Integrations4 min readBeta

Connecting Zoho Desk

Connect Zoho Desk so your agents can manage tickets across your preferred Zoho datacenter.

Info

The Zoho Desk integration is currently in Beta. Core ticket flows and attachment delivery work, but some edge cases (custom fields, multi-department setups) are still being refined. We welcome your feedback.

Prerequisites

  • A Zoho Desk account with admin access
  • Your Zoho datacenter region: US (.com), EU (.eu), India (.in), Australia (.com.au), or Japan (.jp)
  • Permission to create webhooks in Zoho Desk

Connect Your Account

Info

Connect using a dedicated service account (e.g. symbi@yourcompany.com) rather than a personal Zoho account. This keeps the integration working when team members leave. Give the service user permission to read tickets, reply, add comments, and update status. Use a customer-friendly display name like "Customer Support" — it may appear on replies.

Important: The Zoho user who clicks Allow on the OAuth consent screen is the identity Symbi acts as for every API call. Make sure you are signed into Zoho as the service account at that moment — not as your personal account.

  1. Open Settings → Connectors
  2. Find Zoho Desk and click Connect
  3. Choose your datacenter region — this determines which Zoho endpoints Symbi will use. Pick the region where your Zoho Desk data lives
  4. Click Connect with Zoho Desk — you'll be redirected to Zoho's OAuth consent screen for that region
  5. Sign in as the service account (if not already) and approve the scopes (ticket management, settings, basic org info)
  6. Symbi redirects you to a Review discovered resources page listing your Zoho Desk departments. Select the departments you want your agents to be able to work in and click Register selected
  7. You're returned to Symbi with the connection confirmed

You can skip the department selection step and manage registrations later from Settings → Connectors → Zoho Desk.

Warning

Pick the right region before connecting — changing regions later requires disconnecting and reconnecting.

Webhook Setup

After OAuth, Symbi shows you a webhook URL and secret in a collapsible section on the Zoho Desk card. You need to create one webhook per event in Zoho Desk — three webhooks in total:

  1. In Zoho Desk, go to Setup → Automation → Workflows → Webhooks (or Macros → Webhooks)
  2. Click New Webhook and paste the Symbi URL, then append the event query string for that webhook:
    • ?event_type=ticket_created
    • ?event_type=ticket_updated
    • ?event_type=comment_created
  3. Set the HTTP method to POST and the body format to JSON
  4. Under Custom Headers, add a header named X-Symbi-Webhook-Secret with the secret from Symbi
  5. Save — then repeat steps 2–4 for the other two event types

Symbi also polls on a backup schedule, so if a webhook misses, the agent still sees the event shortly after.

What Your Agent Can Do

Once connected, a Zoho Desk agent can:

  • Reply to Ticket — send customer-facing responses
  • Add Note — internal staff-only notes
  • Update Ticket Status — move tickets through Open, On Hold, Escalated, Closed
  • Get Ticket — fetch ticket details
  • Get Conversations — read the full conversation history
  • List Tickets (opt-in)

Security

Zoho OAuth tokens expire every hour and are refreshed automatically. Tokens are AES-256 encrypted at rest. Each API call uses the datacenter-aware endpoint for your region and includes the required Zoho-oauthtoken header.

You can revoke Symbi's access any time from your Zoho account's connected apps page.

Limitations

  • Company-only — Zoho Desk is not available for the Personal Assistant
  • Attachments — up to 10 attachments per ticket are delivered; email noise (signature images, tracking pixels) is filtered automatically
  • Custom fields — most custom fields are readable, but writing to some may require additional configuration

Tip

Start with Always Review for the first week. Zoho's workflow flexibility means each customer's setup is slightly different, and reviewing early actions helps you fine-tune the agent to your specific pipeline.

What's Next?