Open helpdesk tickets in Zendesk, Freshdesk or HubSpot for hand-offs

When your agent hands a conversation off by email, it can also open a ticket in your Zendesk, Freshdesk or HubSpot account. Your team then answers from the helpdesk they already use. The visitor's hand-off email address is the ticket's requester, so replies from the helpdesk reach them by email.

The hand-off email to your team still goes out as before. The ticket is extra.

Before you start

Open your agent and go to the Setup tab. The Helpdesk tickets card is right below Hand-off to your team. Under Helpdesk, choose Zendesk, Freshdesk or HubSpot, then follow the steps for it below. Each agent can connect one helpdesk.

Connecting and disconnecting a helpdesk is for the account owner and admins, because it hands over credentials. Editors can switch tickets on and off. See Team members and roles.

Connect Zendesk

1. In Zendesk Admin Center, open Apps and integrations, APIs, Zendesk API.
2. Turn on Token access if it is off. Click Add API token, name it intoCHAT and copy the token. Zendesk shows it only once.
3. In the card, enter your Subdomain: the part before .zendesk.com, for example acme for acme.zendesk.com.
4. Under Agent email, enter the email address of the agent or admin whose name the tickets are created in.
5. Paste the token under API token and click Test and connect.

intoCHAT signs in with the agent's email and the token, the way Zendesk describes for API tokens. The token works for your whole Zendesk account, so delete it in Zendesk if you stop using intoCHAT.

Connect Freshdesk

1. In Freshdesk, click your profile picture and open Profile settings.
2. Click View API key, complete the check Freshdesk asks for, and copy the key.
3. In the card, enter your Freshdesk address, for example acme.freshdesk.com. Use the .freshdesk.com address even if your help center has its own domain: Freshdesk's API only answers there.
4. Paste the key under API key and click Test and connect.

The key acts as you in Freshdesk, so use the profile of an agent who can create tickets.

Connect HubSpot

1. In HubSpot, create a private app: Development, Legacy apps, Create legacy app, Private. In some accounts this is under Settings, Integrations, Private apps.
2. Under Scopes, add crm.objects.tickets.read and crm.objects.tickets.write (shown as tickets in some accounts), plus crm.objects.contacts.read and crm.objects.contacts.write.
3. Create the app, open its Auth tab, click Show token and copy the access token.
4. Paste it under Access token in the card and click Test and connect.

New tickets go to your default ticket pipeline, in its first stage that isn't closed. In a new HubSpot account that is Support Pipeline, New. The card shows which pipeline and stage intoCHAT chose. You can't pick another pipeline in intoCHAT yet.

Each ticket is filed under the visitor's contact: intoCHAT looks for a contact with the visitor's email address and creates one if there is none. If the token lacks the contacts scopes, the ticket is still created, without a contact.

What connecting checks

Test and connect checks the credentials with a read that changes nothing in your helpdesk:

If the check fails, the card says why, for example that the credentials weren't accepted or that no account answers at that address. Nothing is saved until the check passes. You can check credentials up to 10 times in 10 minutes.

The credentials are stored encrypted and never shown again. The card shows only their last four characters, and for Zendesk the agent email. To change them, click Replace credentials.

What goes into the ticket

• Subject: [Agent name] Chat hand-off: and the visitor's first message, shortened.
• Requester: the email address the visitor gave for the hand-off, and their name when it is known (from your lead form or identity verification).
• What they need: the agent's short summary from the hand-off.
• Summary: three to five bullet points written by AI about what the visitor wants and what the agent already answered. If the summary can't be written in time, the ticket goes in without it.
• Visitor: email, name when known, the page the chat started on and the visitor's country, when known.
• Conversation: the last 30 messages as plain text, each cut at 1,000 characters. Longer conversations note how many earlier messages were left out. Product cards, buttons and other widget elements are left out.
• In intoCHAT: a link to the conversation on your Conversations tab.

How each helpdesk shows it:

• Zendesk: the content is the ticket's first comment, added as an internal note, and the ticket is tagged intochat. Zendesk's own triggers still run, for example the email telling the requester their request was received.
• Freshdesk: the content is the ticket description. The ticket is Open, with Low priority, and tagged intochat. Freshdesk's own notifications to the requester still apply.
• HubSpot: the content is the ticket description, in the pipeline and stage shown in the card.

When a ticket is created

The ticket is opened a few seconds after the agent's reply to the visitor, so the visitor never waits for your helpdesk. It is created only when the hand-off email to your team went out.

• Playground: a hand-off from the Playground opens a real ticket, marked [Test] at the start of the subject and with a line at the top saying it is a test, like the email.
• Temporary chats: never, because they can't be handed off.
• Switched off: while the switch in the card is off, hand-offs send only the email.

Where tickets show up

• In the Conversations tab, the transcript of a handed-off conversation shows Ticket # and the ticket's number next to the Handed off badge. It opens the ticket in your helpdesk, in a new tab.
• If the helpdesk refused the ticket, the transcript shows Ticket couldn't be created instead. The hand-off email went out anyway. Check the card in the Setup tab: it says if the saved credentials no longer work.
• The handoff.requested webhook includes the ticket's helpdesk, number and link when a ticket was created.

Privacy

When you connect a helpdesk, each hand-off sends the conversation transcript, the AI summary, the visitor's email address and name when known, the page and the country to the helpdesk you chose, under your account there. That helpdesk then processes the data under its own terms. intoCHAT doesn't read anything back from it.

Tell visitors about this in your own privacy policy if your helpdesk isn't already named there.

Limits

• One ticket per conversation. A later hand-off in the same conversation sends another email, but no second ticket.
• No two-way sync: replies, status changes and notes in the helpdesk don't come back to intoCHAT. Answer the visitor from the helpdesk.
• One helpdesk per agent.
• If the helpdesk doesn't answer within 10 seconds, or is limiting requests, that ticket isn't created and isn't retried.

Switch off or disconnect

• Switch Open a ticket for each hand-off off to pause tickets. The credentials stay saved.
• Click Disconnect to delete the saved credentials. Tickets already opened stay in your helpdesk and stay linked in Conversations. Hand-off emails go on as before.

Next steps

• Choose who gets the hand-off email: Hand-off by email.
• Send hand-offs to your own systems too: Webhooks.
• Let your team join the chat window instead: Live chat.