Streamlining Incident Response with the Zendesk Integration

Overview

From a customer-impact standpoint, support tickets are one of the key indicators of which customers are being currently impacted by an incident.  FireHydrant's Zendesk integration streamlines incident response through the following functionality:

• Associating existing Zendesk tickets to an active incident within FireHydrant through the Zendesk integration
• Creating a new incident and associating one or more existing FireHydrant incidents from the FireHydrant Zendesk Marketplace app
• Automating incident status updates back to linked Zendesk tickets as an internal note

Prerequisites

The Zendesk integration is only available for Enterprise-level FireHydrant accounts.  You must also have an existing Zendesk account. 

If you haven't already, install the Zendesk integration following these instructions.

Linking Zendesk Tickets to an Incident from FireHydrant

The following functionality is unlocked by enabling the Zendesk integration within FireHydrant.

In the FireHydrant web UI, from an existing incident scroll down to the External Resources  section.  Under the Customer support issues subsection, click Add.  A dialog will appear with a list of Zendesk tickets.  Optionally, enter search criteria to filter the results.  Select any support ticket(s) you would like to attach to the incident, then click Link selected customer support issues.

The selected tickets will be added to the incident, along with Zendesk ticket priorities and impacted customer orgs.

Note: Impacted customer orgs will only be displayed in the newer version of FireHydrant's incident Command Center.

Creating a FireHydrant Incident from a Zendesk Ticket

From the FireHydrant Marketplace app, go to the New Incident tab. At a minimum, you must complete any required fields. Click Declare Incident.

Linking FireHydrant Incident(s) to a Zendesk Ticket

From the Existing Incidents tab you can search for and attach existing FireHydrant incidents to your Zendesk ticket.  Expanding the incident row will display additional incident summary information.

Viewing Incidents Linked to a Zendesk Ticket

Any linked incidents will appear on the Relevant Incidents tab. From here, you also have the option to remove an incident.

Posting Status Updates to Zendesk Tickets Linked to an Incident

When you post a status update to the internal status page in FireHydrant, the update will also get posted as an internal note to any linked Zendesk tickets, along with a link back to the FireHydrant incident.