Extending Zendesk: the options in a row

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Five ways to make Zendesk do something it does not do out of the box, in ascending order of cost.

One: configuration

Fields, forms, views, macros, triggers, automations, SLAs. No supplier, no code, nothing to maintain beyond the configuration itself.

A large share of what people install apps for lives here, and it is worth exhausting before anything else.

Two: webhooks

Send data somewhere when something happens. Cheap, no interface, and no third party granted access to your tickets.

Three: an app from the Marketplace

Somebody else has built it. Fast to adopt and it makes you dependent on their continued maintenance, which is the real cost.

Four: the API

Reading and writing Zendesk data from your own systems. Development work, full control, and yours to maintain.

Five: building your own app

The most expensive and the most specific. Justified when the requirement is genuinely yours and nothing else fits.

Work down the list, not up

The usual mistake is starting at three, because the Marketplace is where you look when you have a problem. Asking whether a trigger and a field would do it takes ten minutes and often ends the project.

Each step adds something to maintain

Configuration goes stale. Apps get abandoned. Custom code needs somebody who understands it, and that person changes jobs.

The question is not only what solves it today, but who looks after it in two years.

Ask us before building

Contact pluscloud support before committing to development. Often the requirement is met by something that already exists, and that conversation is cheaper than the build.

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