Add a Zendesk source

This is for:

Developer System Administrator

When you have the required privileges, you can add the content of a Zendesk instance to a Coveo organization.

Tip
Leading practice

The number of items that a source processes per hour (crawling speed) depends on various factors, such as network bandwidth and source configuration. See About crawling speed for information on what can impact crawling speed, as well as possible solutions.

Source key characteristics

The following table presents the main characteristics of a Zendesk source.

Features Supported Additional information

Zendesk version

Latest cloud version

Indexable content

Organizations, users, groups, tickets, articles, article comments, and ticket and article attachments

Content update operations

refresh

check

Takes place every hour by default.

rescan

check

rebuild

check

Content security options

Same users and groups as in your content system

check

Specific users and groups

check

Everyone

check
Notes

  • Users may see limited results when performing searches against secured content while on Zendesk Guide sites (see Limitation).

  • If you set the content option to Everyone, we recommend that you apply additional filtering to ensure that your content is accessible by the intended audience.

Add a Zendesk source

Tip
Leading practice

It’s best to create or edit your source in your sandbox organization first. Once you’ve confirmed that it indexes the desired content, you can copy your source configuration to your production organization, either with a snapshot or manually.

See About non-production organizations for more information and best practices regarding sandbox organizations.

  1. Create a Zendesk administrator crawling account dedicated to your Coveo source. This account must have access to the content you want to index.

  2. Log out of your Zendesk session. In a couple steps, you’ll need to log in to Zendesk with the crawling account you just created. If you remain logged in with your personal account, Zendesk will automatically log you in with this account instead.

  3. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page of the Coveo Administration Console, click Add source, and then select Zendesk.

  4. Enter a Name for your source.

    Tip
    Leading practice

    A source name can’t be modified once it’s saved, therefore be sure to use a short and descriptive name, using letters, numbers, hyphens (-), and underscores (_). Avoid spaces and other special characters.

  5. Click Authorize account.

  6. In the window that opens, enter your Zendesk subdomain name, and then click Sign in. For example, if your Zendesk URL is https://subdomain.zendesk.com, enter subdomain.

  7. Log in with the crawling account you created earlier.

  8. Click Allow to grant Coveo access to your Zendesk account. You’ll then be redirected back to the Coveo Administration Console.

  9. Optionally, under Project, select the project you want to associate your source with.

  10. Click Add source.

  11. Specify your source settings. Refer to the following sections for detailed information on the source settings:

Note

Your source authentication access token can potentially expire and become invalid. See Update your source’s access token for information on how to update an expired access token.

"Configuration" tab

The Configuration tab lets you manage the content to index, authentication methods, and advanced settings of your source. These configuration groups are presented in subtabs.

"Content to index" subtab

The Content to index subtab lets you define the content that you want to make available as search results.

Locale

By default, Coveo indexes items in American English (en-us). If you want to index items in a different language, enter the corresponding locale code. For example, enter de to index content in German.

Tickets

To index Agent Workspace tickets, check the corresponding box.

When you do so, you can then choose to index:

  • Archived and deleted tickets.

  • Tickets from specific organizations only.

  • Tickets with specific tags only.

Articles

To index articles from the Help Center, check the corresponding box. When you do so, you can choose to index article translations as well.

Additional content

Select additional content to index: message attachments, user data, and/or message tags.

"Advanced settings" subtab

The Advanced settings subtab lets you customize the Coveo crawler behavior. All advanced settings have default values that are adequate in most use cases.

Content and images

If you want Coveo to extract text from image files or PDF files containing images, enable the appropriate option.

The extracted text is processed as item data, meaning that it’s fully searchable and will appear in the item Quick view. See Enable optical character recognition for details on this feature.

"Authentication" subtab

The Authentication subtab shows your Zendesk instance address and the user account that the source uses to authenticate to Zendesk.

To change the account with which the source authenticates, or to change the Zendesk instance to index:

  1. Click Authorize account.

  2. In the window that opens, enter your Zendesk subdomain name, and then click Sign in. For example, if your Zendesk URL is https://subdomain.zendesk.com, enter subdomain.

  3. Log in with the crawling account you created earlier.

  4. Click Allow to grant Coveo access to your Zendesk account. You’ll then be redirected back to the Coveo Administration Console.

"Identification" subtab

The Identification subtab contains general information about the source.

Use the Project selector to associate your source with one or more Coveo projects.

"Content security" tab

Select who will be able to access the source items through a Coveo-powered search interface. For details on this parameter, see Content security.

If you select "Same users and groups as in your content system"

When you want to replicate your Zendesk instance’s permission system in your Coveo-powered search interface, you must select the permission scope to index with your Zendesk content. In other words, you must decide who should have access to the indexed content.

If you select Specific organizations only, enter the ID of the desired organizations.

"Access" tab

In the Access tab, specify whether each group (and API key, if applicable) in your Coveo organization can view or edit the current source.

For example, when creating a new source, you could decide that members of Group A can edit its configuration, while Group B can only view it.

For more information, see Custom access level.

Completion

  1. Finish adding or editing your source:

    • When you want to save your source configuration changes without starting a build/rebuild, such as when you know you want to do other changes soon, click Add source/Save.

    • When you’re done editing the source and want to make changes effective, click Add and build source/Save and rebuild source.

      Note

      On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, you must click Launch build or Start required rebuild in the source Status column to add the source content or to make your changes effective, respectively.

      Back on the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, you can follow the progress of your source addition or modification.

      Once the source is built or rebuilt, you can review its content in the Content Browser.

  2. Once your source is done building or rebuilding, review the metadata Coveo is retrieving from your content.

    1. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click your source, and then click More > View and map metadata in the Action bar.

    2. If you want to use a currently not indexed metadata in a facet or result template, map it to a field.

      1. Click the metadata and then, at the top right, click Add to Index.

      2. In the Apply a mapping on all item types of a source panel, select the field you want to map the metadata to, or add a new field if none of the existing fields are appropriate.

        Notes

        • For details on configuring a new field, see Add or edit a field.

        • For advanced mapping configurations, like applying a mapping to a specific item type, see Manage mappings.

      3. Click Apply mapping.

    3. Depending on the source type you use, you may be able to extract additional metadata from your content. You can then map that metadata to a field, just like you did for the default metadata.

      More on custom metadata extraction and indexing

      Some source types let you define rules to extract metadata beyond the default metadata Coveo discovers during the initial source build.

      For example:

      Source type Custom metadata extraction methods

      Push API

      Define metadata key-value pairs in the addOrUpdate section of the PUT request payload used to upload push operations to an Amazon S3 file container.

      REST API
      and
      GraphQL API

      In the JSON configuration (REST API | GraphQL API) of the source, define metadata names (REST API | GraphQL API) and specify where to locate the metadata values in the JSON API response Coveo receives.

      Database

      Add <CustomField> elements in the XML configuration. Each element defines a metadata name and the database field to use to populate the metadata with.

      Web

      Sitemap

      Some source types automatically map metadata to default or user created fields, making the mapping process unnecessary. Some source types automatically create mappings and fields for you when you configure metadata extraction.

      See your source type documentation for more details.

    4. When you’re done reviewing and mapping metadata, return to the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page.

    5. To reindex your source with your new mappings, click Launch rebuild in the source Status column.

    6. Once the source is rebuilt, you can review its content in the Content Browser.

Update your source’s access token

To authenticate and access your content, your source uses OAuth 2.0, a protocol that grants access to external applications without exposing the user’s real credentials. OAuth 2.0 has access tokens that need to be updated manually when expired.

  1. On the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click your source, and then click More > Update access token in the Action bar.

  2. In the Update access token confirmation dialog:

    1. If this option is available, check the Also update the token in the source identity security provider configuration box.

      Note

      Before you update the access token used by the source identity security provider, ensure that no source configurations will become invalid.

    2. Click Update.

  3. On the page that appears, log in with the email address and password of the account that you created for the source to index your content.

Required privileges

You can assign privileges to allow access to specific tools in the Coveo Administration Console. The following table indicates the privileges required to view or edit elements of the Sources (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page and associated panels. See Manage privileges and Privilege reference for more information.

Note

The Edit all privilege isn’t required to create sources. When granting privileges for the Sources domain, you can grant a group or API key the View all or Custom access level, instead of Edit all, and then select the Can Create checkbox to allow users to create sources. See Can Create ability dependence for more information.
Actions Service Domain Required access level

View sources, view source update schedules, and subscribe to source notifications

Content

Fields

View

Sources

Organization

Organization

Edit sources, edit source update schedules, and edit source mappings

Organization

Organization

View

Content

Fields

Edit

Sources

View and map metadata

Content

Source metadata

View

Fields

Organization

Organization

Content

Sources

Edit

What’s next?

Schedule source updates.