How to connect Amplitude to Zendesk and see user activity on tickets

To connect Amplitude to Zendesk, open Amplitude's Settings > Projects > your project > General and copy the API key and secret key. Install Trailwell, set Analytics tool to amplitude, choose the data center (US or EU) and paste both keys. Amplitude finds people by user id, so if your user ids aren't email addresses, put each customer's user id in their Zendesk external id and set Match by to external_id.

Steps

1. Copy the keys. In Amplitude, go to Settings > Projects, open your project and stay on General. Copy the API key and the secret key.
2. Note the data center: US or EU.
3. Install Trailwell from the Zendesk Marketplace and choose Team (up to 12 agents and admins) or Scale (13 or more).
4. Fill in the settings in Admin Center > Apps and integrations > Zendesk Support apps > Trailwell:

5. Open a ticket from a customer and check the panel.

Get matching right

Amplitude searches user ids, not emails. Only exact user ids are used, never a prefix match. Pick the setup that fits your product:

If nobody is found, agents can type an email or a user id in Find another person.

Choose what the panel shows

• Key events: up to 12 event names with 7 and 30 day counts and when each last happened. End a name with * to match a prefix, so Export* matches "Export run" and "Export failed".
• Key properties: up to 12, like plan, company, seats. Amplitude custom properties work with or without gp:.
• Error events: names counted as errors. Default $exception, error*.
• Days of history: 1 to 90, default 30.
• Profile link: an address with {distinct_id}, {id} or {email} so agents can open the person in Amplitude.

Amplitude specifics

• Sessions are counted from distinct session ids.
• Counts can be minimums. Amplitude returns the latest 500 events. When your history window reaches further back than that, counts are minimums and the panel says so.
• Rate limit. 360 user lookups an hour per project, 2 per ticket, so about 180 tickets an hour. Trailwell tells the agent when the budget is used up.

Hand it to engineering

When a ticket needs a developer, click Add usage summary as internal note. The summary lands on the ticket as an internal note tagged trailwell_usage_note, so the engineer sees the events and errors without opening Amplitude. Control who can add it with Who may add notes.

What it costs

Trailwell is $100 per month for up to 12 agents and admins on Team, or $9 per agent per month from 13 agents on Scale, billed monthly by Zendesk. There's a 14-day free trial, card required, and every feature is on both plans. Full settings are in the Trailwell documentation.