Zoho Desk in Helpdesk

What It Does

Connect a Zoho Desk in Settings, Connections, Connected Services (Zoho Desk), and its new tickets come into Helpdesk, where your team reads and answers them. Nobody needs to sign in to that Desk. A company can connect as many Desks as it has, each in its own Zoho account, and each connection chooses where its tickets are answered (Answer from):

• Our Helpdesk (the start for a new connection): the tickets come into the Helpdesk address you choose, such as your main support address, and you answer them by email like any ticket. Each one is closed in Zoho Desk with an internal note saying where it is answered, so nobody works it twice. See Answering From Our Helpdesk.
• Zoho Desk: the tickets come into their own Helpdesk inbox, named as you named the connection, and every answer is posted back to the Desk ticket, so the customer gets it from Zoho Desk in the same Desk conversation. The rest of this page describes this choice, except where it says otherwise.

Change the choice any time with Change on the connection. A connection answered in Zoho Desk also has Answer From Our Helpdesk on its card: it switches in one step, keeping the sign-in, and then asks which Helpdesk address answers. Answering in Zoho Desk needs a sign-in that allows replying there, so moving to it asks you to Sign In Again; answering from Our Helpdesk asks Zoho only to read tickets and change them (close them, add the note), never to reply in Zoho Desk.

Answering from Our Helpdesk

• Tickets in: each new Desk ticket comes into the Helpdesk address you chose (under Choose Departments, Answered from; your main support address at first), with the contact as the requester, the subject, the whole conversation, the files attached, and Zoho Desk's internal comments as notes. The Desk's open tickets are brought in once, quietly, the same way.
• Taken over once: each one gets one internal comment in Zoho Desk, "Answered in [your company]'s Helpdesk as T-123", and is closed in Zoho Desk. The ticket here says so. If Zoho Desk refuses (for example, a field it requires before closing), the ticket here says why, so you can close it there yourself.
• Replies go out by email from that Helpdesk address, exactly like any reply: your email template and sign-off, your business hours (with the minute to undo it, or Send Now), and the ticket's original subject. The first reply quotes the customer's Desk message, so they have the context. Nothing is ever posted to the Desk conversation.
• The customer answers by email, and their answer comes straight into the same ticket here, like any reply to your email.
• A reply that still reaches Zoho Desk (the customer answered an old Desk email) comes onto the same ticket here, opening it again, and the Desk ticket is closed again.
• Receipts follow that address's own receipt setting and text in Helpdesk Settings, sent by email, at once, once per new ticket, with the same rules as below (never for an imported ticket, a later reply, or an automatic sender). When Zoho Desk is seen sending its own acknowledgment as well, Helpdesk holds its receipt and the connection's card says to turn one of them off.
• Status is yours here: closing or opening the ticket again in Helpdesk changes nothing in Zoho Desk, where it stays closed.
• Changing from Zoho Desk to Our Helpdesk takes over the tickets already here the same way: each moves to the address you chose, gets its note, and is closed in Zoho Desk, and is answered by email from then on.

How Tickets Come In

• Within about a minute: Zoho Desk tells your workspace the moment a ticket or reply is added (a webhook made for you when the connection starts), and your workspace also asks Zoho Desk for changes every minute, or every five minutes while the webhook is working, so nothing depends on one way alone.
• Everything on it: the contact as the requester, the subject, the whole conversation in order (the customer's emails and anything your team sent from Zoho Desk itself), each email as it was designed, the files attached (up to 20 MB each), and Zoho Desk's internal comments, which come in as notes.
• Never twice, never lost: each Desk thread and comment comes in once, however often Zoho Desk mentions it. A ticket that cannot be read (Zoho Desk is down, or busy) waits and is tried again, a little longer apart each time, until it is in.
• Its open tickets, once: when the connection starts, the Desk's tickets that are open then are brought in quietly: no receipt, nothing sent to the customer, no notice to your team, and no webhooks or automations, each with a note that it came from Zoho Desk.
• Only the departments you chose come in. CRM contacts are matched by email, as for any ticket.

Answering in Zoho Desk

• Replies are written in Helpdesk as usual (action helpdesk.reply) and go out by the same rules as every reply: the minute in which you can undo it, then your business hours, unless you choose to send it now. When it goes, it is posted to the same Zoho Desk ticket, from the department's support address the customer wrote to, so the customer gets it from Zoho Desk in the same thread. It is never emailed from your workspace. Automatic follow-ups and daily follow-ups on a Desk ticket are posted to it the same way, and wait for business hours the same way.
• Notes stay internal. A note in Helpdesk is never sent to Zoho Desk or to anyone.
• If Zoho Desk does not take a reply (for example, it does not accept the address it would go out from), it is not sent any other way. The ticket shows it was not sent, and the person who wrote it is told, as for any reply.
• Status follows both ways: closing a ticket in Helpdesk closes it in Zoho Desk, and opening it again opens it there (Open). A ticket closed or opened again in Zoho Desk does the same here, with a note on the ticket. When both change before they meet, the newer change wins. A reply still waiting to go out is sent before its status goes to Zoho Desk.

Receipts

A Desk inbox has the same Send a receipt choice and receipt text as any address in Helpdesk Settings. Its receipt is posted to the Desk ticket, so it reaches the customer in the Desk thread, at once, at any hour, like every receipt for something the person just did.

• Once per new ticket only: never for a customer's later reply, never for a ticket brought in from Zoho Desk, and never to an automatic sender: robot addresses (no-reply, notifications, bounces), automatic subjects and words (out of office, "we have received your request"), and an email whose own headers mark it as automatic (Auto-Submitted, Precedence bulk, junk, or list, and autoresponder headers), so two systems never answer each other. No Automatic Replies is honored too.
• Never two: Zoho Desk can send its own acknowledgment when a ticket comes in, and no Zoho Desk API says whether it is on. So a Desk inbox's receipt starts off, turning it on asks you to confirm that Zoho Desk's own acknowledgment is off for those departments, and when Zoho Desk is seen sending one anyway, Helpdesk holds its own, says why on the ticket, and the connection's card says to turn one of them off.

When Something Goes Wrong

The connection's card shows when it last synced and what is wrong, in exact terms: which Zoho call failed (such as renewing the sign-in at accounts.zoho.com, or reading a ticket's conversation from desk.zoho.com) and Zoho's own answer and error code, or which step in Helpdesk refused a ticket. When a Desk refuses part of the ticket list, it is asked again without it. Sync Now (action helpdesk.zdesk.sync) asks Zoho Desk for changes at once and tries every waiting ticket again. When Zoho's API limit for the day is reached, syncing waits 15 minutes and carries on. When it has not synced for 15 minutes, or Zoho no longer accepts the connection's sign-in, every owner and admin is told once, with a count and never a ticket's contents, and told again when it is syncing.

Deleting the connection stops new tickets coming in. Every ticket and message already here stays as it is, and replies on them can no longer be posted to Zoho Desk.