When you need an app and when a webhook is enough

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Apps add interface, webhooks move data. Asking which you need settles most integration questions.

The distinction

An app puts something on the agent's screen: a panel, a button, information from elsewhere. It exists because a person needs to see or do something.

A webhook sends data somewhere when something happens. No interface, nobody looking at it.

The question

Does a person need to see this while working a ticket?

Yes, an app. No, a webhook. That one question resolves most of these decisions.

Webhooks are cheaper in every sense

No supplier, no access to your ticket data granted to a third party, no interface to maintain, nothing to abandon. Where a webhook does the job, it is almost always the better answer.

What webhooks handle well

  • Notifying another system when a ticket is created or solved.
  • Sending data to a warehouse or reporting tool.
  • Triggering a workflow elsewhere.
  • Keeping another record in step.

What needs an app

  • Showing information from another system beside the ticket.
  • Letting an agent act on another system without leaving Zendesk.
  • Anything requiring a person's judgement in the moment.

Sometimes both

An app displaying order details, a webhook telling the warehouse system a ticket was solved. They are different jobs and there is no reason to force one tool to do both.

Try configuration first

Before either. Triggers, fields and views cover more than people expect, and they need no supplier and no maintenance.

See also

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