Managing third-party bots in Admin Center


You can view and manage your third-party bots, such as those installed through the Zendesk Marketplace or an external site, in the Admin Center.


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You can view and manage your third-party bots, such as those installed
through the Zendesk Marketplace or an external site, in the Admin Center.
This article includes the following sections:


Requirements
Selecting and installing a third-party bot
Assigning the default responder role to a third-party bot
Assigning third-party bots to specific channels




Requirements

Management of third-party bots in Admin Center is available on accounts that:


Currently have, or are eligible for, a Sunshine Conversations license.
Sunshine Conversations licenses are included in Zendesk Suite Professional,
Enterprise, and Enterprise+ plans.
Have messaging
activated.





Selecting and installing a third-party bot


You must select and install a third-party bot before you can
connect it to your Zendesk instance.
To select and install
a third-party bot

Find the bot you want to use. There are two ways you can do this:
Locate a third-party bot in the Zendesk Marketplace and
follow the installation instructions to the bot's
webpage. The bot will include steps to connect to
your Zendesk account.
Locate and configure the third-party bot from an
external source, such as the bot’s webpage. The
source will include steps to connect to your
Zendesk account.


When you've successfully completed the installation, the
third-party bot appears on the AI agents page in Admin
Center, in the Marketplace bots section. You can
now assign the bot to specific channels, or make it the
default responder to customer comments in conversations.





Assigning the default responder role to a third-party bot

After you've added a third-party bot to your Zendesk account, you can adjust
how it is applied to existing channels, and to new channels moving forward.
When you assign the default responder role to a third-party bot, it becomes the
first responder in a customer conversation. This means when a customer
contacts support through one of your messaging channels, the third-party bot
manages the interaction. It replaces any previously connected AI agent or default response configuration, which is
reverted to Draft mode.
Any time a new channel is added to your instance, the bot with the default
label is automatically assigned as the default responder for that channel.
If you assign the default label to another bot, that bot becomes the
responder for any channels using the default responder.
When using a third-party bot as a default responder in conversations, consider
the following:


Only one bot can be assigned the default responder role in each
instance.
The bot with the default responder label can't be deleted or
uninstalled until the label is assigned to another
responder.
If you do not want to use a third-party bot as the default
responder, you can assign the default responder label to an AI
agent.
If you do not have any third-party bots connected to your
instance, an essential AI agent is the default responder.


To assign the default responder role to a third-party bot


In Admin Center, click
AI in the sidebar, then select AI agents > AI agents.
Click Marketplace bots

Locate the third-party bot you want to use as the default
responder.
Click the bot's Options menu ( ) and select Assign
default.
Click Save.


To reassign the default responder role to an essential AI agent


In Admin Center, click
AI in the sidebar, then select AI agents > AI agents.
Click Marketplace bots

Locate the third-party bot currently assigned the default
responder role.
Click the bot's Options menu ( ) and select Assign default to
Zendesk AI agents.


To reassign the default responder role to an advanced AI agent

Follow the steps in Setting an advanced AI agent as
the default responder for individual channels.




Assigning third-party bots to specific channels

You can select which third-party bot you want to use as the responder for each
of your messaging channels.


Note: The Conversation control
setting must be set to Release control for
per-channel responders to work.

To assign a third-party bot to a messaging channel


In Admin Center, click
AI in the sidebar, then select AI agents > AI agents.
Click Marketplace bots.
Click the name of the third-party bot you want to assign to a
messaging channel.
Expand the Basics section. Under Channels, use the
checkboxes to select the channels you want to assign this
third-party bot to. If you have a large number of channels, you
can filter the list by keyword or channel type.
Note: Deselecting
channels from this list removes the third-party bot as the
default responder from those channels, and assigns the
default responder role to an AI agent.

Click Save to apply your changes.




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