Zendesk Integration

This guide explains how to send Zendesk support ticket events as goal events to ABsmartly using Zendesk Webhooks. This allows you to track support ticket creation as a metric in your experiments — for example, to measure whether a new feature reduces or increases support requests.

Prerequisites

1. ABsmartly account with access to the Web Console and a valid SDK API Key. API Keys can be created under Settings > API Keys in the ABsmartly Web Console.
2. Zendesk account with Admin access to create webhooks and triggers.
3. A unit type (e.g. user_id or email) that is shared between your ABsmartly experiments and your Zendesk tickets so that events can be attributed to the correct user.

Step 1 — Create a Webhook in Zendesk

1. In Zendesk, go to Admin Center > Apps and integrations > Webhooks > Webhooks.
2. Click Create webhook.
3. Select Trigger or automation as the connection method and click Next.
4. Fill in the webhook details:
   • Name: ABsmartly Goal Event
   • Description: Sends ticket events to ABsmartly as goal events
   • Endpoint URL: Your ABsmartly Collector endpoint followed by /context. For example: https://your-subdomain.absmartly.io/v1/context
   • Request method: PUT
   • Request format: JSON
5. Under Authentication, select API key and configure it:
   • Header name: X-API-Key
   • Value: Your ABsmartly SDK API Key
6. Add the following custom headers:

Header name	Value
X-Application	The application name matching your ABsmartly Web Console (e.g. www)
X-Application-Version	0
X-Environment	The environment name matching your ABsmartly Web Console (e.g. production)
X-Agent	zendesk-webhook

7. Click Create webhook.

info

The X-Application and X-Environment values must match existing entries in your ABsmartly Web Console under Settings > Applicationsand Settings > Environments.

Step 2 — Create a Trigger to Send the Webhook

1. In Zendesk, go to Admin Center > Objects and rules > Business rules > Triggers.
2. Click Create trigger.
3. Give the trigger a name, for example: Send ticket to ABsmartly.
4. Under Conditions, configure when the trigger should fire. For example, to fire on every new ticket:
   • Meet ALL of the following conditions:
     • Ticket > Is > Created
5. Under Actions, select Notify webhook and choose the ABsmartly Goal Event webhook you created in Step 1.
6. In the JSON body field, enter the following payload:

{
  "publishedAt": {{ticket.created_at_with_timestamp}},
  "units": [
    {
      "type": "email",
      "uid": "{{ticket.requester.email}}"
    }
  ],
  "goals": [
    {
      "name": "zendesk_ticket_created",
      "achievedAt": {{ticket.created_at_with_timestamp}},
      "properties": {
        "ticket_id": "{{ticket.id}}",
        "subject": "{{ticket.title}}",
        "priority": "{{ticket.priority}}",
        "channel": "{{ticket.via}}"
      }
    }
  ]
}

7. Click Save.

tip

Adjust the units type and value to match the unit type you use in your ABsmartly experiments. For example, if your experiments use a user_id unit, you may need to use a custom Zendesk user field that contains the user ID instead of the email address.

Step 3 — Create the Goal in ABsmartly

1. In the ABsmartly Web Console, go to Settings > Goals.
2. Create a new goal named zendesk_ticket_created (matching the name in the webhook payload).
3. You can now use this goal to create metrics.

Payload Reference

The webhook payload follows the ABsmartly Collector API PUT /context format. Here is a summary of the key fields:

Field	Description
publishedAt	Timestamp (Unix ms) of when the event was sent
units	Array of unit objects identifying the user. Each has a type and uid
goals	Array of goal objects. Each has a name, achievedAt timestamp, and optional properties

Available Zendesk Placeholders

You can use Zendesk placeholders in the webhook payload to dynamically include ticket data. Some useful ones:

Placeholder	Description
{{ticket.id}}	The ticket ID
{{ticket.title}}	The ticket subject
{{ticket.requester.email}}	The requester's email address
{{ticket.requester.name}}	The requester's name
{{ticket.priority}}	The ticket priority
{{ticket.via}}	The channel the ticket came from
{{ticket.created_at_with_timestamp}}	Ticket creation timestamp

Tracking Different Ticket Events

You can create multiple triggers to track different types of ticket events as separate goals. For example:

• Ticket solved — Create a trigger with the condition Ticket > Status > Changed to > Solved and set the goal name to zendesk_ticket_solved.
• High-priority ticket — Create a trigger with the condition Ticket > Priority > Is > Urgent and set the goal name to zendesk_urgent_ticket_created.

Verifying the Integration

1. Create a test ticket in Zendesk from a user whose identifier (e.g. email) is also being tracked in an ABsmartly experiment.
2. Check the ABsmartly Web Console under the experiment's goals to verify that the zendesk_ticket_created event was received.
3. You can also check the webhook activity in Zendesk under Admin Center > Apps and integrations > Webhooks by clicking on your webhook and viewing the Activity tab.

If you have any issues setting up the Zendesk integration, please contact us at [email protected].