Understanding ZIS capabilities for building an integration

Before designing and building an integration with Zendesk Integration Services (ZIS), you should determine if the platform’s current capabilities are suitable for your use case and requirements.

The following table describes the criteria, capabilities, and limits to consider when deciding to use ZIS to build an integration.

Note: This table is subject to change as more capabilities are added to ZIS.

Criteria Suitable for ZIS Possibly suitable for ZIS Not suitable for ZIS
Public or private integration? Private integrations used on Zendesk instance(s). Public integrations. Publishing integrations to the the Marketplace for use across multiple accounts is not currently supported on ZIS.
How is the workflow invoked? Events examples: Zendesk events such as User Created, Ticket Status Changed, or Custom Object Changed. Or inbound webhooks received from an external system Manual trigger. It may work if a Zendesk event or inbound webhook is generated Scheduled jobs or API polling (not supported)
Which systems? Zendesk to an external system or Zendesk-to-Zendesk External system-to-Zendesk. It depends on whether the right inbound webhooks are available Two external systems or no integration with Zendesk. ZIS is not a generic iPaaS
How many systems? Zendesk and one external system Zendesk and a few external systems. This is possible depending on the complexity of the integration Zendesk and many external systems. This use case is too complex to build and maintain efficiently
How many instances of each system? One Zendesk instance to one external instance One Zendesk instance to several external instances Several external instances syncing into one Zendesk account or many Zendesk accounts to many external instances
Workflow/business logic complexity Simple. This consists of a few flows and narrow/shallow branching logic. Moderate. This consists of less than 20 flows and a few levels of branching logic. This may be mitigated using Lambda functions to implement logic in code Complex. This consists of many flows and layers of wide,deep, or nested branching logic. This is probably too complex to build and maintain efficiently
External system API types HTTP REST with JSON response HTTP REST with non-JSON response. There’s additional complexity in parsing the response payload GraphQL, SOAP/ XML, Streaming APIs, Websockets, etc are not supported by ZIS
External system API authentication methods API key, basic authentication, bearer token, and OAuth 2.0 OAuth 1.0
Data transformation Simple to moderate JSON transformation using jq, simple type conversions, math and string operations, simple conditional logic, iterating over nested object or array, and regex Complex JSON transformation using jq. This may become too complex to build and maintain efficiently Niche type conversions such country to currency code or state code to state name, randomization functions, and encryption functions (not supported)
Installation and configuration UI Simple configuration surfaced in a Zendesk Apps framework app Installation or configuration UI hosted elsewhere. Example: standalone middleware or within external a SaaS product Complex configurations
Limit: Zendesk API limits Anticipated use of Zendesk APIs comfortably within the plan limits Anticipated use of Zendesk APIs occasionally spiking above plan limits. Consider how the use case is impacted if rate limiting kicks in Anticipated regular use of Zendesk APIs beyond the plan limits. ZIS does not circumvent Zendesk limits
Limit: flow run time Up to 100 seconds N/A Over 100 seconds ZIS terminates any ZIS flow whose run time exceeds 100 seconds. This includes when it is caused by a Wait state or iterating through a Map state
Limit: Flow overall memory consumption TBC TBC TBC
Limit: triggering event size TBC TBC TBC
Limit: Action response payload size TBC TBC TBC
Limit: Flow invocations per second TBC TBC TBC
Limit: iterations of a map state Up to 100 iterations N/A Over 100 iterations
Limit: state transitions Up to 250 transitions N/A Over 250 transitions