How to use the Notify App

The notify app allows you to define when a notification is displayed, to whom it is shown and what it says and looks like.

WHEN

The conditions for when a notification is shown are defined using Zendesk triggers. Before installing the app, you may already have several triggers setup that you'd like a notification to be shown for.

For example, the default trigger called "Notify assignee of comment update" may be something that you would prefer to be notified by via a popup notification than via email. 

To set up this notification, first, click on the 'Notify' icon in the main bar on the left. Then click 'Add notification'.

In the popup modal, from the list of triggers, select it like this:

WHAT

Now that we've set the trigger that will pop the notification, we can set what we want it to say in the 'notification content' section at the top like this: 

Notice that in the message, we've used a couple of Zendesk placeholders that allow you to display information relative to the ticket it's referring to. In the case above, {{ticket.id}} will add in the ID of the ticket, and {{current_user.name}} will show the name of the person who has added the comment to the ticket.

We can also define what the notification will look like by clicking on the 'Alert' icon like this: 

Here, you'll see that you're able to change the colour of the popup notification to green, yellow or red, depending on the urgency. 

You can also make the popup notification stay visible to an agent until dismissed by checking "Require agent to dismiss popup". 

Finally, at the bottom, you're able to select the icon of the notification. Note that this icon selection will not apply to the Zendesk popup notification its self. It will only apply to the feed of notifications in the top bar app location. 

WHO

The last thing to do is to set who the popup notification will be shown to in the 'Recipients' section. You can set any combination of agents, roles or groups. For this instance we're just going to set it so that the assignee of the ticket receives the notification like this:

Here's what the options in brackets mean:

• assigned group: all agents in the group the ticket is assigned to
• current user: the agent who initiated the change on the ticket themselves, in case you wish a notification to be added as confirmation of something
• agent requester: the requester of the ticket, as long as it's an agent
• agent collaborators: CCs on the ticket, but only those that are agents
• assignee: agent assigned to the ticket, if any
• all non-restricted agents: all (full) agents and admins in your account

OK, Sweet! You're done.

Click 'OK' to save the notification settings, and now whenever someone adds a comment to a ticket you're assigned to, you'll see the notification popup like this:

You'll also see the notification in the top bar feed that you can access at any time like this: 

FAQs

Q. OK, so you might be asking yourself, what if I only want to receive the notification from the trigger we selected to fire the notification from and you no longer want to receive the email notification that was part of the original trigger.

A. No problems. All you'll need to do is go into your Zendesk triggers. Find the one called "Notify assignee of comment update" and then remove the "Action" in that trigger that sends the email.

Q. What if I want to set a notification, but there aren't any triggers that exist yet that fire on the event I need? For example, what if I only want a notification when I receive a "Good" satisfaction rating?

A. You will need to build the trigger. This is what makes the Notify app so powerful because it taps into the power of 'the engine of Zendesk' aka triggers!

But to make things even easier, the app can help you with that too. Once you've created a notification, if you haven't specified the trigger that it's attached to, you will have the option to create your own custom trigger like this:

By clicking the 'create trigger' option, a basic trigger will be created instantly, and at the top right of the screen a popup notification will appear with a link to the trigger like this... CLICK THE LINK. 

By clicking the link, this will take you to the basic trigger, that, by default, is set to fire off the notification (this is the "Notify target" item that appears under "Actions") the instant any ticket is created.

You will then need to alter the items under "Conditions" so that the trigger only fires when the right conditions of the ticket are met.

So coming back to the example stated in the question, if you only wanted a notification to be shown at the point a "Good CSAT" was received on a ticket, then your trigger might look something like this: 

Note there is a nullifying condition and action in the trigger which you can read more about here: https://support.sweethawk.co/hc/en-us/articles/115000727492-Nullifying-conditions-for-your-triggers 

For more general information on how to use Zendesk triggers, see Zendesk's article(s) on how to use triggers here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203662246-About-triggers-and-how-they-work