Power BI Zendesk Integration: How to Connect Zendesk to Power BI - Update 2024

Companies use professional BI software to manage large amounts of structured and unstructured data from various sources, not only to keep track of their operations but also to identify and develop new strategic business opportunities.

Zendesk customers who wish to analyze data in Power BI have to look for a workaround, as Zendesk does not have a native Power BI integration. Power BI Connector for Zendesk is a simple and straightforward solution for complex Zendesk data analysis and visualization in Microsoft Power BI.

Zendesk Power BI integration allows you to customize the dashboard and report to highlight the information that is most important to you and share it with colleagues in your organization. In fact, the Power BI Connector for Zendesk app from Alpha Serve will be useful for any Zendesk user who wants to visualize their Zendesk data for analytics purposes. It does not necessitate any additional knowledge to begin using it because the app makes it simple to create a URL connection between Power BI and Zendesk without requiring any special skills from the user. It will also be valued by data analysts and business intelligence professionals who build data models in Microsoft Power BI from various data sources (PM, CRM, ITSM, etc).

This article guides you through the process of integrating Zendesk account with a Power BI with the help of Power BI Connector by Alpha Serve. From installation steps to configuring the Connector, to creating a data source in Zendesk and importing Zendesk Support data, like Tickets, Ticket Metrics, Agents & Users, Satisfaction Ratings, Comments, Organizations, etc., as well as Zendesk Sell data to Power BI.

What exactly is Zendesk? An all-in-one customer support solution.

Smart businesses understand that in today's consumer-driven market, the ability to create and maintain great customer relationships is critical to long-term success. But how do you do it on a large scale? With the assistance of top-tier customer support software such as Zendesk. Zendesk is a customer support platform that allows you to communicate with customers via any channel. You may learn more about Zendesk as the first and largest customer service software here.

Whether your customers prefer to communicate via phone, chat, email, social media, or any other channel, Zendesk consolidates all of your customer interactions into a single, simple platform, making it easy to keep track of all support requests, respond to questions quickly, and monitor customer service agent effectiveness.

Zendesk's products are simple to set up and use, and most of the features you'll need will be available right away.

Their platform provides all of the customer relationship management (CRM) tools you need in an industry-leading cloud platform, so whether you're a fast-growing startup or an enterprise looking to improve your current standards, Zendesk is a great place to start.

Is it, however, the best customer service tool for you? The answer is largely determined by the nature and size of your business. Zendesk develops software for a variety of purposes, including sales, customer relationship management, and employee experience. Zendesk caters to businesses of all sizes, from small and medium-sized to large enterprises. Zendesk creates tools for every industry, including healthcare and government.

As you select a customer service platform for your company, consider Zendesk, its features and functions, and whether it will provide the best customer experience for your company at the best price.

Zendesk offers Zendesk Support for customer service and Zendesk Sell for sales processes. Thus, both of these modules contain tons of useful data for analytics fully reflecting business and its outcomes.

Microsoft Power BI is a business intelligence platform that provides tools for nontechnical business users to aggregate, analyze, visualize, and share data. For Excel users, Power BI's user interface is fairly intuitive, and its deep integration with other Microsoft products makes it a very versatile self-service tool that requires little upfront training.

Power BI has a free version for small to midsize business owners, and a professional version that is available for a monthly subscription fee. Users can download Power BI Desktop for your software, as well as native mobile apps for Windows, Android, and iOS devices. Power BI Report Server is also available for businesses that must keep their data and reports on-premises. Power BI Report Server is a part of Power BI Premium. Read more about Power BI, it's features, products, and alternatives here.

Microsoft Power BI is used to discover patterns in an organization's data. Power BI can assist in connecting disparate data sets, transforming and cleaning the data into a data model, and creating charts or graphs to visualize the data. All of this information can be shared with other Power BI users in your organization.

Power BI data models can be used in a variety of ways for organizations, including telling stories with charts and data visualizations and examining "what if" and "why" scenarios within the data. Power BI reports can also provide real-time answers to questions and assist with forecasting to ensure departments meet business needs.

Power BI can also create executive dashboards for administrators or managers, providing more insight into how departments are performing. You can find out more about the reasons to use Power BI here.

Despite the fact that Power BI is a self-service BI tool that makes data analytics available to employees, it is primarily used by data analysts and business intelligence professionals who create data models before disseminating reports throughout the organization. Those without an analytical background, on the other hand, can also use Power BI and create reports.

Microsoft Power BI is used by both department representatives and management, with reports and forecasts created to assist sales and marketing representatives, as well as data on how the department or individual employees are progressing toward their goals.

Furthermore, Power BI provides an admin portal for administrators to help configure the Power BI implementation, as well as usage monitoring and licenses.

Read comprehensive research by Frost & Sullivan to learn about BI tools and why Power BI emerged as the lowest-cost BI solution.

Zendesk Power BI integration is beneficial for businesses that use the Zendesk platform to manage customer interactions, both sales and support, and want to visualize Zendesk data for deeper insights into their customer relationships or generate informative reports on their service agents' activities. Here are a few examples of how businesses can benefit from this integration.

Users of Zendesk can combine data from other software data sources, including Project Management, Customer Relationship Management, and IT Service Management platforms. All of this information can be gathered into Power BI and unified as a single source to track the issue and find a solution based on the generated insights.

As previously stated, such Power BI Zendesk integration aids in the alignment of multiple data sources and the visualization of all Zendesk data as a single report with rich Power BI dashboards.
Combining a Sales team with Marketing and Customer Service in a unified data source is one of the options to determine where to increase or reduce expenses. As a result, you get increased revenue and effective decision-making.

It is also crucial to have a convenient and seamless integration, on order to allow data analysts, business intelligence professionals, or any team member to build reports based on Zendesk data without any special knowledge on the integration part. Companies can save time and money by not having to train new employees to learn complex data export processes or hire an additional specialist.

Power BI Zendesk Connector developed by Alpha Serve and available on the Zendesk Marketplace is a proper solution for Power BI Zendesk seamless integration.

This application makes it simple to export Zendesk data to Power BI as quickly as possible, providing a no-code and safe integration solution without data collection by the vendor.

Some of the Power BI Connector's key features include:

The connector has a simple user interface that anyone can use. Users can easily create URL connections to export data without any specialized programming or coding knowledge. After installing the app from the Zendesk Marketplace, the setup and data export can be completed in a matter of minutes.

Users have complete control over the data they export with the Zendesk Power BI Connector. It provides advanced filtering operations to help you manage the data that will be exported and visualized in Power BI. Depending on your specific business requirements, you can also create multiple sources (PM, CRM, ITSM, etc.) for different data sets.

Zendesk Power BI Connector has a strong system through the security of data exported across platforms. Based on predefined roles, users are assigned varying sets of data access permissions.

How do you set up the Power BI Connector for Zendesk?

Step 2: Choose your desired plan and click the Free trial button.

Step 3: If prompted, select your Zendesk account from the list and click the Install button.

Step 4: Enter your billing information and click Proceed to payment. You can also change your pricing plan and restrict access to the application to specific groups or users during this step.

Step 5: Finish the payment process. You will be returned to the Zendesk Admin Center.

Step 6: The application has now been installed and should be accessible via the Navigation panel. The only thing left is to connect the connector to the Zendesk Support account using OAuth.

Step 1: Open the Power BI Connector for Zendesk app from your Navigation panel.

Step 2: If you are notified that an OAuth connection has not yet been established, click the Connect Power BI Connector for Zendesk application button.

Step 3: A new tab will open, and you will be asked to grant permission to read the data in your Zendesk account. Click the Allow button.

Step 4: The tab will close automatically, and you will be returned to the Power BI Connector for the Zendesk application, which is now ready to use.

Set up is also a simple process and requires just a few steps.

Step 1. Navigate to the Zendesk Admin Center. This is accomplished by first selecting the Admin section from the navigation bar and then clicking on the link Go to Admin Center.

Step 2: From the Admin Center, navigate to Apps and Integrations, then Zendesk Support apps.

Step 3: Find and select Power BI Connector for Zendesk from the list. You will be directed to the Power BI Connector for Zendesk configuration page.

Once you select your plan and the proper information is filled in, you can proceed with payment to finalize the settings.

Power BI Connector for Zendesk also supports data export from the Zendesk Sell module. After you install the app to your Zendesk Support account, you can set up Zendesk Sell data export to Power BI.

You only need to follow two steps to enable Zendesk Sell data export to Power BI. Let's go through the steps below:

Step 1. Create PAT Token in your Zendesk Sell account

Open your Zendesk Sell account and go to Settings > Integrations > OAuth, click on + Add Access Token.

Provide the Description and mark the following checkboxes:

• Read access to all your data, except for the account and user info.
• Read access to the account and users info only.

Click Save button.

Copy the generated API token and save it in a safe place. Please note that it will only be shown once.

Step 2. Add Zendesk Sell PAT Token to Power BI Connector for Zendesk

Open Power BI Connector for Zendesk. On the left-side menu find Tokens. Paste your Zendesk PAT Token created in the previous step into PAT Token field. Don't forget to click Add button at the end.

That's all. Now you are able to export not only Zendesk Support data but also Zendesk Sell data to Microsoft Power BI.

Keep reading to find out how to export your Zendesk Support & Zendesk Sell data and build your first visualization in Power BI.

There are four steps to exporting data from Zendesk to Microsoft Power BI.

Zendesk API Access Token will be requested during the login process to Power BI.

Follow the steps below to create it:

Select the Admin section from your navigation bar and then click on Go to Admin Center link. In the Navigation bar, go to Apps and integrations, then Zendesk API.
Make sure Token access is Enabled (1). If it isn't, turn it on. To add a new token, click the Add API token button (2).

To distinguish it from other tokens, enter the API token description (1). Copy the generated API token (2) and save it somewhere safe. Press the Save button (3) to complete the token creation process.

Open the Power BI Connector app by selecting it from the Navigation menu. Then select Connectors.

On the newly opened page, choose Create a Data Source. Add the Name (1) and the Description (2), and select Users or Groups to Share Settings (3). Click Submit to confirm changes.

Use preset filters to narrow down your export results. You can export All tickets or apply filters by Status, Type, Tag, Assignee, and Date range. To create your own request to filter data use the Search by query option. Choose the Query option if you want to use the Zendesk search query.

In the Fields section, you will see all fields and tables available for export, you can use the Search field to find the specific field you want to export.

The full description of fields, buttons, and settings of the data source creation page you can find in our documentation.

When you're done selecting Zendesk Support tables to export to Power BI, you can Preview ERD and then Save the data source.

To export Zendesk Sell data open the Zendesk SELL (1) tab, which is located next to the Zendesk Support tab on the data source creation page. To specify export results click on the Filter (2) icon. You can export All Zendesk Sell tables or choose Selected by core filtering option to filter tables using Core API. Click Confirm button to apply filters.

In the Fields section mark fields and tables, you want to export. Use the Search field to find the field you need faster.

Save your data source.

Power BI Connector for Zendesk generates the Data Source URL for use with Power BI. To import data into Power BI Desktop, use that URL. Copy the app-generated URL for your connector.

Open Power BI Desktop and navigate to Get Data > OData feed, then paste the URL.

Authorize with your Zendesk credentials (use Email as username and API token as password) using Power BI's basic authorization.

Select the necessary tables and click Load.

Data will be loaded into Power BI after that.

Following that, you can begin creating graphs and dashboards using the imported Zendesk data. To do so, select the visualization type and the data to display on the graph or dashboard.

Power BI connects to Zendesk and pulls in a variety of important data for you to monitor. You'll see information about your tickets, agents, organizations, and more as soon as you connect to your data. For example, you can see the number of Tickets created, solved, and closed in the last 7 and 30 days at a glance. Your dashboard can be tailored to your preferences, ensuring that you have access to the information that is most important to you.

In the report that comes with the dashboard, there are even more insights behind each tile. These pages contain information about Tickets, Agent Performance, Recent Activity, Agent/Group Activity, and Ticket Activity. You will be taken to the Ticket Summary report page, which displays a breakdown of tickets by status, group, channel, and more. When you select a visual, you will be given the option to change its type, pin it, or remove it from the report.

To cross-filter the other visuals, you can select a value from the report. For example, select "open" to only show open tickets. You can also use the filter pane to change the range of tickets you see based on when they were created.

You can find out about your Zendesk data, such as "tickets by status" or about your agents, such as "number of open tickets for Josh". The questions' answers can also be pinned to your dashboard.

Building a data infrastructure used to entail maintaining custom scripts and loading data to costly on-premises storage. Alpha Serve assists today's most successful organizations in optimizing their analytics by leveraging the power of the data.
To aid our future and existing customers we discussed how to connect Zendesk to Power BI and extract data without coding.

As you can see Power BI Connector for Zendesk is an Enterprise-level app that allows for simple Zendesk Power BI integration and it facilitates the export of Zendesk data to Power BI. Furthermore, it enables real-time data analysis via data processing and you can access data as quickly as possible thanks to the bulk of capabilities.

You are welcome to connect Zendesk Support and Zendesk Sell to Power BI with our custom Zendesk connector app in order to transform your data warehouse into actionable insights.