Skip to main content

Integrate with Zendesk

Support level: Community

What is Zendesk?​

Zendesk is a customer service platform for support, sales, and customer engagement workflows.

-- https://www.zendesk.com/

Preparation​

The following placeholders are used in this guide:

  • company.zendesk.com is the FQDN of your Zendesk company portal.
  • authentik.company is the FQDN of the authentik installation.
info

This documentation lists only the settings that you need to change from their default values. Be aware that any changes other than those explicitly mentioned in this guide could cause issues accessing your application.

Zendesk can use OpenID Connect (OIDC) or SAML for SSO. Zendesk identifies SSO users by email address, so make sure that users who sign in with authentik have an email address that matches their Zendesk user.

authentik configuration OIDC​

Redirect URI changes in authentik 2026.5

In authentik versions earlier than 2026.5, all Redirect URIs are automatically treated as Authorization type. If you are using one of these older authentik versions, add only the Authorization URL to your Redirect URIs and do not configure a Post Logout URI.

To support the integration of Zendesk with authentik over OIDC, create an application/provider pair in authentik and then create an OIDC SSO configuration in Zendesk.

Create an application and provider​

  1. Log in to authentik as an administrator and open the authentik Admin interface.
  2. Navigate to Applications > Applications and click New Application to open the application wizard.
    • Application: provide a descriptive name, an optional group for the type of application, the policy engine mode, and optional UI settings. Note the application Slug because it will be required later.
    • Choose a Provider type: select OAuth2/OpenID Connect as the provider type.
    • Configure the Provider: provide a name (or accept the auto-provided name), the authorization flow to use for this provider, and the following required configurations.
      • Note the Client ID and Client Secret values because they will be required later.
      • Add a Redirect URI of type Strict Authorization as https://company.zendesk.com/access/oidc/callback.
      • Select any available signing key.
    • Configure Bindings (optional): you can create a binding (policy, group, or user) to manage the listing and access to applications on a user's Application Dashboard page.
  3. Click Submit to save the new application and provider.

Zendesk configuration OIDC​

Create an OIDC SSO configuration​

  1. Log in to Zendesk as an administrator.
  2. In the Admin Center, click Account in the sidebar, then navigate to Security > Single sign-on.
  3. Click Create SSO configuration, then select OpenID Connect.
  4. Configure the OIDC SSO configuration:
    • Configuration name: authentik
    • Client ID: <Client ID from authentik>
    • Client secret: <Client Secret from authentik>
    • Scopes: openid profile email
    • Enable Turn on auto discovery.
    • Issuer URL: https://authentik.company/application/o/<application_slug>/
    • Authentication Mode: PKCE
    • Enable Show button when users sign in.
    • Button name: authentik
  5. Click Save.

Assign the SSO configuration​

Zendesk SSO configurations are inactive until they are assigned to team members, end users, or both.

  1. Open the security settings for the users who should authenticate with authentik:
    • For team members, click Account in the sidebar, then navigate to Security > Team member authentication.
    • For end users, click Account in the sidebar, then navigate to Security > End user authentication.
  2. Select External authentication to show the SSO configuration options.
  3. Select the authentik SSO configuration.
  4. Select how users sign in:
    • Select Let them choose to show the Continue with authentik button on the Zendesk sign-in page.
    • Select Redirect to SSO to require users to use SSO. If Primary SSO is shown, select authentik.
  5. Click Save.

Configuration verification​

To confirm that authentik is properly configured with Zendesk, log out and open Zendesk. If you configured Zendesk to let users choose how they sign in, click Continue with authentik. You should be redirected to authentik to log in, and then redirected back to Zendesk.

Resources​