Automated SMS via Zendesk

With a support system like Zendesk, your team want to keep on top of their support tickets. With a number of great integration options you can now integrate Zendesk with Esendex to send text message based triggers based on sepcific actions or events that occur during the life cycle of support tickets . These currently include SMS that can:

In order to integrate Esendex to send SMS to notify recipients of any of the above, you need to do the following:

  1. Set up your Free Esendex account
  2. Tell Zendesk how to send the SMS messages
  3. Tell Zendesk when to send the SMS notifications

How to integrate Zendesk to send SMS alerts

Want to automate SMS notifications from Zendesk?

Initial steps will require you to log into the Zendesk account you operate.

Navigate to Settings, which can be accessed through the bottom left cog. Click “Extensions” and then click “add target” in the top right.

This will then bring you to the screen above. Here you want to select the “URL target” option.

You will then see the interface above which requires you to enter information required in order to set up automated SMS triggers from Zendesk.

You will need to enter the following:

The URL should take the following format:

https://www.esendex.com/secure/messenger/formpost/SendSMS.aspx?Username=esendexusername&Password=esendexpassword&Account=esendexaccountreference&Recipient=mobilenumber

For the URL formatting you will need to replace esendexusername with your esendex username (email), esendexpassword with your esendex password, esendexaccountreference with your esendex account reference and finally mobilenumber with the mobile number you wish to receive the SMS.

Consult your welcome email in order to locate your Esendex account reference. You will have received this upon initial sign up. Aternatively you can log in to echo and view it on the welcome interface detailed below. It will look something like this: EX0000001.

In order to test whether configuration has been successful, simply hit the “submit” button  on the Zendesk configuration screen with the “Test Target” selected in the drop down.

Where successful your recipient’s number should receive a text message with information from Zendesk which should follow shortly after.

The final step is to alter the target dropdown to “Create Target” and hit “submit.”

Tell Zendesk when SMS triggers should be sent

Your Zendesk software will need to be instructed when to send required SMS notifications and how often. In order to do this you will need to integrate Zendesk with the desired event(s).

Navigate to Settings (this is accessed through the cog in the bottom left), then click “Triggers” in order to do this.

On this interface you will see a list of events available in Zendesk for you to choose from and integrate with. In this example we will be hooking into the “Notify assignee of assignment” event. To do this click “edit” next to the desired event.

You will then be greeted by the trigger screen. In order to get your chosen event trigger to send or push out a text message you must change two fields.

  1. The first step is to change the action to be performed to “Notifications: Notify target”. This should then automatically keep the “SMS via Esendex” target we configured earlier selected. If not select it from the drop down menu.
  2. The next step is to write up the text message to be sent, then hit “submit”

Additional options available to send SMS from Zendesk

If you want to automate more than one recipient mobile number to receive a triggered SMS alert but only when a corresponding user is assigned a ticket then you can. 

Set up a target in the extensions menu for each of your individual users or recipients. Name each user or mobile number to make it easier to distinguish between them and remeber that you will need to put the correct mobile number in for each in the URLfield.

The next step is to simply yo set up the SMS trigger that you want users to receive an SMS about. 

You can further edit this so that triggers only occur when the assignee is a specific user.

An example: In the case of setting something up for Debby you would need the condition “Ticket: Assignee” “Is” “Debby”. Then setup the action to notify target and select “Debby SMS” from the options. Then hit submit.

You will need to repeat this step for each recipient that you wish to be notifed via text message. 

To find out more about the further possibilities with Esendex and Zendek, simply contact us.

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