Airtable sync integration: Zendesk

  • Updated on Oct 23, 2024
  • Published on Jul 6, 2022
  • 3 minute(s) read

Plan availability

Business and Enterprise Scale access only

Permissions

Owners/Creators - To create or update synced tables, you'll need to have creator permissions in the base where you are setting up the sync.

Platform(s)

Web/Browser, Mac app, and Windows app

Related reading

  • Sync - Basic setup - If you haven’t set up a sync before, we recommend first reading this article to become familiarized with how the Airtable Sync feature generally works.

  • Airtable Sync FAQs - Answers to common questions that might help unblock you if you are encountering issues.

Learn how to use the Airtable Sync integration feature to bring information from an external application into Airtable as a new table in your base. Sync integrations are always a one way sync from the external application into an Airtable base, so changes made in Airtable cannot be synced back to the external application that you are syncing with.

This article covers how you can sync ticket information from a specified Zendesk view that you have set up to create a synced table in a base in Airtable.

Note

Consult Zendesk’s Help Center to learn more about creating a filtered view of support tickets to leverage for use as an Airtable sync integration source.

Setting up a Zendesk sync

Step 1: Add a new synced table

You can find the option to sync with Zendesk by pressing the + button next to the table furthest to the right in your base. Scroll down to the bottom of the list and select the X more sources… button. X will be the number of additional sync source types that you have access to and will vary by plan type. Clicking this option will open a modal where you can either search or browse for the Zendesk option.

Step 2: Select Zendesk account

Next up, you can select a previously connected Zendesk account. Otherwise, if this is the first time you are connecting your Airtable account with Zendesk, then you will need to press the + Connect new account button.

4405277941143connectZDAccount.jpegThis will bring up a new window where you will enter your company’s Zendesk subdomain. For the example below, we use Airtable, since that is our subdomain.

4405273392663subdomainZD.png

We use OKTA for user authentication at Airtable. Depending on your company’s sign-in processes you may need to enter your Zendesk username and password.

Step 3: Select a view to sync

After successfully connecting to your Zendesk account you should see a list of all of the views that you have set up within Zendesk. Pick a view that you are looking to sync into Airtable and click Next.

4405273519127ZDChooseView.gif

Step 4: Select fields to sync

After clicking next, you’ll be presented with two sync options; you can sync:

  1. All fields from the Zendesk, including custom fields and any fields added in the future.

  2. Specific fields from Zendesk. (Default)

For the Zendesk sync option, field selection will default to the “Specific fields in source…” option with the 14 common field types within Zendesk automatically toggled on.

1. Subject

6. Priority

11. Tags

2. Status

7. Created

12. Followers

3. Assignee

8. Updated

13. ID

4. Description

9. Requester

14. Due date 1

5. Type

10. Via

1 In Zendesk, "Due date" can only be set on tickets of the "Task" type.

Additionally, you’ll be shown a menu where you can toggle each individual field that you want to sync from Zendesk.

4405277797399ZDFieldSelection.gif

Step 5: Create a synced table

Before creating your synced table, there are “Settings” options that allow you to choose how often you want to sync, and how to handle deleted or hidden fields in the Zendesk view source.

  • The frequency of syncing. The options are manual syncing and automatic syncing which happens around every 15 minutes.

  • Whether or not deleted fields in Zendesk should be removed from the Airtable table. By default, deleted rows will be removed.

4405273996695syncFreqDelete.jpeg

FAQs

Are there any limitations to be aware of for this sync integration?

  • Due to how the Zendesk API works, we can only show the oldest 1000 views a user has access to. If you are unable to see a particular view, this may be the reason why.

  • The maximum number of records that can be synced is 10,000 by default. This is a limit that we impose to ensure reasonable performance. There is no way to "batch" a sync, it is all or nothing. This means that any Zendesk view connected in this sync that contains more than 10,000 will be incompletely synced. As a workaround, if you can batch Zendesk views into 10,000 tickets a piece, then you can sync each view as a different table in Airtable. Remember that your plan's record limits per base will come into play here as well.

What happens if the user who set up the sync becomes deactivated/deleted?

The sync will stop working and will require a different user to reconnect or set up a similar sync integration under their own login information.