Ada Glass for Zendesk Chat

Article Quick Links:

• Overview
• Create Department or Group
  • Departments – Zendesk Chat
  • Groups – Zendesk Agent Workspace
• Define Operating Hours
• Configure Zendesk Live Chat in Ada
• Create API Client
• Add your API Client in Ada
• Retrieving your Account Key
• Add an Agent
• Zendesk Authentication (optional)
• Adding the Ada Glass Zendesk Live Agent Block

Overview

Ada Glass for Zendesk allows chatters to seamlessly transition from their conversation with the bot to a conversation with one of your organization's live agents when an escalation occurs. The chatter begins their conversation with the bot in the Ada chat window, and when Ada Glass for Zendesk is triggered, the agent simply slides in where the bot left off, providing the agent with the chatter's transcript and captured variables. 

This article will walk you through the steps required to configure Ada Glass for Zendesk. Please note that establishing the integration between Ada and your Zendesk instance requires you to navigate back and forth between your Ada dashboard and Zendesk.

❗ Important: You must be subscribed to the Zendesk Chat Enterprise plan. For help identifying which plan you have, see Zendesk Help - Viewing and managing plan subscriptions.

Create Department or Group

Whether you create a department or group depends on which Zendesk platform you are using. If you are using Zendesk Chat, you must create a department. For Zendesk Agent Workspace, they're called groups. Departments and groups have different configuration steps. The following two subsections cover the setup process for each.

Departments – Zendesk Chat

To enable a handoff from the bot to a human agent, a department will need to be created dedicated to human agents. To create a new department:

1. On the Zendesk dashboard, click Settings.
2. Under Settings, click Departments.
3. Click Add Department.
4. Add a name and description.
5. Click each agent's name to add them to the department.
6. Click Create Department.

If you are a new Zendesk customer or have the Enterprise tier account, you do not need to assign the bot an agent seat, neither do you need to add the bot to the departments.

Groups – Zendesk Agent Workspace

To enable a handoff from the bot to a human agent in Zendesk Agent Workspace, a group will need to be created. To create a new collection of agents, follow these instructions to create a Support group:

1. In Zendesk Support, click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select People.
2. Click Add group.
3. Enter a group name and description.
4. Select the agents you want to add to the group.

   When you create a new group, you can see which agents have access to which products.

   

5. If you want this group to be the default group that all new agents are added to, select Make default group.
6. Click Create group.
7. Once created, you will need to enable your group in Zendesk Chat. To do this, in Zendesk Chat, select Settings from the menu on the left and then select Departments. 
8. Locate your newly created group in the list and click on its name.
9. Next to Enabled in chat?, click Enabled. Click Save changes.

Define Operating Hours

In Zendesk Chat

To define operating hours for your entire Zendesk Chat function:

1. In the menu to the left, click 'Settings'
2. Under 'Settings', click 'Account'
3. Click 'Operating Hours'
4. Click 'Account' next to Set schedule
5. Set online schedule to 'Daily'
6. Select checkbox for each day of the week
7. Modify the hours of operation to a time of your choosing
8. Uncheck 'Display operating hours'
9. Click 'Save changes'

 To define operating hours for a specific department or group:

1. In the menu to the left, click 'Settings'
2. Under 'Settings', click 'Account'
3. Click 'Operating Hours'
4. Click 'Department' next to Set schedule
5. Click '+Add schedule'
6. Give your new schedule a name, likely including the department or group's name
7. Set online schedule to 'Daily'
8. Select checkbox for each day of the week
9. Modify the hours of operation to a time of your choosing
10. Click 'Add or remove departments' 
11. Select the department or group from the list provided (Note: If you are adding a Zendesk Agent Workspace group, you must ensure that chat has been enabled for the group in order for it to appear)
12. Click 'Save changes'

Configure Zendesk Live Chat in Ada

In Ada

1. On the Ada dashboard, click Settings > Integrations.
2. Go to Zendesk Chat and click Configure.
   
   
   
   
3. Under API Client, copy the contents of the Redirect URL field.

Create API Client

In Zendesk Chat

1. In the menu to the left, click 'Settings'
2. Select 'Account'
3. In the grey toolbar at the top, click on 'API & SDKs'
4. Click the 'Add API Client' button
   
   
   
   
5. In the 'Client Name' field, add a name for your API Client. Anything will do.
6. Paste your unique Redirect URL, which you copied previously, into the `Redirect URLs' field.
7. Click 'Create API Client'

Add your API Client to Ada

You will need to copy the following details from Zendesk Chat and paste them into the matching Zendesk Chat Settings fields in Ada. Please note, this prompt will only show once, so be sure to follow the steps below. If you accidentally close the API Client Saved window before copying the required fields, you will have to regenerate the Client Secret.

1. Copy and paste your 'Client ID' from Zendesk Chat in to the 'Client ID' field in Ada
2. Copy and paste your 'Client Secret' from Zendesk Chat in to the 'Client Secret' field in Ada
3. If you use Zendesk Support integrated with Zendesk Chat, specify your Zendesk Subdomain in Ada. This is the unique identifier at the beginning of your Zendesk account URL—https://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com
   
   Note: The subdomain is not the entire URL. It is only the portion marked yoursubdomain in the example above.
   
   
4. Click 'Save' to set your API Client in Ada.

Zendesk:

Ada:

Retrieving your Account Key

In Zendesk Chat

1. On the Home screen, navigate to the right top corner for your user profile
2. Select 'Check Connection'
   
   
3. Copy 'Account Key' from the opened dialog
   
   
   
   

Add an Agent

In Ada

Note: Before proceeding to these steps, make sure you are logged into Zendesk Chat as the bot user account. We highly recommend you create a brand new bot user account, with an email address that isn't tied to one specific person in your organization. This will ensure no changes will be made to the Bot Agent that could otherwise disrupt the integration.

1. Under 'Agent' press 'Add Agent'. A Zendesk Chat authentication tab will open up.
   
   
2. If you're already logged in to your own personal account on Zendesk Chat, press the blue link to switch accounts. You must log in with an Administrator or Owner account.
3. Press 'Allow' to add your Agent to Ada automatically. The tab should eventually close on its own and you'll be taken back to Ada.

Zendesk Authentication (optional)

You can choose to configure your Zendesk live agent chat to authenticate visitors. Agents can proceed with increased confidence that the chatter they are communicating with is who they claim to be. Agents will be able to identify authenticated chatters by the green checkmark overlay on the chatter’s Zendesk avatar.

To configure Zendesk authentication:

1. Reach out to your Ada team to let them know you would like this feature enabled.
2. We will provide your development team with the documentation necessary for the configuration.

Adding the Ada Glass Zendesk Live Agent Block

The last step in the journey is adding the Ada Glass Zendesk Live Agent block to any Answer in your Ada Dashboard where handing off to a live agent should take place.

1. Navigate to the Answers view in your Ada Dashboard and select the Answer where you would like a live chat hand off to occur.

2. Open the Answer block toolbar on the right hand side and drag and drop in the Zendesk Live Agent block.

3. Choose a department in the Department dropdown. This department is where the bot will route to when a customer asks to speak to your Live Agents, so make sure it's an active one with agents assigned to it! As a reminder, if you are using Zendesk Agent Workspace you will be selecting a group from the dropdown menu. The field name will still say Department, but the dropdown menu will be populated with the groups you have configured in Zendesk Agent Workspace.

4. Populate the tags section of the block, so you'll know where your chats generated and the theme (billing, tech support, etc.). We suggest at least using "ada" as a tag, so you can differentiate where chats started, if live chat is available in other channels besides Ada.

5. Create an Off-Hours Answer for live chat to fall back to, if a customer is chatting with the bot and tries to speak to a live agent outside of your support hours.

If you have chosen to configure Zendesk Authentication (optional):

6. Toggle on Enable Authentication.

7. Select an Authentication Error Answer from the drop-down menu to provide to chatters in the event of an authentication error. 

That's it! You've successfully configured Ada Glass for Zendesk. Next up, see this article to learn how to use the Zendesk Live Agent block.

If you have any issues with anything you've read, please don't hesitate to contact our support team.

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Have any questions? Contact your Ada team—or email us at [e-mail].