Scenario

We have set up ZenDesk internally to allow staff to report issues to us (IT geeks) with the CRM and CMS.

The company we work with have their own, separate ticketing system.

Currently, staff report an issue to us, we look it over, tidy up the description etc and then log in to the third party ticketing system and enter the details.

We then manually update a field in the internal ticket with the third party ticket ref.

So far, so good. Don’t want to change that process.

When third party company update their tickets, we get an email to our itsupport@ email box – this is the one ZenDesk is linked to.

What I would like to do is have ZenDesk parse that email, pull out the third party ticket ref (or our own internal reference which we add to their tickets) and then automatically populate our ticket with the update from the third party company.

So, how do I do that – as I can’t see a way of doing it within ZenDesk…

Disclaimer: We don’t use Zendesk.

Something custom in the mail parser you’ve got plugged into ZenDesk?

Microsoft Flow (now “Power Automate”) can do that, there’s a connector for Zendesk.

Even a template to start with: https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/galleries/public/templates/b00a1db655b54b7dae62e4bbe759d21b/create-ticket-in-zendesk-on-email-arrival-and-send-me-push-notification/

All Zendesk templates and documentation link:
https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/shared_zendesk/zendesk/

Power Automate home page – the connectors can be found from the drop down at the top.
https://flow.microsoft.com/en-us/

I’ve done more or less this years ago. That used a sendmail rule to deliver a specific email address to a script. The script was just some perl (that’s how long ago it was) to parse the email and then update as needed.

I would used python these days.

Zapier might help also.
https://zapier.com/apps/zendesk/integrations

Had a look at Power Automate and Zapier but they don’t have the options in them to make this work.
May have to get coding.

I’ve re-written what I’m trying to do after getting a bit of time away, hopefully clearer:

Scenario:

We have set up ZenDesk internally to allow staff to report issues to us (IT geeks) with the CRM and CMS.

The CRM/CMS development company we work with have their own, separate and bespoke ticketing system (Not ZenDesk or any other common ticketing system)

Status Quo:

Currently, staff report an issue to us, we look it over, tidy up the description etc and then log in to the third party ticketing system issue reporting webform, adding the Zendesk Unique Id to a “Your Ref” field.

We then manually update a custom field in the internal ticket with the third party ticket ref.

So far, so good. Don’t want to change that process.

When the third party company update their tickets, we get an email to our itsupport@ email account. I currently then have to copy/paste that email into the ticket in Zendesk.

Goal:

What I would like to do is forward those emails to ZenDesk and have it parse that email, pull out either ours or the third party ticket ref from the subject (The emails are automated and have a standard format for the subjects: “Support Request – ***third party ref*** – Your Ref – ***Zendesk Unique ID***” ) [Where ***xxx*** donates a dynamic field placeholder] and then automatically populate our ticket with the update from the third party company as a new comment.

Never used them, but they came to my attention somehow recently. Seem to operate in the general area you’re interested in;

https://automate.io/

What sort of numbers?

There is nothing quite as entertaining as watching some slightly incompetent colleagues attempt to do something similar using the systems email interfaces.

Oh how we laughed when the first system sent a message to the second, which sent an automatic acknowledgement back to the first, which responded in kind…

Took about 5 minutes to bring email down across the organisation….

Took about 5 minutes to bring email down across the organisation….

That used to be older versions of Exchange’s party trick. Email from a bad address triggers an out of office reply which triggers an NDR (non-delivery report) which triggers an out of office reply which triggers an NDR which…

I think they fixed that circa either 2003 or 2008, by only sending OOO replies once per sender.

Well yes, this is only a one way thing so no hall of mirrors possibility.

Numbers wise it’s pretty small stuff – 4 or 5 updates/emails per day. But would save us (small, part time IT team) some hassle so we can back to playing Doom all day

I think they fixed that circa either 2003 or 2008, by only sending OOO replies once per sender.

It can still be forced – not that anyone I work with would be stupid enough to ask for that to be done – oh no 🥴

Zendesk can watch an inbox? Get the email sent to mailbox.that.zendesk.watches@my.co and configure Zendesk to parse the ID out of the subject. I’m pretty certain Zapier _can_ achieve this if ZD can’t manage on it’s own – where are you getting stuck?

Numbers wise it’s pretty small stuff – 4 or 5 updates/emails per day. But would save us (small, part time IT team) some hassle so we can back to playing Doom all day

In all seriousness, I’d say that having to have eyes on those tickets has value that you’ll not realise until you stop doing it. Probably worth an experiment though.

We’ll still see them as Zendesk will notify us when the ticket is updated. I just want to skip the cutting/pasting