Ticket Simulator

The ticket simulator app allows you to create and update tickets, moving each ticket through a random lifecycle in order to produce robust, realistic reports. The app can bulk up an account with real-time data without having to manually take actions on tickets.

The app consists of a backend Node service and a frontend Zendesk top bar app. If you are interested in checking the code, let me know if you don't have access to these repos. 

Set-up instructions:

• Reach out to Carl Goldberg (Slack @cgoldberg) to be added to the approved accounts. 

• Fill in the required configuration settings:
  
  • Assignee IDs (the ID number, not email)
    • Assignees must be agents. End-users are not assigned tickets.
  • Requester IDs (the ID number, not email)
    • Pro-tip: to get all your IDs easily, open a new tab and hit https://<YOUR_SUBDOMAIN>.zendesk.com/api/v2/users.json
      It will look much better if you've installed a JSON viewer Chrome Extension
    • Requesters can be agents or end-users
  • End-user email - this must be an end-user corresponding to one of the requester IDs from above
  • End-user password - to set your end-user password - Settings > Security > Global > Enable admins to set passwords, then go to your chosen User Profile > Security Settings
• Optionally fill in the following fields:
  • Groups IDs - if you want tickets to switch between multiple groups
  • Subjects - default subjects are provided, but you may provide a custom list
    • Default subjects - Billing Question,Password Reset,Where is my order,My printer is on fire
  • Tags - for adding custom tags
    • Default tags - login,order,shipping,return,exchange,technical,billing

Once settings are configured, open the top bar app. You should see fields for Email and API Token. 

To retrieve your API token: 

• In Support, Settings > API > Enable Token Access, Add New Token [+], then copy and store your token because Zendesk will not display the full token after the first time

The app sits in the top bar. It has 3 buttons: 

• Start Fresh - creates new tickets and runs them through actions
• Stop - stops the current simulator job
• Pull Existing Tickets - pulls recent tickets in your account and runs them through actions. This action is best suited for tickets previously created by the ticket simulator, since when you stop the process, the tickets are frozen at their current status.

A few things to know: 

• The current available actions are - ticket creation, public comment, private comment, change status (pending, open, solved), add random tags, change group, CSAT
• The simulator runs every minute. There is a random chance of an action happening each minute, once enough tickets are created something will happen each minute
• There is a time limit of 120 minutes for the simulator to prevent it from running many hours unbeknownst to the user. Once the simulator process has hit the limit, you can pull a previous tickets to run actions or start again creating new tickets and actions.
• End-user email is just for CSAT; CSAT will only work for the end-user email that you provide. Your end-user email must match one of the requester IDs. 

Questions?

Hit me up on Slack @cgoldberg