Freshdesk CRM Integration – Server Side

Introduction

3CX provides integration with Freshdesk. The configuration is done server side, in an easy and straightforward way. This integration provides many benefits to users of 3CX and Freshdesk, these being:

  • Contact Synchronization – Inbound calls from external numbers trigger a contact lookup in your CRM, and contact details are added to 3CX Contacts. This way, the caller name is automatically shown in your phone display when you receive the call.
  • Call Pop-ups – When using the 3CX Web Client, the customer record is brought up to you automatically when you receive an inbound call.
  • Call Journals – Calls are logged as call records in the CRM.
  • Create a new contact automatically when a call is received from an unknown number.
  • Click to Call – Launch calls straight from Freshdesk via 3CX, using the 3CX Click2Call browser extensions.

In this guide we will take you through the steps required in order to setup your Freshdesk with 3CX – server side.

Freshdesk Configuration

  1. Login to your Freshdesk account with the account owner (agents or admins do not have the required privileges)!
  2. Click on your profile icon on the top right of the screen and select “Profile Settings”.
  1. On the right side you will see your API key.

3CX CRM Server-Side Configuration

Contact Matching Strategy

  1. FreshDesk requires that phone number lookup is performed using the whole number. If the integration queries FreshDesk using a subset of the digits, FreshDesk will not return any data.
  2. Go to Management console > Contacts > Options and set the matching strategy to “Match exactly“.

General Settings

  1. Login to the 3CX management console > “Settings > CRM Integration > Server Side” tab.
  2. Select Freshdesk from the dropdown list.
  1. In the API Key field enter the value you got from the previous step.
  2. For the Domain Part, enter the hostname of your freshdesk account – for example, if your Freshdesk URL is https://abc.freshdesk.com/ enter “abc”.

Call Journaling

  1. If you want to report external calls to the CRM, check the Enable Call Journaling checkbox and configure the parameters below. Please note that this feature is only available for 3CX v16 and later installations.

2. Call Journaling parameters are:

  • Ticket Subject: The subject of the call.
  • Ticket Type: The type of the ticket to create.
  • Answered Inbound Call: Description for answered inbound calls.
  • Missed Call: Description for missed calls.
  • Answered Outbound Call: Description for answered outbound calls.
  • Unanswered Outbound Call: Description for unanswered outbound calls.

3. Please note that you can use variables in the Call Journaling parameters. Variables are specified between [], for example the external number is specified as [Number]. The available variables are:

  • CallType – The type of call, it can be “Inbound”, “Outbound”, “Missed”, or “Unanswered”.
  • Number – The external contact number (the number dialed for outbound calls or the caller number for inbound calls).
  • Agent – The extension number of the agent handling the call.
  • Duration – The duration of the call in “hh:mm:ss” format.
  • DurationTimeSpan – The duration of the call as a TimeSpan object, which can be formatted as the user wants.
  • DateTime – The start date & time of the call, in local time zone, formatted using the local culture from the 3CX server.
  • CallStartTimeLocal – The start date & time of the call, in local time zone, as a DateTime object, which can be formatted as the user wants.
  • CallStartTimeUTC – The start date & time of the call, in UTC time zone, as a DateTime object, which can be formatted as the user wants.
  • CallEndTimeLocal – The end date & time of the call, in local time zone, as a DateTime object, which can be formatted as the user wants.
  • CallEndTimeUTC – The end date & time of the call, in UTC time zone, as a DateTime object, which can be formatted as the user wants.

Contact Creation

  1. If you want to create new contacts in the CRM when a call is received from an unknown number (not found in both 3CX and CRM), check the Enable Contact Creation checkbox and configure the parameters below. Please note that this feature is only available for 3CX v16 and later installations.

2. Contact Creation parameters are:

  • New Contact Name – The name of the newly created Contact

3. Please note that you can use variables in the name field. Variables are specified between [], for example the external number is specified as [Number]. The available variables are:

  • Number – The external contact number (the number dialed for outbound calls or the caller number for inbound calls).