Essential help desk software integrations
First of all - I'm back! Haven't been posting anything in a while, but it's time to bring this little website back to life.
Lets talk about helpdesk software integrations this time.
Just about every help desk software provider screams about "integrations". We integrate with this, we integrate with that, we integrate with CRMs, project managements apps, social networks, chat systems...
Freshdesk integrates with Hipchat, bunch of CRMs (Highrise, Zoho) etc., Zendesk integrates with dozens of different apps, from Mailchimp to Salesforce, just like Jitbit Helpdesk which connects well with JIRA, Github, Slack messenger... And almost all of them integrate well with Zapier - a SaaS automation platform that literally connects "everything with everything".
But do people really care?
Just look at the screenshot. These are the most frequent searches for helpdesk app integrations.
We have 3 votes for email integration (because "Email", "Outlook", "Exchange" all mean the same - people want support tickets connected to their email system). We have 2 votes for bug-tracking - "JIRA" and "TFS" (I guess this means "Team Foundation Server" - a bug-tracking solution from Microsoft) that clearly indicate the need to connect helpdesk to an issue-tracking for developers. 2 more votes for "Active Directory" ("AD" is obviously the same), which indicates the "single-sign on" requirements for Windows-based companies. There's also Freshbooks, "phone" and some generic "crm", which is one of the last ones and doesn't even point to a specific software.
I've been working in Enterprise IT for almost 20 years now, and form my humble experience, the only two integrations you need are:
- Email (obviously)
- Bug-tracking - JIRA, TFS or similar
- Outbound "lookup" API - a universal connector that can query some generic data source. Like, when you receive a ticket, you need to quickly tell: is the user is a customr or not? if yes, which product did they buy and when? Who's the manager halding this account? etc. I guess this is what most people mean by "crm".
- Time-tracking/invoicing - also done via a generic "outbound" API. For example, in in Jitbit you can set an "automation trigger" that will send an REST call once a ticket is closed. Same can be done in Freshdesk using their "webhooks" feature.