Organizations

What are Zendesk organizations?

Organizations are simply a collection of users in Zendesk (much like groups). We use them to also store metadata (synced from Salesforce), which is used to determine such things as SLA, ARR, etc.

How are organizations created and maintained?

Organizations in Zendesk are created automatically through our sync script.

Please do not manually create organizations except in approved situation. This can break the ZD<>SFDC integration and cause users to receive incorrect SLAs. If you notice an organization needs to be created, please notify support-ops to rectify this.

For more information on this, please see Zendesk-Salesforce Sync

Editing Organizations

As a lot relies on organizations being setup properly, this feature requires admin level abilities currently. If an organization needs to be edited, an issue should be filed using the Zendesk Global Organization or Zendesk US Federal Other issue template.

Organization Notes for Zendesk Global

There are two forms of organization notes we utilize:

• Support Operations organization notes
• Support Team organization notes

Support Operations organizations notes are managed via Zendesk in the Notes and Details fields on the organization itself.

Support Team organization notes are managed via the organizations project.

Aside from Support Operations, all support managers have Maintainer access to the organization project, enabling them the ability to approve and merge MRs in this repo.

When an organization has a ticket created, a trigger calls to a webhook to run a pipeline using the ticket processor (on ops.gitlab.net). This then combines the Support Operations and Support Team organization notes into internal comments on the ticket itself.

Organization Notes for Zendesk US Federal

We manage all internal notes on Zendesk itself due to data privacy concerns. As such, we separate them as such:

• Notes are for Support Team organization notes
• Details are for Support Operations organization notes

When an organization has a ticket created, a trigger runs to parse both of these into internal comments on the ticket itself.

Organizations with outdated information

If you notice an organization in Zendesk contains outdated information or the information doesn’t match what Salesforce is displaying, this would indicate the sync integration has hit an issue. Luckily, we have the Denomas built sync script that runs every hour to rectify such issues.

In your due diligence, you would want to create an issue via the Zendesk Organization Repo so support-ops can double check to ensure there is nothing blocking the sync.

Organization fields

Current Zendesk Global org fields

Name	ID	Type	Field Key
Account Owner	360000133994	Text	account_owner
Account Type	360000082159	Drop-down	account_type
AM Project ID	360000092299	Text	am_project_id
ARR	1424327	Decimal	aar
Contact Management Project ID	7385051495324	Numeric	cmp_id
Customer Success Manager	360000134054	Text	technical_account_manager
Dedicated SGG	5739023764636	Drop-down	dedicated_sgg
Escalated State	7765454787740	Checkbox	org_in_escalated_state
Expiration date	360001527120	Text	expiration_date
Denomas Plan	1288848	Drop-down	support_level
Health Score	1900000011334	Drop-down	health_score
Manual Support Upgrade	360000209840	Checkbox	manual_support_upgrade
Number of Seats	360000171880	Decimal	seats_decimal
Region	360000329019	Drop-down	org_region
Restricted Account	5661401607452	Checkbox	restricted_account
Sales Segmentation	360000080280	Text	sales_segmentation
Salesforce ID	1288008	Text	salesforce_id
SFDC Short ID	1900000011354	Text	sfdc_short_id

Current Zendesk US Federal org fields

Name	ID	Type	Field Key
Account Owner	360000704052	Text	account_owner
Account Type	360001094611	Drop-down	account_type
AM Project ID	360000092299	Text	am_project_id
ARR	360001433772	Numeric	arr
Customer Success Manager	360000704072	Text	technical_account_manager
Expiration date	360002828652	Text	expiration_date
Health Score	360002828632	Drop-down	health_score
Market Segment	360000712231	Drop-down	market_segment
Number of Seats	360000704032	Numeric	number_of_seats
Salesforce ID	360000712211	Text	salesforce_id
SFDC Short ID	360002828612	Text	sfdc_short_id
Solutions Architect	360001525791	Text	solutions_architect
Support level	360000703992	Drop-down	support_level

Creating organization fields in Zendesk

To create an organization field in Zendesk, you first need to go to the Admin Center (Zendesk Global / Zendesk US Federal). From there, you need to go to the Organization fields page (People > Configuration > Organization fields).

After doing so, you will then click the Add field button on the top-right side of the page. This will then load up the new organization field page.

From here, you will:

1. select the type of field
2. enter the display name for the field
3. enter the field key for the field
   • Note This cannot be edited once the field is created
4. enter a description for the field
5. enter the field specific values

After doing this, you will then click the blue Save button at the bottom-right of the page.

Editing organization fields in Zendesk

To edit an organization field in Zendesk, you first need to go to the Admin Center (Zendesk Global / Zendesk US Federal). From there, you need to go to the Organization fields page (People > Configuration > Organization fields).

After doing so, locate the field in question and click on the Display name for it. This will bring up the organization field editor page.

From here, make the needed changes and then click the blue Save button at the bottom-right of the page.

Deactivating organization fields in Zendesk

There are actually two ways to deactivate a organization field in the Zendesk UI. The quicker way is to go to the organizaton fields page, locate the organization field in question, and click the three vertical dots on the right-hand side. This will bring up a sub-menu, which contains the option to Deactivate. Click that option and the organization field will be deactivated.

The alternative way to deactivate an organization field in the Zendesk UI is from within the organization field editor page. At the top right, click the Actions button to show a submenu with the Deactivate option.

Organization Permissions

By default, organizations are setup so that the users within it can only see and comment on their own tickets. This security measure often doesn’t work for some organizations though.

Because of that, we have the ability to setup Shared Organizations, a term meaning the users in an organization have heightened permissions and can do see and/or comment on tickets that are not theirs.

Shared Organization management

A shared organization is one in which the end-users in said organization have heightened permissions in regards to tickets created in the organization. The options available to this are:

• All users can view all tickets but not add comments
• All users can view all tickets and add comments to all tickets
• Specific users can view all tickets but not add comments

To enable this for an organization, a new ticket must be filed to Support Operations using the correct form fields that specific the desire to have a shared organization setup. This is required as there is a security risk involved in using a shared organization and the organization itself must accept this security risk before we can proceed.

Once the ticket comes in, review the fields used on the ticket to determine the exact setup desired.

All users can view all tickets but not add comments

To set this up, go to the organization’s page in Zendesk. From there, locate the Users field towards the top-left of the page. Click the drop-down next to it and select Can view all org tickets. Click off the box to save the changes.

Ensure the new drop-down that appears says ...but not add comments before concluding the work.

All users can view all tickets and add comments to all tickets

To set this up, go to the organization’s page in Zendesk. From there, locate the Users field towards the top-left of the page. Click the drop-down next to it and select Can view all org tickets. Click off the box to save the changes.

You will then click the new drop-down that appears and select the option ...and add comments. Click off the box to save the changes.

Specific users can view all tickets but not add comments

To set this up, you need to locate each user in question in Zendesk first. Once on the user page, locate the field Access towards the top-left of the page. Click the drop-down next to it and select Can view tickets from user's org. Click off the box to save the changes.

Removing a shared organization setup

To remove a shared organization setup, follow the above guides, but instead ensure the drop-downs use the default options:

• Organizatin: Can view own tickets only
• User: Can view and edit own tickets only

User association

There are specific processes and policies around this, so please see User Association

User Association via Domain Matching

While Zendesk does have the functionality to do domain matching, we have determined that the security risks inherent in this feature outweigh the benefits that would be received from its use.

Because of this decsion, as of August 2020, Support Ops will not longer apply a domain on a Zendesk organization. Any organization that had this applied prior to this date will have it as a legacy feature.

Because this decision was based on security risks, exceptions will not be made.

Special situations

Please see our Gratis Support requests documentation for more info.

Change management

As the organization changes are unique in deployment, please see Zendesk organizations change management for more information.

Labels to use

For all issues and MRs involving organization fields, the label Support-Ops-Category::Orgs and Users should be used.

Change criticality

Due to wildly varying nature and impact adding/editing/deleting Zendesk organizations can impose, all issues/MRs related to Zendesk organizations need to have the their criticality manually determined