- Sending an SMS text message when an urgent ticket has been unattended for more than 48 hours
- Sending a notification to a X (formerly Twitter) stream when a new urgent ticket is created
Those are just a few examples. See Setting up a target below for more information about the targets available. Targets are used in automation and trigger actions. First you configure a target and then you specify the target using the Notify by > Target action.
Setting up a target
In addition to generic email targets, you can use predefined targets for well-known cloud-based applications and services.
- Trial accounts are limited to a maximum of ten targets.
- When two-factor authentication is enabled for agents or admins, you can only use an API token to authenticate your targets, using "email@example.com/token" and your token as a password.
Target | Description |
---|---|
Basecamp |
Using the Basecamp target, you can push ticket updates to a project as:
You need to enable API access in your Basecamp account to use this target. For information about setting up Basecamp, see Setting up and using the Basecamp target. |
Campfire | Send notifications to a Campfire chat room. |
Clickatell | Use this target to send SMS messages using your Clickatell account.
Follow the steps in Clickatell HTTP API Guide to setup the account, add a HTTP connection and obtain an API ID. |
Send emails to a specific address. You can define the action in a trigger or automation.
If the target email address is an external Support address on another Support account with whom you have ticket sharing agreements, the email notification is rejected by the target email address. A ticket will not be created. This happens in order to avoid an email loop. If you need to share support requests with another Support account, use the ticket sharing feature instead. Also, to prevent an email loop, you can't notify your own account's support addresses. |
|
Get Satisfaction | Post public comments to Get Satisfaction topics for tickets created using the Zendesk moderator tool in Get Satisfaction.
By creating this target, the necessary triggers and views and also add a useful widget in the home and ticket pages (you can remove those widgets if you don't need them) will automatically be created. |
Pivotal Tracker | Create stories in Pivotal Tracker from a Zendesk Support ticket to easily prioritize support issues in your project backlog.
The Pivotal Tracker target sends the Zendesk Support ticket ID to Pivotal Tracker when creating a new story. If you have enabled Pivotal Tracker's native Zendesk integration in the target Tracker project, a link back to the Zendesk Support ticket is created in the new story. |
Twilio | Use this target to send SMS messages to a mobile phone using your Twilio account. |
X Corp | Send notifications to an X (formerly Twitter) stream.
Note: Make sure that you protect your X stream if you don't want notifications to be readable by the general public.
|
URL | Pass URL parameters to any URL. You can use placeholders as values. Example: www.some-address.com?customer_name={{ticket.requester.name}}. Set up a script on your server to receive the request, and then you can do just about anything from there. To troubleshoot problems with the target, see Getting information about URL target failures.
We don't recommend using URL targets to update tickets in Zendesk Support, which can result in multiple issues. Use for external targets only.
|
Yammer | Send notifications to a Yammer stream.
Follow the steps in this Yammer Target Guide to create a client application in Yammer and authorize this target to use the Yammer API. For more information, see Notifying your Yammer feed. |
- In Admin Center, click
Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Targets > Targets.
- Select add target.
- All of the target options are listed. Select the type of target and enter the required target information (which varies from target to target).
- Select Create target from the drop-down list at the bottom of the page. If you want to test the target before adding it, select Test target.
- Click Submit.
Once you've set up targets, you can edit, delete, and deactivate and reactivate them. See Managing external targets.
Using targets in automations and triggers
- Meet all of the following conditions
- Ticket > Ticket | Is | Created
- Ticket > Priority | Is | Urgent
- Actions
- Notify by > Target | My X Account
Since you're interacting with external targets, there may be a delay between when a trigger or automation runs and when you'll see the results in the external target (in the example above, that would be your X home page or stream).
You can enter up to 8192 characters in the Message field of a Notify by > Target action.
Avoiding timeout errors
If a timeout error is received within 10 seconds of a request being made, Zendesk retries the request. After 21 consecutive failed attempts to retry the request, Zendesk deactivates the target. You'll need to reactivate the target before you can use it again.
Zendesk admins receive a notification when a target is automatically deactivated. They don't receive a notification when a target is manually deleted or deactivated.
- The message body in the trigger or target page is blank.
- There's a problem with the receiving server.