Zendesk Global Sync Mechanisms

Maintained by:

Overview

For GitLab Support, we treat Salesforce (SFDC) as a single source of truth (SSoT). Because of this, we strive to keep all Zendesk information as up-to-date as possible. To achieve this, we have several sync mechanisms in place.

Organization sync

As GitLab's sync needs are very specific, we currently use a solution designed internally to achieve organization sync.

We sync the standard organizations using the zd-sfdc-sync-global project, located in the GitLab Ops instance. The scripts within pair with GitLab CI/CD jobs to gather data from both SFDC and Zendesk Global, compare it, and sync the needed changes.

The script also does some slight data manipulation while gathering the date from SFDC. This is to ensure data integrity and make sure no issues occur once the data is sent to Zendesk.

Field mapping

Field in Zendesk	Field in SFDC
`salesforce_id`	`Account_ID_18__c`
`sfdc_short_id`	`Account_ID_18__c` minus the last 4 characters
`support_level`	Calculated from Customers Subs and Zuora Subs
`aar`	`CARR_This_Account__c`
`sales_segmentation`	`Ultimate_Parent_Sales_Segment_Employees__c`
`account_owner`	`Account_Owner_Calc__c`
`account_type`	Calcualted from `Type`, `Partners_Partner_Type__c`, `Partner_Track__c`, and `Partners_Partner_Status__c`
`technical_account_manager`	`Technical_Account_Manager_Name__c`
`seats_decimal`	`Number_of_Licenses_This_Account__c`
`org_region`	Caulcated from `Account_Demographics_Geo__c`
`health_score`	Calculated from `GS_Health_Score_Color__c`
`expiration_date`	Calculated from Customers Subs and Zuora Subs
`restricted_account`	Calculated from `Restricted_Account__c`

SOQL query used

SELECT
  Account.Account_ID_18__c,
  Account.Name,
  Account.CARR_This_Account__c,
  Account.Ultimate_Parent_Sales_Segment_Employees__c,
  Account.Account_Owner_Calc__c,
  Account.Number_of_Licenses_This_Account__c,
  Account.Type,
  Account.Technical_Account_Manager_Name__c,
  Account.Support_Level__c,
  Account.Manual_Support_Upgrade__c,
  Account.Account_Demographics_Geo__c,
  Account.GS_Health_Score_Color__c,
  Account.Next_Renewal_Date__c,
  Account.Restricted_Account__c,
  (SELECT
     Current_Subscription_Status__c,
     Current_Term_End_Date__c,
     Current_Term_Start_Date__c,
     Entitled_Seats__c,
     Product_Tier_Name_Short__c,
     Plan_Name__c
   FROM Customer_Subscriptions__r
   WHERE Current_Subscription_Status__c = 'Active'),
  (SELECT
     Name,
     Zuora__Status__c,
     Zuora__SubscriptionEndDate__c	,
     Zuora__SubscriptionStartDate__c,
     Support_Level__c,
     Zuora__OpportunityName__c,
     Zuora__SubscriptionNumber__c
   FROM Zuora__Subscriptions__r
   WHERE Zuora__Status__c = 'Active')
FROM Account
WHERE
  (Account.Type IN ('Customer', 'Former Customer') OR
   Account.Account_ID_18__c = '0014M00001sGJ8xQAG') OR
  (Account.Type = 'Partner' AND
   Account.Partners_Partner_Status__c IN ('Authorized', 'Former') AND
   Account.Partners_Partner_Type__c IN ('Alliance', 'Channel') AND
   Account.Partner_Track__c IN ('Open', 'Select', 'Technology')
  )

Ticket sync

Currently, we use the official Zendesk Salesforce Data Sync to achieve this. The way it works is concerting New tickets into SFDC cases. From there, it sends them to SFDC (under the organization is associated, otherwise under a general grouping).

It then will update said cases when the ticket is closed or merged.