation Delay
Set an amount of time that your community users have to wait, after they have posted a question, before they can escalate that question to Zendesk as a ticket.
⚠️ IMPORTANT: This applies only to users who have been granted the Zendesk Escalate Own Content permission; this permission is described below in Zendesk-specific permissions.
- This ensures that the question lives in the community for some time and has the opportunity for responses, comments, and/or feedback before it is escalated. This feedback might even negate the need for escalation.
- If a delay interval is not set, questions can be immediately escalated.
- Type a number in the field and click the dropdown to choose a unit of time.
5. Click the send icon to save your settings.
Enable 2-Way Communication
This setting "activates" the #communityreply tag feature. It works like this:
When a Zendesk ticket is created from a post in Vanilla (via the Zendesk - Create Ticket option or via automation rules), staff users who are working on the ticket (the "Zendesk agents") can add that tag to their reply (e.g., a request for more information; a status update) in order to have that reply automatically added to the post in Vanilla.
⚠️ IMPORTANT: Zendesk agents who reply via Zendesk must have a Vanilla account in the associated community. If they don't have an account in the associated community and they add the #communityreply tag, they will get a "create-account" prompt.
📝 NOTE: The tag has to be added to each reply, even if the reply is to an existing thread with previous #communityreply tags. This is intentional so that what gets posted to Vanilla remains at the discretion of the Zendesk agent, per reply.
✅ TIP: Zendesk agents can bypass adding their reply to a post by simply not adding the #communityreply tag to a reply.
Allow Creation of Zendesk Help Articles from Posts
This setting allows authorized users (refer to Zendesk-specific permissions, below) to create Zendesk articles from posts in Vanilla. This simplifies the article-creation process, and gets useful and helpful information published sooner. (These new articles can be revisited for the "polish" work, such as formatting, punctuation, and applying your preferred standards and established conventions.)
📝 NOTE: Higher Logic recommends that the associated permission, Zendesk Create Article, be limited to only those users who are familiar with your Zendesk knowledge base and have experience creating and editing articles in it.
When this setting is enabled, Zendesk - Create Article displays in post dropdown menus.
When this is clicked, the user must select:
- a Zendesk locale for the article;
- which permissions set can manage the article;
- which Knowledge Base category will host the new article; and then
- which section in the selected category will host the new article.
📝 NOTE: You must select a category that has at least one section. If your selected category does not, the following will display:
✅ TIP: The content of the post is the basis for the article.
When Create Article is clicked:
- A draft version of the article — populated with content from the post — is created. The draft can later be managed (edited, formatted, added to, and deleted) in the Zendesk editor.
- An escalation-type banner, with a link to the draft, displays in the community.
Zendesk-specific permissions
There are several permissions associated with the Zendesk addon. Each permission has a distinct purpose and can be assigned to various Roles in order to manage who can do what when the addon is enabled.
Zendesk Basic Ticket
Set to VIEW to allow users to:
- see (on other users' posts) that there's a Zendesk ticket for that post and
- view a Basic version of the ticket.
📝 NOTE: The Basic version removes the ticket number so that users can't click and access something that they aren't authorized to access while, at the same time, letting them know that an issue or bug has been created and is being worked on.
Zendesk Create Article
Set to ALLOW so that authorized users can create articles (in your associated Zendesk Guide account) right from a post, using that post as the basis of the article. Refer to Allow Creation of Zendesk Help Articles from Posts, above.
- Enable Global Login (described above) must be toggled ON in order for this feature to work.
✅ TIP: To create and edit articles, users must have the necessary permissions in Zendesk.
Zendesk Escalate Own Content
Set to ALLOW so that users can escalate their own questions to your Zendesk support center as a ticket, after the specified "delay" has passed. Refer to Escalation Delay, above.
- Enable Global Login (described above) must be toggled ON in order for this feature to work.
- Users cannot escalate other users' questions.
Escalation Delay notes
- If a delay interval is not set, questions can be immediately escalated.
- Setting a delay (a "wait interval") ensures that questions get some "air time" in the community and the opportunity for responses, comments, and/or feedback — from other community users — before it is escalated.
- This encourages community engagement and participation.
- The feedback might even negate the need for escalation.
- The escalation is a fallback measure to ensure that users have a mechanism by which to get their issues resolved.
