Zendesk Setup

Connecting Zendesk gives your agent access to your Help Center articles and support tickets. When a customer emails with a question, your agent can search your knowledge base for answers and check existing ticket status before replying.

What your agent can do with Zendesk

• Search Help Center articles for answers to customer questions
• Look up existing support tickets by customer email
• Get detailed ticket status and comments
• Create new support tickets with context
• Update tickets (status, tags, internal notes, assignments)

Prerequisites

• A Zendesk account with Admin or Agent access
• API access enabled for your Zendesk account
• A Know Reply workspace on a plan that includes integrations

Step 1: Find your Zendesk subdomain

Your subdomain is the first part of your Zendesk URL. For example, if you access Zendesk at https://acme.zendesk.com, your subdomain is acme.

You only need the subdomain itself, not the full URL.

Step 2: Generate an API token

1. Log in to your Zendesk admin center
2. In the left sidebar, go to Apps and integrations > Zendesk API
3. Click the Settings tab
4. Make sure Token Access is enabled (toggle it on if it is not)
5. Click Add API token
6. Give it a label (e.g., “Know Reply integration”)
7. Copy the token. Zendesk only shows it once. If you lose it, you will need to create a new one.

Step 3: Note the associated email address

Zendesk API authentication uses an email address paired with the API token. This is the email of the Zendesk agent or admin whose account generates the token.

You can find this in your Zendesk profile. Go to Admin Center > People > Team members, find your name, and note the email address. This is typically the email you use to log in to Zendesk.

Step 4: Enter credentials in Know Reply

Know Reply needs three pieces of information for Zendesk:

1. Go to Dashboard > Toolkit
2. Find Zendesk in the list of available integrations
3. Enter your subdomain (e.g., acme, not the full URL)
4. Enter the email address associated with your API token
5. Paste your API token
6. Click Connect Now
7. You should see a green indicator confirming the connection

Step 5: Configure capabilities

After connecting, review which functions are enabled. If you only want the agent to read data (tickets, help center), disable any write capabilities like ticket creation or updates.

Step 6: Test the connection

1. Go to Dashboard > Simulator
2. Send a test message like “What is your return policy?” (if you have Help Center articles about returns)
3. The agent should search your Zendesk Help Center and use the article content in its reply

You can also test ticket lookups by sending a message like “What is the status of my support ticket?” from an email that has existing tickets.

Common issues

“Zendesk subdomain, email, and API token are required” error All three fields are required. Double-check that you have entered the subdomain (just the name, not the URL), the email, and the API token.

401 Unauthorized errors This usually means the email/token combination is wrong. Verify that the email address matches the Zendesk agent account that created the API token. Also check that Token Access is still enabled in your Zendesk API settings.

Help Center search returns no results Make sure your Help Center has published articles. Draft or archived articles will not appear in search results. You can check by visiting your Help Center directly at https://your-subdomain.zendesk.com/hc.