Announcing Zendesk Identity Provider (IdP) for Contact Center

Announced on | Rollout on
April 2, 2026 | April 2, 2026

We’re happy to announce the general availability of Zendesk identity provider (IdP) for Zendesk Contact Center. Zendesk can now act as a SAML 2.0 identity provider (IdP) to the AWS services behind Contact Center. After you sign in to Zendesk with your corporate IdP, Zendesk federates you into Amazon Connect, Amazon Cognito, and (where applicable) the AWS Management Console — no separate SSO integrations required.

This announcement includes the following topics:

What is changing?

Why is Zendesk making this change?

What do I need to do?

What is changing?

Zendesk now supports IdP-initiated SAML SSO to 3rd party systems like Amazon Connect, Amazon Cognito, and the AWS Management Console that support Contact Center. This is included at no additional cost.

You continue to authenticate to Zendesk with your corporate IdP (Okta, Entra ID, Google Workspace, etc.) and Zendesk handles the downstream federation.

This is now recommended as the default approach for Contact Center implementations.

Why is Zendesk making this change?

The following are the key reasons for this change:

Address customer feedback that SSO is one of the most complex parts of Contact Center implementations.

Reduce login friction across Contact Center subsystems (fewer logins for agents and admins).

Centralize authentication and access control in your corporate IdP.

Simplify onboarding and offboarding.

Improve security with standards-based SAML 2.0.

What do I need to do?

For now, configuration is completed by Zendesk upon request. Open a Zendesk Customer Support request and ask to set up “Zendesk IdP for Contact Center.” Our team will work with you to guide and complete the setup for you.

If you have feedback or questions related to this announcement, contact your Zendesk account representative. For general assistance with your Zendesk products, contact Zendesk Customer Support.