# Zendesk

> Deploy an agent to Zendesk to draft internal notes or reply to tickets.

Source: https://docs.runbear.io/channels/zendesk

Last updated: 2026-10-07

Zendesk is for support teams that work in tickets. The agent can post a private note that only your team sees, or reply to the customer directly, and can be restricted to answers it can ground in your knowledge base.

## Setup

1. In the Runbear dashboard, open your agent and go to the **Chatbots** tab.
2. Click the **Zendesk** tile. If your organization is in the OAuth
   rollout, select **Authorize with Zendesk**. Otherwise enter the Zendesk
   subdomain, administrator email, and API token shown by the form.
3. Configure the connection's triggers and preferences (see below).

For OAuth, the person authorizing must be an administrator in both your Runbear
organization and the Zendesk account. Runbear requests only the permissions it
uses to manage webhooks and triggers, list agents, read tickets and their
attachments, and write ticket comments.
The authorization is shared by Zendesk channels in the same Runbear
organization that use the same Zendesk subdomain.

If the dashboard shows **Reconnect required**, open the Zendesk integration and
select **Reauthorize with Zendesk**. Reauthorization preserves working webhooks
and triggers while replacing expired OAuth credentials or removing legacy API
token credentials. This control appears only for organizations admitted to the
OAuth rollout.

> **Bot identity**
>
> By default, the agent posts using your own Zendesk identity. If you'd prefer responses to come from a dedicated bot user, you can configure one — note that a bot user consumes an additional Zendesk agent seat.

## Triggers and preferences

On the connection's **Trigger** tab, choose when the agent responds: when a ticket
is created (optionally filtered by tags or assigned agents, with a custom prompt),
when an internal comment starts with a trigger word such as `@Runbear`, or both.
See [Zendesk triggers](/channels/chatbot-settings.md#zendesk-triggers).

On the **Preferences** tab, choose whether the agent posts private internal notes
(the default) or public replies with **Reply as public ticket comment**, whether it
answers only when your knowledge sources have an answer (**Reply only when
knowledge base has an answer**), and whether to **Hide source references**. See
[Zendesk preferences](/channels/chatbot-settings.md#zendesk-preferences).

## Disconnecting

To remove the agent from one Zendesk connection, delete it from the **Chatbots**
tab; see [Deleting a connection](/channels/chatbot-settings.md#deleting-a-connection).

To remove the Zendesk account from Runbear for all agents, open **Settings →
Integrations**, select Zendesk, and choose **Disconnect**. This permanently deletes
every connection attached to it. See [Integrations](/administration/integrations.md#discord-hubspot-and-zendesk).