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Administration GuideGetting StartedZendesk

Getting Started with Zendesk

This guide takes you from a new account to a working setup on Zendesk. It follows the eight steps of the Quickstart on your dashboard, which ticks each one off as you finish it. If you have not signed in yet, start with Getting Started.

Required setup

  1. Connect Zendesk and install the app
  2. Index your tickets
  3. Set up classification, attributes and brands
  4. Decide how the AI handles each kind of ticket

Get oriented

  1. Invite your team
  2. Build your knowledge base
  3. Check analytics and feedback
  4. Review billing and your overage preference

1. Connect Zendesk and install the app

Flexivity connects to Zendesk from the cloud; there is nothing to download or run on your side.

  1. Install the Flexivity AI app from the Zendesk Marketplace. This adds the Flexivity panel to the ticket sidebar, and the webhooks and triggers that send Flexivity your ticket events. See Install the Flexivity AI app.
  2. Connect Zendesk from the admin console. Start from the setup card on your dashboard, or open Help Desk. Enter your Zendesk subdomain (for example, acme for acme.zendesk.com), sign in to Zendesk as an admin if asked, and grant access. See Connecting Zendesk.

The step is done when the instance is Active and has checked in within the last five minutes.

2. Index your tickets

Nothing to do here: connecting starts the historical ticket sync and the Help Center article sync automatically. Your solved tickets let the AI find related cases, and your Help Center articles are what it answers from. You can follow the ticket sync on the Ticket History card on your instance’s Help Desk page, where you can also change how far back it reaches, and the article sync on Knowledge Sources. See Syncing ticket history.

The step is done once tickets have been indexed.

3. Set up classification, attributes and brands

Attributes are what the AI records about each ticket, and what your rules act on in step 4. On your instance’s Help Desk page, click Configure on the Classification / Attributes card.

  • Mapped attributes come first. Map a Zendesk ticket field, such as a topic or category drop-down, so the AI can read your team’s value or fill it in. A value the AI writes can drive your own Zendesk triggers and views too. Up to 5.
  • Flexivity attributes are your own, for anything Zendesk has no field for, such as urgency. The AI decides each value from its description, so describe each value the way you would to a new agent. Up to 10.
  • System attributes are built in and do not count against either limit. Tick the ones you want, such as Sentiment or Agent has replied.

Back on the Help Desk page, check the Multibrand Domain card. Each Zendesk brand is its own brand in Flexivity, with its own knowledge, rules and settings. Untick any brand the AI should leave alone.

The step is done once you have mapped an attribute. See Classification / Attributes.

4. Decide how the AI handles each kind of ticket

Open AI Configuration → Conversation Handling Rules. A rule matches tickets by their attributes and sets how far the AI may go with them, from Ignore to Resolve. For example:

  • topic is Email → Resolve: the AI works with the customer until the request is resolved.
  • sentiment is Frustrated → Gated: a person handles the ticket, with no AI draft.

A ticket no rule matches gets Assist: the AI drafts a reply and an agent decides whether to send it. Most teams start there and move a class of tickets up once they trust the answers. Rules are set per brand; use the Settings for selector to choose one, or the account-wide entry for all of them.

The step is done once a rule exists, or once you have opened the rules page, if you have decided to keep every ticket at Assist for now. While you are on AI Configuration, look at Answering, Conversations (including chat, if you use Zendesk messaging) and Summary too. See AI Configuration.

5. Invite your team

Open Users and click Invite User. Choose Admin for colleagues who will change settings, Knowledge Manager for those who look after your knowledge base with the Knowledge Builder, or Read Only for those who only need to look. See Users.

6. Build your knowledge base

Open Knowledge Builder and choose a brand. A run groups your solved tickets into topics and finds the ones your Help Center does not cover. For each, you can draft an article, review it, and push it to Help Center as an unpublished draft. See Knowledge Builder.

7. Check analytics and feedback

Open Analytics. AI Activity shows what the AI did, ticket by ticket; User Feedback shows how your agents rate its summaries and drafts. See Analytics.

8. Review billing and your overage preference

Open Billing & Usage to see your plan and its monthly allowance of tickets, chat conversations and search sessions. Then choose what happens when the allowance is used up: Overage, where each one over is charged, or Pause, where AI processing stops until the next period and tickets still reach your agents. See Billing.

Next steps

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