Set up a Privacy Webhook in Zendesk

Zendesk offers the ability to create Webhooks that can be used along with the Privacy API to automatically create and manage DSR Automation.

In this example, we will create a Webhook that will submit an Erasure request upon receiving a Zendesk ticket coming from the DSR submission service Mine.

Transcend is working with Consumer Reports on a technical standard for securely sharing data rights requests between authorized agents and businesses.

  1. In the Zendesk Admin Center, select the Apps and integrations entry in the sidebar.
  2. Select Webhooks > Webhooks, then Create webhook.
  3. Choose Trigger or Automation as a way to connect (difference between events and triggers).
  4. In the next screen, add a Name and Description for the webhook.
  5. For the Endpoint URL field, use https://multi-tenant.sombra.transcend.io/v1/data-subject-request
    • If you are running a self-hosted Sombra™ instance, change the base URL from https://multi-tenant.sombra.transcend.io to your gateway's URL, which can be found in your dashboard. You may also need to allow Zendesk's IP ranges to your Sombra gateway.
  6. Use POST for Request method and JSON for Request format.
  7. Select Bearer token as the Authentication method.
  8. Create your API key in your Transcend dashboard, including the Submit New Data Subject Request scope.
    • More information on authentication to Transcend APIs can be found here
  9. If you are hosting your own instance of Sombra, Click Add header, and enter x-sombra-authorization for the Header Name.
    • For the Header Value, get your Sombra Bearer token API key.
    • If needed, rotate your API key:
    • Navigate to "Settings > Sombra" on your Admin Dashboard
    • Scroll to the "Hosted Sombra Keys" section
    • Click on the "Rotate Sombra Keys" button
    • Once the keys are finished rotating, you will be presented with your new INTERNAL_KEY.
    • You will need to copy it down, as it will be lost once the modal is closed.
    • After the modal closes, you will be redirected to the login page for the new keys to take effect.
  10. Finish by selecting Create webhook.
Zendesk Webhook Details

More information about webhooks in Zendesk can be found here

The full documentation for Privacy API is located here

  1. Go to your Zendesk Admin Center and click on Objects and rules in the sidebar.
  2. Select Business rules > Triggers.
  3. Click Add trigger.
  4. Enter a Name, Description and Category for your trigger.
  5. Add your trigger conditions using Add condition. All conditions need to be met to activate the trigger. For our example of requests coming from Mine, you could create a condition using the following
    • First parameter: select Subject text
    • Second parameter: select Contains the following string
    • Third parameter: type “powered by mine”.
    • See this documentation for more information on building trigger condition statements.
Zendesk Trigger Details
  1. Click Add action to define what should happen when the trigger fires.
    • For Action, select Notify active webhook and select the Transcend webhook previously created.
    • Add JSON body for the API request. See below for a Data Erasure example and here for full documentation of the Privacy API.
  2. Click Create.
Zendesk Trigger Action

The code below is a simple example of JSON data required to create a Data Erasure ticket in Transcend.

If you are setting up a different type of DSR than Erasure, the type field values can be found here. Your subjectType can be found in the Privacy Request Settings, below the Action settings.

In this example, we mark emailIsVerified as false, so your data subject will receive an email confirmation before the DSR workflow can continue as if they submitted a request from the Privacy Center. Additional information on submitting DSRs, deleting, and more can be found here.

Fields like ticket.requester.email are created using Zendesk Fields. See here for more documentation on fields.

{
  "type": "ERASURE",
  "subjectType": "Customer",
  "details": "Erasure DSR created from Zendesk.",
  "subject": {
    "coreIdentifier": "{{ticket.requester.email}}",
    "email": "{{ticket.requester.email}}",
    "emailIsVerified": false
  }
}