Using Microsoft Excel actions in action flows



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By connecting the action builder to external systems, such as Microsoft Excel,
admins can integrate Zendesk with external systems in automated workflows, improving
collaboration and maintaining a seamless experience across multiple platforms.
Note: The
steps associated with external systems in action flows are referred to collectively
as external actions.

This article contains the following topics:
Connecting Microsoft Excel to action builder
Using Microsoft Excel actions in action flows
Recipe: Using an action flow to maintain a centralized incident log in Excel




Connecting Microsoft Excel to action builder

Before you can include external actions in your action flows, you must connect the
action builder to the external system.
When connecting to external systems for use in action flows, the following best practices are recommended:
All external actions performed by an action flow are attributed to the user who connected the external system. Therefore, it is a best practice to use a dedicated service account rather than personal credentials when connecting to each external system.
All integrations request access to necessary scopes. However, it's important that you review and validate the scopes before authorizing the connection to the external system.
When managing credentials for API key-based tools, such as OpenAI, it's best to store keys in a secure vault or credential manager.



To connect Microsoft Excel to action builder
In Admin Center, click
Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Actions > Action
flows.

Create or edit an action flow.
Open the step sidebar.
Under External actions, click Microsoft Excel.
Click Connect.
Use Microsoft to authenticate the account. Depending on your
organization's policies, you might need to authorize device or app
access.

Note:

All external actions performed by an action flow are attributed
to the user who connected the external system. Therefore, it is
a best practice to use a dedicated service account rather than
personal credentials when connecting to each external
system.
To ensure the connection is successful, you must have a
Microsoft tenant admin add the connector first.





After you've connected to the system, you'll see an indicator that it's connected and
details about the instance you're connected to, as well as the actions available for
Microsoft Excel.



Using Microsoft Excel actions in action flows

Microsoft Excel action steps can be used to create and update Excel workbooks and
worksheets as well as reading data from them.
The following Excel actions are available:
Create workbook
Create worksheet
Add row to sheet
Fetch row data
Update row




Creating a new Excel workbook

Use the Create workbook action to create a new Excell workbook with a
specified name.
This action has the following inputs and outputs:










Variables




Inputs
workbook_name


Output

created_date_time,
http_status_code,
last_modified_date_time,
web_url, workbook_id,
workbook_name









Creating a worksheet within a Excel workbook

Use the Create worksheet action to create a new worksheet within an
existing workbook.
This action has the following inputs and outputs:










Variables




Inputs

workbook_id,
worksheet_name



Output

http_status_code, id,
name, position,
visibility









Adding a row to an Excel worksheet

Use the Add row to sheet action to append a new row to an existing
worksheet.
This action has the following inputs and outputs:










Variables




Inputs

workbook_id,
sheet_name, values



Output

address, cell_count,
column_count,
column_hidden,
column_index,
http_status_code,
row_count, row_hidden,
row_index,
values









Fetching data from a row in an Excel worksheet

Use the Fetch row data action to retrieve values in a specific row based
on a row index.
This action has the following inputs and outputs:










Variables




Inputs

spreadsheet_id,
row_index



Output
row_data








Updating a row in an Excel worksheet

Use the Update row action to update values in a specific row based on a
row index.
This action has the following inputs and outputs:










Variables




Inputs

spreadsheet_id,
header_row



Output

address, cell_count,
column_count,
column_hidden,
column_index,
http_status_code,
row_count, row_hidden,
row_index,
values










Recipe: Using an action flow to maintain a centralized incident log in Excel

The following example action flow adds data to a centralized incident log in
Microsoft Excel. Each time a Zendesk ticket is classified as an incident, the action
flow automatically adds a new row to the spreadsheet with the full incident details.
This allows the team to automate the tracking of trends, analization of impact, and
reporting on incident volume.
Such an action flow would consist of the following steps:
Add an action flow trigger with the following details:
Click Add trigger.
In the step sidebar, under Zendesk, click
Tickets.
Click Properties and select Ticket type changed.
Click Add condition.
Under Variable, select Ticket type changed and
Type.
Set the Operator to Is.
Under Value, enter Incident.


Add a step to look up ticket details:
In the action builder, beneath the action flow trigger, click the
Add step icon ( ).
In the step sidebar, under Zendesk actions, click Look up
ticket.
Under Ticket ID, click into the field and then click
Select a variable instead.
Within the variable menu, select Ticket type changed as the
step that output the variable you want to use, and then select
Ticket ID.


Add a step to look up user details about the ticket requester:
In the action builder, click the Add step icon ( ).
In the step sidebar, under Zendesk actions, click Look up
user.
Under User ID type, select Zendesk user ID.
For User ID, click Add variable.
Within the variable menu, select Look up ticket as the step
that outputs the variale you want to use, and then select
Requester ID.


Add a step to lookup details about the ticket requester's organization:
In the action builder, click the Add step icon ( ).
In the step sidebar, under Zendesk actions, click Look up
organization.
Under Organization ID type, select Zendesk organization
ID.
For Organization ID, click Add variable.
Within the variable menu, select Look up user as the step
that outputs the variale you want to use, and then select
Organization ID.


Add a step that adds a row to an Excel spreadsheet with the information you
collected for the ticket, user, and organization:
In the action builder, click the Add step icon ( ).
In the step sidebar, under External actions, click
Microsoft Excel and then select Add row to
sheet.
Select the Excel sheet's Workbook ID and Sheet
name.
Under Row values, use variables from the previous steps to
capture the details you want about the ticket, user, and
organization associated with the incident. Enter the data in the
order the columns appear in the sheet, separating each column's
value by a comma. For example, this might include the ticket's ID,
subject, and date created; the ticket requester's name; the
organization's name, and more.



Click Save.
Click Test to test the action flow.
Click the options menu ( ) and select Activate to begin using the
action flow to automatically log incident tickets in your Excel
spreadsheet.




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