Getting started with Zendesk Contact Center

<body>
<p id="docs-hc-snippet" style="display: none;">This article helps admins get started with Zendesk Contact Center.</p>
<div class="article-banners">
<div id="docs-wmp-link">
<a href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5411234991258-plan" rel="noopener" target="_blank">What's my plan?</a>
</div>

<div class="article-banner" id="addon_contact-center">
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<strong>Add-on</strong>
</td>
<td>Contact Center</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>

</div>
<div id="docs-ai-summary">
<p id="docs-ai-summary-toggle">Summary: <span id="up-triangle">◀</span><span id="down-triangle">▼</span></p>
<p id="docs-ai-summary-content">Get started with Contact Center by understanding its core components like Amazon Connect and single sign-on integration. Review your configuration settings, test the installation, and inform agents with key resources. Monitor activity using customizable dashboards to track call center performance. Explore next steps for integration, attribute mapping, and call recording settings to optimize your contact center operations.</p>
</div>

<div class="body">

<p class="p">This article helps admins get started with Zendesk Contact Center.</p>
<p class="p">This article contains the following topics:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_u21_jwg_njc__ul_ul1_fkp_v3c">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#understand">Understanding Contact Center components</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#review-config">Reviewing the Contact Center configuration</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#test-install">Testing your Contact Center installation</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#inform-agents">Informing your agents</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#monitor">Monitoring Contact Center activity</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#next-steps">Next steps</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="understand">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Understanding Contact Center components</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">The following components are the key building blocks of Contact Center and how they
interact.</p>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested2" id="section_wl1_fkp_v3c">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title3">Amazon Connect Customer</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Amazon Connect Customer (Connect) is a cloud-based contact center service
provided by AWS that helps you set up and manage customer support calls and
chats. Think of it as the telephony and contact routing engine for Contact
Center. It handles phone calls, queues, contact flows, and more. Connect is the
foundation of Contact Center. Every customer who uses Contact Center either has
a Zendesk-provisioned AWS account or manages their own instance in their AWS
account. Each Contact Center environment links one-to-one with a specific
Connect instance. You can't link multiple Connect instances to one Contact
Center account or vice versa.</p>
<p class="p">For more information, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10342463822746" target="_blank">About AWS services in Contact
Center</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested2" id="section_yl1_fkp_v3c">
<h3 class="title topictitle3" id="ariaid-title4">Zendesk Identity Provider</h3>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Zendesk provides single sign-on (SSO) by acting as a SAML 2.0 identity provider
(IdP) to the AWS services that power Contact Center. You keep using your
corporate IdP to sign in to Zendesk, such as Okta, Entra ID, or Google
Workspace. After you sign in to Zendesk, it acts as a SAML 2.0 IdP and signs you
in to Amazon Connect Customer, Amazon Cognito, and the AWS Management Console
with IdP-initiated SAML SSO. You don’t need to configure separate SSO
integrations for those services, and your multi-factor authentication (MFA) and
access policies stay in your IdP. This is built for Contact Center’s AWS
services, not as a general SAML broker for arbitrary third-party service
providers.</p>
<p class="p">For more information, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10879182740506" target="_blank">Understanding single sign-on for Contact
Center</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="review-config">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">Reviewing the Contact Center configuration</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">After Zendesk or your implementation partner provides your instance details and
credentials, familiarize yourself with and review your configuration settings:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="review-config__ul_am1_fkp_v3c">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10880753611674" target="_blank">Activating agent focus mode in Contact
Center</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10878483585562" target="_blank">Mapping Amazon Connect queues to Zendesk
brands</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10878444999450" target="_blank">Managing end-user profiles for Contact
Center</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9731437749658" target="_blank">Creating quick connects for Contact
Center</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title6" class="topic nested1" id="test-install">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title6">Testing your Contact Center installation</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">After Zendesk completes the installation of your instance, you're ready to test
Contact Center to ensure everything is working correctly.</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">To test Contact Center</strong></p>
<ol class="ol" id="test-install__ol_cm1_fkp_v3c">
<li class="li">
<p class="p">Navigate to the Contact Center agent login page, <code class="ph codeph">https://${Zendesk
Instance Host}/agent</code>.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p">Sign in with SSO.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p">Access the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10879034148890" target="_blank">call console</a>.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p">Check agent status and make a call</p>
<p class="p">You can verify connectivity by checking if the call console is available.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p class="p">If you're having problems, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9696137463066" target="_blank">Troubleshooting Contact Center</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title7" class="topic nested1" id="inform-agents">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title7">Informing your agents</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Here are some useful resources to help your agents get started using Contact
Center:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="inform-agents__ul_em1_fkp_v3c">
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10879034148890" target="_blank">Accessing the Contact Center agent interface and configuring voice preferences</a></p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9459091042970" target="_blank">Configuring Contact Center browser
notifications</a></p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4410545721114" target="_blank">Setting your agent status</a></p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10879356124314" target="_blank">Setting agent status to offline and
signing out of Contact Center</a></p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title8" class="topic nested1" id="monitor">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title8">Monitoring Contact Center activity</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Contact Center dashboards give you insights into your call center activity:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="monitor__ul_gm1_fkp_v3c">
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Realtime snapshot dashboard</strong> shows metrics in near-real-time.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">Recent performance dashboard</strong> shows activity from the last 24
hours.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p class="p">You can customize the dashboards to your specific monitoring needs. For more
information, see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9459010766362" target="_blank">Understanding Contact Center dashboards</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title9" class="topic nested1" id="next-steps">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title9">Next steps</h2>
<div class="body">
<ul class="ul" id="next-steps__ul_hm1_fkp_v3c">
<li class="li">
<p class="p"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10880620037914" target="_blank">Mapping Amazon Connect attributes to
Contact Center ticket fields</a></p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<script id="docs-schema-markup" type="application/ld+json">{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "TechArticle",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10879422998554",
"url": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10879422998554",
"headline": "Getting started with Zendesk Contact Center",
"description": "You can use this article to understand the components, configuration, testing, agent guidance, and monitoring of a cloud-based contact center service integrated with AWS and single sign-on for managing customer support calls and chats.",
"articleSection": "Product help",
"datePublished": "2026-06-08T15:48:13+00:00",
"dateModified": "2026-06-09T00:39:49.629787+00:00",
"inLanguage": "en-US",
"mainEntityOfPage": {
"@type": "WebPage",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10879422998554"
},
"author": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Zendesk",
"@id": "https://www.zendesk.com"
},
"publisher": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Zendesk",
"@id": "https://www.zendesk.com"
},
"isPartOf": {
"@type": "WebSite",
"name": "Zendesk Help",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/"
},
"about": {
"@type": "SoftwareApplication",
"name": "Zendesk",
"@id": "https://www.zendesk.com",
"softwareAddOn": {
"@type": "SoftwareApplication",
"name": "Contact Center",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/9248688983706"
}
}
}</script><script id="ai-summary-script">
//<![CDATA[
const ai_summary_style = document.createElement('style');
ai_summary_style.innerHTML = `#styled-article-body{padding:0 0 0}#article-body #docs-ai-summary{background-color:#f3f3f3;border:1px solid #d3d3d3;padding:10px 10px 6px;margin-bottom:16px}#article-body #docs-ai-summary #docs-ai-summary-toggle{font-size:.9em;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:4px;cursor:pointer;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center}#article-body #docs-ai-summary #docs-ai-summary-toggle #up-triangle{margin-left:auto;padding-right:10px;display:none}#article-body #docs-ai-summary #docs-ai-summary-toggle #down-triangle{margin-left:auto;padding-right:10px}#article-body #docs-ai-summary #docs-ai-summary-content{font-size:.9em;padding-left:25px;padding-right:25px;margin-bottom:12px}`;
document.head.appendChild(ai_summary_style);

const toggleAISummary = () => {
const summary = document.getElementById("docs-ai-summary-content");
const upTriangle = document.getElementById("up-triangle");
const downTriangle = document.getElementById("down-triangle");
if (summary.style.display === "none") {
summary.style.display = "block";
upTriangle.style.display = "none";
downTriangle.style.display = "inline";
} else {
summary.style.display = "none";
upTriangle.style.display = "inline";
downTriangle.style.display = "none";
}
};

document.getElementById("docs-ai-summary-toggle").addEventListener("click", toggleAISummary);
//]]>
</script>
</body>