Overview
Welcome to the official getting started guide for the Zendesk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 integration. The Zendesk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 closes the loop between your sales and support teams by enhancing visibility into customer information and support activity between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Zendesk. Use this guide to start configuring and using Zendesk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015.
Zendesk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 is an application that your Microsoft Dynamics administrator installs in your Microsoft Dynamics CRM application. It contains a Zendesk module that gives you access to Zendesk tickets in Microsoft Dynamics and displays key Microsoft Dynamics fields in Zendesk user profiles. It also allows tickets to flow through into Dynamics CRM as cases under the correct contacts in that system.
The setup has two parts:
Part 1: Installing the Zendesk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Solution
Part 2: Setting up the Zendesk App and Ticket-to-Case Process
Microsoft Dynamics CRM editions supported
Microsoft Dynamics 2015
On-premise Internet Facing Deploy (IFD) based
Cloud based (Office365 authentication and Windows LiveID)
Note: On-Premise Active Directory based is supported if the needed ports are opened and the CRM services can be hit externally. It uses the same authentication method as IFD deployments, which is what would be selected in that instance.
Part 1: Installing the Zendesk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Solution
Part 1 of the setup contains the following steps:
Load and install the Zendesk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 solution package in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Set up new security roles. The Zendesk integration introduces two new Microsoft Dynamics CRM security roles to give you more granular control over who can access and enter their individual Zendesk credentials and who can access Zendesk configuration pages.
Configure the entity mapping in Microsoft Dynamics in Zendesk and Microsoft Dynamics CRM to view Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 data within Zendesk.
Configure the “Zendesk settings” page in Microsoft Dynamics CRM to set up user credentials for the Zendesk account you want to connect to and data you wish to see in Zendesk.
(Optional) Configure the ticket-to-case capabilities in Zendesk and Microsoft Dynamics CRM to convert tickets into Microsoft Dynamics CRM cases.
Add the Zendesk ticketing grid to any of the available entities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Step 1: Loading and installing Zendesk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015
Download the zip file attached to the bottom of this article: zip.
Log in to Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Locate the Settings section in Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Select the Solutions option under the Settings menu
Click the Import button on the Solutions page
In theImport Solution dialog box, click the Browse button to select the “zip” file you saved in Step 1, then click OK
Make sure you check the box for Activate any processes and enable any SDK message processing steps included in the solution
Click the Next button when you are ready to continue
When the upload is complete, you’ll see confirmation that the upload was successful
This part of the setup is complete! Look for a new entry in the list of solutions for the Zendesk Dynamics CRM Connector.
Step 2: Setting up new security roles
The Zendesk integration introduces two new security roles to Microsoft Dynamics CRM that must be assigned before you can proceed to the next step:
Zendesk – Read Configuration Settings– grants the user access to Zendesk ticket details in read-only mode. To gain access to create/edit Zendesk tickets functionality directly from Microsoft Dynamics CRM these users must have a valid Zendesk license and enter their own personal Zendesk credentials on the ZD Personal Settings
Zendesk Administrator– grants access to the global Zendesk Settings page and the Zendesk Entity Mappings. This role also gives full access to create/edit Zendesk tickets directly from Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
By default, all users can view Zendesk ticket information in Microsoft Dynamics CRM if the components are enabled.
To enable the roles, do the following:
In Microsoft Dynamics CRM, select Settings> Security > Users
In the Users page, click New if you need to add new users.
If you are editing a list of existing users, select the user you want to modify and click on the Manage Roles
In the Manage User Roles dialog box, select the role(s) you want to assign to the user.
The two new roles created by the Zendesk integration are at the bottom. Click Next to select and assign the users to a particular role. Make sure you give yourself the Zendesk Administrator role for now so you can complete the setup.
Users are now configured to use the Zendesk for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 integration! If you have pre-existing users, you can simply add the appropriate roles to each of your uses.
Note: For users with the Zendesk – Read configuration settings permission, they can individually add their own credentials by navigating to Zendesk Integration > Personal Settings in Microsoft Dynamics and clicking the New button to add credentials. Enter the Zendesk User ID and Password then save the record and it will be applied when they access Zendesk tickets. The password will be encrypted so others cannot see the value.
Step 3: Configuring the entity mapping in Microsoft Dynamics
The Zendesk ticketing grid (installed in Step 6) can now match Zendesk tickets with based off certain Zendesk attributes on the ticket with any field present on a Dynamics entity that the ticket grid is installed on.
The most typical setups are things like on a “Contact” entity, match the Zendesk ticket requester with the email address on the “Contact” record. But what if you wanted to match of the “Full Name” field instead in both systems? Now you can by utilizing entity mappings.
Click the Settings section , then locate Entity Mappings under the Zendesk Integration section and select it
Create a new entity mapping by clicking on the NEW button
Select the following items:
Entity Name – This is the Microsoft Dynamics entity that you want the mapping applied to.
Zendesk Object – This is where you can select which object from Zendesk you’d like to pick your field from.
Zendesk Field – This will populate with values depending on your selection from Zendesk Object.
Entity Field – This is a list of fields associated to the selected Entity Name. Pick which field you want to match to the Zendesk Field. Click Save to store the mapping.
Click the ZD Entity Mappingtile to return to the page
Repeat steps 1-4 if you wish to add more mappings for additional Entities
A couple of the most common Entity Mappings are listed below:
Account/Organization Entity
Entity Name: “Account” or “Organization”
Zendesk Object: Organization
Zendesk Field: Name
Entity Field: Account Name
Contact/Lead Entity
Entity Name: “Contact” or “Lead”
Zendesk Object: User
Zendesk Field: EmailAddress
Entity Field: EmailAddress 1
Step 4: Configuring the Zendesk Settings page
The Zendesk credentials now need to be setup so that the system can authenticate to the appropriate Zendesk instance. To do so, navigate to Settings, then locate the Zendesk Integration -> Zendesk Settings title and select it.
There are four sections that can be configured:
Ticket view defaults– These are the global default settings for ticket views in the Zendesk ticket panel. This sets the defaults at the account level, but can be overwritten by individual preferences by each user
Filtering– This sets the default values for filters in the Zendesk ticket panel
Sorting– This sets the default sort order for tickets in the Zendesk ticket panel
Authentication– The Zendesk subdomain and login credentials (you need administrator credentials) need to be entered here. This gives your Microsoft Dynamics CRM users read-only access to available tickets. To create or edit tickets from Microsoft Dynamics CRM, your Dynamics CRM users must have a Zendesk license, and they will need to enter their own credentials through the ZD Personal Settings
Mapped record types– This option determines which data elements are displayed in a Zendesk user profile when a ticket is loaded. You can choose from Lead, Contact, and Account. All fields are available, including custom fields
Ticket-to-case mapping– Identifies data items that should be mapped from standard Zendesk ticket fields into Microsoft Dynamics CRM cases. The three Zendesk fields that are supported are Status, Priority, and Type
Step 5: Adding the Zendesk ticketing grid
Now you are ready to add the Zendesk ticketing panel to any of the entity pages that you’ve configured mappings for. You need to repeat the steps below for each entity type you want the ticketing grid displayed on.
In Microsoft Dynamics, navigate to the first entity where you want to add the ticketing grid. For this example, we’ll refer to a Contactrecord
Select any contact in your list and navigate to the Form Editor
In the Form Editor, click the Insert tab (1), then click the Web Resource button (2)
In the Add Web Resource page, click the magnifying glass next to Web resource to find the Zendesk ticket grid (zd_/Pages/TicketGrid/TicketGrid.html)
In the next page, select the check box next to zd_/Pages/TicketGrid/TicketGrid.html, then click OK
Back in the Add Web Resource dialog box you should see zd_/Pages/TicketGrid/TicketGrid.html in the Web resource Enter a Name and Label you can easily recognize (consider naming it Zendesk Ticket Panel)
Check the box for Pass record object-type code and unique identifier as parameters
Click OK. You now have a Zendesk ticket panel in the form layout that you can drag anywhere you’d like on the page. You can even create a special subsection for it if you’d like
After you place the panel, navigate to the Home tab, click Save, then click Publish
Refresh the contact page you had open and you should see the new Zendesk ticket panel where you placed it
Repeat these steps for any other entities you have created mappings for
This completes the setup within Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015. Continue on to Part 2: Setting up the Zendesk Application to go through the process of setting up the Zendesk application.
Part 2: Configure the Zendesk-Dynamics CRM 2015 App
Now that the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 section is complete, it’s time to configure the Zendesk data display of Microsoft Dynamics CRM information.
Once again, in your Microsoft Dynamics CRM instance, open your newly created Zendesk Configurationpage under the Zendesk Settings section
In the Zendesk Configurationpage, find the Mapped record types section and select the Microsoft Dynamics CRM fields that you want to appear in a Zendesk user profile
To do so, select a field from Microsoft Dynamics CRM (1) and click the arrow (2). The fields that appear on the right (3) are the ones that will be in each Zendesk user profile
Now log in to your Zendesk portal (You need administrator access for the remaining steps)
The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 application needs to be added to the Zendesk instance. Simply navigate back to Manage > Browse, locate the application tile for Microsoft Dynamics 2015, click the Installbutton, and give the application a name
Once installed, navigate to Apps > Manage, click the gear icon and select Change Settings to configure the connection information for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
The Title can be used to change the name of the App
The CRM URL should be the actual address of your CRM instance, make sure to use “https” if SSL is enabled. If CRM is an On-Premise deployment the port must be opened so it can be hit externally by Zendesk
The CRM Organization Name should be filled in for IFD/On-Premise deployments – this is not required for Online deployments as the Org Name is included in the CRM URL
The Active Directory Name should be filled in for IFD/On-Premise deployments – this is not required for Online deployments as there is no domain in that environment
The User Name should be an admin account within the CRM instance
The Password should be the password for the account entered as the user name
Once the configuration is complete, click the Update button
Now, on a ticket page, simply expand the Apps panel on the right hand side of the page and you will see your information from Microsoft Dynamics CRM pulled in.
Configure the ticket-to-case capabilities (optional)
Zendesk enables you to send core ticket information to Microsoft Dynamics CRM cases using a target. This is useful for including Zendesk tickets in support analytics generated through the Microsoft Dynamics CRM reporting module.
This feature is designed to send basic ticket information for reporting. Ticket comments are not replicated in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM case.
Here are the key rules for case creation from a Zendesk ticket:
Ticket-to-case is a one-way push of Zendesk ticket data to a case.
If the case is modified in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the Zendesk ticket is not updated.
If a case is created from a Zendesk ticket, a subsequent push of the same Zendesk ticket will create another case.
A case will always be associated with a contact, where the contact’s email address matches the Zendesk ticket requester’s email address. If no contact with a matching email exists, a new contact is created and associated with the case.
To enable this feature, complete the following steps:
In Zendesk, create a trigger based on the criteria you want a ticket to meet to create a case in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015.
In the Actions section, set the event to Notifications: Notify target and select Microsoft CRM Case Target
Enter the following code into the body of the message:
Save the Trigger when the setup is complete
In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015, open the Zendesk Settings In the Ticket-to-Case mapping section, map the standard Zendesk ticket field values to the corresponding field and field values in Microsoft Dynamics CRM cases.
The screenshot below shows an example of the mapping that could be completed:
Here’s a list of the fields that are synched to Dynamics CRM cases:
Zendesk ticket requester
Zendesk ticket status
Zendesk ticket type
Zendesk ticket priority
Zendesk ticket subject
Zendesk ticket description
Zendesk ticket created date
Date the case was sent over to Dynamics
Once the trigger is saved in Zendesk and the mapping setup screen has been completed, tickets will begin to be sent across from Zendesk into Dynamics CRM.