Zendesk Connector Deployment Overview

The following procedure outlines the steps needed to deploy the Zendesk connector. The steps indicate the order in which you must perform configuration tasks on both the Zendesk and Coveo servers.

To deploy the Zendesk connector

1. Validate that your environment meets the requirements (see Zendesk Connector Requirements).

2. (When you want the connector to connect to your Zendesk content using OAuth 2.0 - recommended method) On the Zendesk server, create an application to authorize the Coveo connector to access your Zendesk content (see Authorizing the Coveo Connector to Access Your Zendesk Content).

3. On the Coveo server, in the Coveo Administration Tool:

   1. CES 7.0.8047+ (December 2015) Optionally create security providers

      When you want to index Zendesk permissions, you must create two security providers to get Zendesk item permissions and resolve and expand groups. Due to a Zendesk API v2 limitation, not all permissions are currently retrievable (see Permission limitation).

      In Zendesk, users are identified by their email addresses. Consequently, permissions returned by the Zendesk security provider for each document are email addresses. The Zendesk security provider then requires another security provider to uniquely identify users from their email addresses.

      1. Start by selecting or creating a security provider that the Zendesk security provider will use to resolve and expand groups. The security provider type to use depends on how users are authenticated when they access the search interface:

         Note: You may require to also use a REGEX Transform Member Name security provider in between the two following security providers to map member types. Contact Coveo Support for assistance.

         • When authenticated with their email address, use an Email security provider (see Configuring an Email Security Provider).

         • When authenticated with an Active Directory account, use an LDAP Lookup security provider that maps LDAP identities to Active Directory ones. Contact Coveo Support for assistance.

           Note: This chain of security providers is required since the Zendesk security provider does not directly support to be chained with an Active Directory security provider.

      2. Then, create a Zendesk security provider that the connector uses to resolve indexed permissions (see Configuring a Zendesk Security Provider).

   2. (When you want the connector to connect to your Zendesk content using a Zendesk API v2 token) Configure a user identity.

      The connector needs to know the username of a Zendesk admin account by creating a CES user identity that you will later associate to your Zendesk source (see Adding a User Identity) .

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

   3. Create a Zendesk field set to take advantage of the available Zendesk metadata.

      1. It is recommended to start by importing the default Zendesk field set file ([CES_Path]\Bin\Coveo.CES.CustomCrawlers.Zendesk.FieldSet.xml) to create fields for all the metadata available by default from Zendesk documents (see Exporting and Importing a Field Set).

      2. When you created custom metadata for your Zendesk documents, add corresponding fields to the field set (see Adding or Modifying Custom Fields).

   4. Configure and index a Zendesk source.

      The connector must know details to access and index the Zendesk content of your managed users (see Configuring and Indexing a Zendesk Source).

   5. If you encounter issues, verify if modifying the default value of hidden source parameters can help resolve the problems (see Modifying Hidden Zendesk Source Parameters).