Configuring the Dynamics CRM – Zendesk Templates

This document will walk through the required steps to enable and configure the Zendesk service provider as part of the REST connector. After the service provider is setup then the map templates can be imported and configured as well.

General Information

The Zendesk and Dynamics CRM templates consist of 8 maps. There are integration point between the following points:

• Zendesk Organizations to Dynamics CRM Accounts
• Zendesk Users to Dynamics CRM Contacts
• Zendesk Tickets to Dynamics CRM Cases

There are 2 versions of the Users to Contacts map, one version will sync all Zendesk users to contacts while the other version will only sync users categorized as an end-user in Zendesk. End-users are generally the users that are opening the support tickets and would be best suited to be tracked as contacts in Dynamics CRM. If internal users or agents can open tickets as well then the full contact and user integration would be the best option.

For every integration, a Bulk version and a Change version of the map exists. The set of bulk maps are intended for an initial sync of data from Zendesk to Dynamics CRM. Once that is complete, the change maps are designed to be scheduled as an ongoing process to keep the two systems synced up.

Any of the mappings can be changed or configured once the integrations are imported into SmartConnect, so additional fields can be included or even new maps can be added to fit specific needs.

Prerequisites to using these templates are as follows:

• Have a valid Dynamics CRM and Zendesk instance/organization
• SmartConnect 20.16.0.37 or higher installed and registered
• Dynamics CRM Connector already configured within SmartConnect

 

Import and Configure the Service Provider

1. Click on the “Maintenance” tab within SmartConnect
2. Click the “Import” button within the REST Connector section
3. Browse to and select the “REST_Connector_Zendesk.xml” file for the import
4. Mark the Zendesk service provider box for import

5. Click the “Import” button to bring in the service provider definition
6. Close that window and click on the “Service Providers” button
7. Double-click the “Zendesk” provider from the list to open the provider setup windows
8. Double-click the “Authorization” parameter from the list

9. The “Default Value” needs to be set with a valid authorization key, which can be obtained by using Postman
10. Download/install postman through chrome, and when it opens up put any GET request path into the URL (https://eone.zendesk.com/api/v2/users/me.json is a request that should always work) – make sure it is using the subdomain from the correct Zendesk instance

11. Then put in your username and password using Basic Auth, and click the “Update Request” button

12. It will generate the value that needs to be copied into the Authorization parameter default value, switch to the “Headers” section to find the authorization key

13. Save the REST Parameters window once the value is copied in
14. Switch to the Methods tab in the REST Service Provider window
15. Each method in the list needs to have its URL path updated to use the correct Zendesk instance subdomain – by default they will all point to eone.zendesk.com
16. Double-click on the first method to open the setup window
17. Replace the “eone” subdomain with the correct value in the URL field

18. Save that setup window and repeat that process for each method in the list
19. Once all the methods are updated, save and close the REST Service Provider window

Import and Configure the Dynamics CRM – Zendesk Maps

1. Click on the “Maintenance” tab within SmartConnect
2. Click the “Import Wizard” button within the SmartConnect Maintenance section
3. Select the “Zendesk_Crm_Maps.sce” file and import its contents

4. Once the import completes, navigate to the Maintenance tab within SmartConnect
5. Click on the “MSSQL Defaults” button and then double-click the “SMARTCONNECT_DB” item to open it
6. Update the connection information in the SQL connection to point to the correct SmartConnect server and database and then save the changes

Final Steps

1. Choose which Zendesk User to Dynamics CRM Contacts map to use, only one is needed:
2. The Map with the suffix of _ENDUSERS will integrate only users flagged as end-users in Zendesk over to Contacts in CRM
3. The basic Users to Contacts map will integrate all Zendesk users over to contacts in CRM
4. Run the bulk maps to perform an initial sync of data
5. Maps should be run in the following order
   1. BULK_ZENDESK_ORGS_TO_CRM_ACCOUNT
   2. BULK_ZENDESK_USERS_TO_CRM_CONTACTS (_ENDUSERS)
   3. BULK_ZENDESK_TICKETS_TO_CRM_CASES
6. Schedule the maps that have the prefix of CHANGE_ on whatever schedule is desired:
7. A 5 minute interval should be the quickest timeframe in which the maps are set to repeat, this is recommended as the Zendesk API has a minimum interval of 5 minutes when determining changed records