DocumentationAPI Reference

ZIS Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is Zendesk Integration Services (ZIS)?

ZIS is a set of services that streamlines the process of building integrations with Zendesk.

The heart of ZIS is a workflow engine, which can execute business logic in response to data change events. ZIS business logic can include conditional branching, data transformations, and making API calls.

It can also draw on resources such as customer configuration settings, and stored credentials for API authentication.

Why would I use it?

ZIS helps to create integrations more quickly.

ZIS is hosted and executed by Zendesk, reducing the need to host integration middleware. This means less risk, complexity, and cost when building and maintaining integrations.

ZIS can react to events from a range of Zendesk products: currently Support Tickets, Users, and Organizations and Sunshine Custom Objects. This means ZIS can solve some problems that existing solutions like Triggers and Automations can’t.

ZIS is included with selected Zendesk plans, which means it’s a single-vendor single-invoice solution.

What can I use ZIS for today?

In September 2021 we released the Developer Experience for ZIS. This is a set of APIs and supporting materials (documentation, tutorials, examples) that allows developers to build with ZIS.

Zendesk customers can build private integrations, that is, a ZIS-based integration that runs on their own instance. Customers can also seek assistance from Zendesk’s Professional Services team to build private integrations with ZIS.

Will customers or partners be able to use ZIS to create public integrations?

Not yet: at the moment the integrations you create are just for use on a single account.

We do intend to make ZIS available to partners and customers in the future, but don’t have a specific release timeframe we can share.

Does Zendesk build integrations with ZIS?

Yes we do! Our Salesforce, Shopify, and Events Connector for Amazon EventBridge integrations all utilise ZIS.

It’s also used to manage OAuth tokens for Zendesk apps and selected channels such as Facebook Messenger.

How much does ZIS cost?

ZIS is included with selected Zendesk plans. There is no separate charge to access or use ZIS.

What plans include ZIS?

Private integrations can be created and used on:

  • Suite Growth, Professional, and Enterprise
  • Support Professional and Enterprise

Prebuilt public integrations (such as Zendesk’s Salesforce, Shopify, and Events Connector integrations) can be installed and used on:

  • Suite Team, Growth, Professional, and Enterprise
  • Support Team, Professional and Enterprise

What usage limits does ZIS have?

The following limits apply to flow execution in ZIS:

  • maximum flow execution time of 100 seconds
  • maximum number of 250 state transitions
  • maximum of 100 iterations in a Map state

The following API rate limits apply:

There are also various limits on the length and characters allowed when naming ZIS resources. Consult the API reference for the respective endpoints for more detail.

Do API requests made by ZIS count against my Zendesk API limits?

Yes, if your ZIS-based integration makes API calls to Zendesk services, those requests count towards the relevant usage limit.

How quickly does an event trigger a ZIS workflow?

ZIS flows are triggered asynchronously by a queue of events. The time it takes to trigger a flow varies based on the size of this event queue. In most cases, flows start within a few seconds of a triggering event. However, during busy periods, it may take several minutes.

A sudden increase in events or a large stream of ongoing events may delay the start of a ZIS flow. If there are errors within the flow, it may cause delays as ZIS retries the flow.

When building and testing new ZIS integrations, we recommend that you gradually ramp up the number of triggering events. This helps you detect bugs that may cause delays with a larger number of events.

Should I disable ZIS integrations before a migration?

Yes. We recommend you disable ZIS integrations before a data migration or other large-scale change. Such changes can create a large number of events and kick off multiple ZIS flows in a short period, exceeding usage limits. Depending on the integration, it may also create an undesired user experience. To disable a ZIS integration, see Disabling the integration.

As an alternative to disabling your ZIS integrations, you can update them to skip or ignore imported data. For example, you can include a specific tag on any tickets added during a bulk import. You can add a Choice state to any ticket-related ZIS flows to ignore tickets with this tag.

How do customer developers build with ZIS?

ZIS-based integrations are built by making API requests to create and coordinate the various resources.

ZIS business logic is written using a declarative JSON syntax, not server-side code like Ruby, Go, Java etc.

ZIS integrations may surface a UI for configuration and installation via a Zendesk app, written in React.

Read more in the Zendesk Developer Documentation for ZIS.

Are logs available?

Yes they are. ZIS automatically logs certain events, and developers can log additional information if they wish. You can read more about ZIS logs in Viewing the integrations log.

See the Succeed state and Fail state documentation for information on how to publish information in the logs.

Where do I find developer documentation, tutorials, and examples for ZIS?

All these developer resources can be found in the Zendesk Developer Documentation for ZIS.

How do customer Admins build with ZIS?

Admins are able to access the ZIS APIs too. So if you have some experience with JSON and APIs, you can start building with ZIS.

How can I ask questions or provide feedback?

There are a number of ways you can talk to us about ZIS.