Configuring and Indexing a Zendesk Source

A source defines a set of configuration parameters for a specific Zendesk customer service website.

To configure and index a Zendesk source

1. On the Coveo server, access the Administration Tool (see Opening the Administration Tool).

2. Select Index > Sources and Collections.

3. In the Collections section:

   1. Select an existing collection in which you want to add the new source.

      OR

   2. Click Add to create a new collection (see Adding a Collection).

4. In the Sources section, click Add.

   The Add Source page that appears is organized in three sections.

5. In the General Settings section of the Add Source page:

   

   1. Enter the appropriate value for the following required parameters:

      Name

      Enter a descriptive name of your choice for the connector source.

      Example: Zendesk

      Source Type

      Select the connector used by this source. In this case, select Zendesk.

      Note: If you do not see Zendesk, your environment does not meet the requirements (see Zendesk Connector Requirements).

      Addresses

      Enter the base URL of your Zendesk customer service website.

      Example: https://company.zendesk.com

      Fields

      Select the field set that you created earlier (see Zendesk Connector Deployment Overview).

      Refresh Schedule

      Time interval at which the index is automatically refreshed to keep the index content up-to-date. By default, the Every day option instructs CES to refresh the source everyday at 12 AM. Because the incremental refresh takes care of maintaining the source up-to-date, you can select a longer interval such as Every Sunday (see What Should Be the Frequency of Source Refresh Schedules?).

      Note: CES 7.0.7914 (October 2015) Keep the Every day option as the incremental refresh is not supported.

   2. Review the value for the following parameters that often do not need to be modified:

      Rating

      Change this value only when you want to globally change the rating associated with all items in this source relative to the rating to other sources (see Understanding Search Results Ranking).

      Example: When a source replaces a legacy system, you may want to set this parameter to High, so that in the search interface, results from this source appear earlier in the list compared to those from legacy system sources.

      Document Types

      If you defined a custom document type set for this source, select it (see What Are Document Type Sets?).

      Active Languages

      If you defined custom active language sets, ensure to select the most appropriate for this source (see Adding and Configuring a Language Set).

6. In the Specific Connector Parameters & Options section of the Add Source page:

   

   1. Using the following parameters, authorize the Coveo crawler to access the content of your Zendesk customer service website:

      API Token Security provider

      (When you want the connector to retrieve your Zendesk content using a Zendesk API v2 token) Enter the API token to use that you previously obtained (see Authorizing the Coveo Connector to Access Your Zendesk Content).

      Note: This method is not recommended since the Zendesk API token allows read and write permissions.

      Access Token Security provider

      (When granting the connector access to your Zendesk content using OAuth 2.0) Enter the access token to use that you previously obtained (see Authorizing the Coveo Connector to Access Your Zendesk Content).

   2. In the Mapping File box, the path to the default mapping file that defines how the connector handles metadata often does not need to be changed.

   3. The following options must be selected for certain Zendesk item types to be indexed.

      Index Comments

      Whether the comments on tickets and articles should be indexed.

      Index Administration Entities CES 7.0.8047+ (December 2015)

      Whether the users, groups and organizations should be indexed. By default, administration entities are not indexed.

      Index Tickets CES 7.0.8996+ (June 2017)

      Whether tickets should be indexed.

      Index Help Center Articles CES 7.0.8996+ (June 2017)

      Whether the articles in the Help Center should be indexed.

      Index Help Center Items CES 7.0.8047 to CES 7.0.8850 (December 2015 to March 2017)

      Whether the articles and their attachments should be indexed. By default, Help Center items are indexed.

   4. (Optional) Click Add Parameter when you want to show and change the value of advanced source parameters (see Modifying Hidden Zendesk Source Parameters).

   5. The Option check boxes generally do not need to be changed:

      Index Subfolders

      This parameter is not taken into account for this connector.

      Index the document's metadata

      When selected, CES indexes all the document metadata, even metadata that are not associated with a field. The orphan metadata are added to the body of the document so that they can be searched using free text queries.

      When cleared (default), only the values of system and custom fields that have the Free Text Queries attribute selected will be searchable without using a field query (see Adding a Field to Search On and What Are Field Queries and Free Text Queries?).

      Example: A document has two metadata:

      • LastEditedBy containing the value Hector Smith

      • Department containing the value RH

      In CES, the custom field CorpDepartment is bound to the metadata Department and its Free Text Queries attribute is selected.

      When the Index the document's metadata option is cleared, searching for RH returns the document because a field is indexing this value. Searching for hector does not return the document because no field is indexing this value.

      When the Index the document's metadata option is selected, searching for hector also returns the document because CES indexed orphan metadata.

      Document's addresses are case-sensitive

      Leave the check box cleared. This parameter needs to be checked only in rare cases for systems in which distinct documents may have the same name but different casing.

      Generate a cached HTML version of indexed documents

      When you select this check box (recommended), at indexing time, CES creates HTML versions of indexed documents. In the search interfaces, users can then more rapidly review the content by clicking the Quick View link rather than opening the original document with the original application. Consider clearing this check box only when you do not want to use Quick View links or to save resources when building the source.

      Open results with cached version

      Leave this check box cleared (recommended) so that in the search interfaces, the main search result link opens the original document with the original application. Consider selecting this check box only when you do not want users to be able to open the original document but only see the HTML version of the document as a Quick View. In this case, you must also select Generate a cached HTML version of indexed documents.

7. In the Security section of the Add Source page:

   

   Important: CES 7.0.7914 (October 2015) The connector does not yet support Zendesk permissions. It is thus strongly recommenced to only index Zendesk customer service websites with public content.

   Note: A workaround is to manually define permissions on the source (see Permissions).

   1. In the Authentication drop-down list, depending on your setup:

      • When you grant the connector access to your content using OAuth, select (none).

      • When you grant the connector access to your content using the Zendesk API, select the user identity you previously created (see Zendesk Connector Deployment Overview).

   2. CES 7.0.8047+ (December 2015) When you chose to index Zendesk permissions, in the Security Provider drop-down list, select the Zendesk security provider that you created for this source (see Configuring a Zendesk Security Provider and Permission limitation).

8. Click Save to save the source configuration.

9. When your Zendesk content is all public:

   Important: CES 7.0.7914 (October 2015) The connector does not yet support Zendesk permissions. This means that, in the Coveo search interface, a user searching Zendesk content could see content to which he has normally no access in Zendesk.

   Since Zendesk APIs can only be used by Zendesk admin users, it is currently impossible to limit the content to be indexed to a certain organization, group, or user (agent and end-user).

   Note: When your Zendesk content is not public, a workaround is to enter the name of user(s) or group(s) you want to allow or deny access to your organization content in the Allowed Users and Deny Users boxes.

   1. In the navigation panel on the left, click Permissions.

   2. In the Permissions page, select Specify the security permissions to index.

   3. In the Allowed Users and Denied Users boxes, enter the users and groups that you respectively want to allow or deny to see search results from this source. The default is to allow everyone \S-1-1-0\ (Active Directory Group).

   4. Click Apply Changes.

10. When you are ready to start indexing the Zendesk source, click Rebuild.

11. Validate that the source building process is executed without errors:

    • In the navigation panel on the left, click Status, and then validate that the indexing proceeds without errors.

      OR

    • Open the CES Console to monitor the source building activities (see Using the CES Console).