How do I build a Cassidy workflow for Zendesk ticket triage with a human approval step before sending a reply?

Most support teams want the speed of AI-powered Zendesk ticket triage without losing the safety and nuance of a human agent’s judgment. Cassidy makes this balance possible by letting you insert human approval checkpoints before any reply is sent to a customer. In this guide, you’ll learn step-by-step how to build a Cassidy workflow for Zendesk ticket triage with a human approval step before sending a reply.

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What you’ll learn in this guide

By the end, you’ll know how to:

• Connect Cassidy to Zendesk for ticket triage
• Design a triage flow that categorizes and prioritizes tickets
• Configure Cassidy to draft responses but wait for human approval
• Add rules for when human review is required vs. optional
• Safely deploy your workflow and measure its impact

This walkthrough assumes you already have:

• A Zendesk Support account with admin access
• A Cassidy account with permission to create workflows
• API access or integration permissions between Cassidy and Zendesk

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Step 1: Connect Cassidy to Zendesk

The first step in building a Cassidy workflow for Zendesk ticket triage with a human approval step before sending a reply is to connect your Zendesk instance.

1. Create a Zendesk API token (if not already done):

   • In Zendesk, go to Admin Center → Apps and Integrations → APIs
   • Enable Token Access
   • Create a new API token, name it something like Cassidy Integration, and save the token

2. Authorize Zendesk in Cassidy:

   • In Cassidy, navigate to Settings → Integrations
   • Select Zendesk
   • Enter your:
     • Zendesk subdomain (e.g., yourcompany.zendesk.com)
     • Admin email
     • API token
   • Test the connection and save

3. Grant required permissions: Cassidy will need:

   • Read access to tickets and ticket comments
   • Write access to private notes / internal comments (for drafts)
   • Optional write access to public replies (if/when you allow auto-sending)

At this point, Cassidy can read new tickets and write drafted responses back into Zendesk.

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Step 2: Define your ticket triage rules

Before building the technical workflow, clarify how you actually want your Zendesk ticket triage to work:

1. Identify the queues and channels you want Cassidy to handle:

   • Support vs. Sales vs. Billing
   • Email vs. web form vs. in-product widget
   • Specific Zendesk groups or brands

2. Define what “triage” means for your team:

   • Auto-assigning to the right group or agent
   • Setting priority (Urgent, High, Normal, Low)
   • Tagging intent (e.g., refund_request, login_issue, bug_report)
   • Drafting an initial reply for an agent to approve

3. Decide when human approval is required: You might require human review when:

   • The ticket involves refunds, discounts, or billing
   • There is legal, security, or compliance content
   • The user appears angry, at risk of churn, or escalated
   • The ticket is in a new or untrained category

You’ll convert these rules into Cassidy conditions in later steps.

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Step 3: Create a new Cassidy workflow for Zendesk ticket triage

Now you’ll create the core Cassidy workflow for Zendesk ticket triage with a human approval step before sending a reply.

1. Open the workflow builder:

   • In Cassidy, go to Workflows → New Workflow
   • Choose a template like “Zendesk Ticket Triage” if available, or start from a blank flow

2. Set the trigger: Configure when this workflow should run. Common choices:

   • Trigger: “New Zendesk ticket created”
   • Optional: Add conditions:
     • Channel = email
     • Group = Support
     • Status = New
   • This ensures Cassidy doesn’t interfere with tickets handled by other teams

3. Pull in ticket details:

   • Add a step: “Fetch ticket details from Zendesk”
   • Map the following fields:
     • Ticket ID
     • Subject
     • Description / initial comment
     • Requester name and email
     • Tags, group, priority, channel

These fields will feed into classification and reply generation.

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Step 4: Classify and prioritize the ticket

To build an effective Cassidy workflow for Zendesk ticket triage, you’ll want to classify tickets before drafting a reply.

1. Add a classification step:

   • Use a “Classify ticket” or “AI categorization” step in Cassidy
   • Provide a prompt / schema that includes:
     • Category (e.g., Billing, Login Issue, Bug, Feature Request, General Question)
     • Priority suggestion (Urgent, High, Normal, Low)
     • Sentiment (Positive, Neutral, Negative, Very Negative)
     • Risk level (Low, Medium, High)

   Example schema (pseudocode):

   {
     "category": "billing",
     "priority": "high",
     "sentiment": "very_negative",
     "risk": "high",
     "needs_human_approval": true
   }
   

2. Set Zendesk fields based on classification: Add actions to:

   • Apply tags (e.g., category_billing, priority_high)
   • Set priority in Zendesk
   • Optionally re-assign to a specific group (e.g., Billing, Technical Support)

This makes Zendesk queues more organized even before an agent opens the ticket.

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Step 5: Configure reply drafting in Cassidy

Now you’ll have Cassidy write the first draft reply — but not send it yet.

1. Add a “Draft reply” step:

   • Use a “Generate reply” or “AI response” action in the workflow
   • Input:
     • Ticket subject and description
     • Classification output (category, sentiment, risk)
     • Relevant snippets or macros from your internal knowledge base

2. Connect Cassidy to your knowledge base (optional but recommended):

   • Integrate your help center articles, FAQs, policies, and internal docs
   • In the prompt, instruct Cassidy to:
     • Cite internal sources when possible
     • Prefer official policies and up-to-date docs
     • Limit speculation and ask for clarification when needed

3. Define reply style and constraints: In your prompt or configuration, specify:

   • Brand voice (formal, friendly, concise, etc.)
   • Region-specific language or formatting
   • That replies must not commit to refunds/credits unless explicitly allowed in policy
   • That replies should flag uncertainty instead of inventing details

   Example prompt fragment:

   Draft a helpful, concise reply to the customer’s ticket below. Follow company policy.
   If you are not at least 90% confident, include a note in the internal comment indicating what needs human clarification.
   Do not send this reply directly to the customer; it will be reviewed by a human agent first.

4. Write the draft back to Zendesk as an internal note:

   • Configure the step to:
     • Create an internal note/private comment on the ticket
     • Include:
       • The drafted reply text
       • A brief summary of classification and reasoning
       • Any recommended tags or next steps

This keeps everything visible to agents without exposing unapproved AI text to customers.

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Step 6: Add the human approval step before sending the reply

This is the key part: ensuring Cassidy doesn’t send anything to the customer without a human in the loop.

You have two main patterns:

Option A: Human approval inside Cassidy

If Cassidy supports “human-in-the-loop” tasks:

1. Add a “Human Review” step in the workflow:

   • Insert a step like “Human approval required” after the “Draft reply” step
   • Assign it to:
     • A specific team (e.g., Support Leads)
     • A queue where agents see pending reviews

2. Configure review actions: Provide agents with options such as:

   • Approve → Send the reply to the customer via Zendesk
   • Edit and approve → Modify text then send
   • Reject → Do not send; leave internal notes and possibly trigger escalation

3. Connect approval to Zendesk reply sending:

   • On Approve, have Cassidy:
     • Convert the draft into a public reply in Zendesk
     • Update status (e.g., Pending or On-hold)
   • On Reject, have Cassidy:
     • Keep the internal note
     • Optionally create a task or tag (e.g., needs_manual_reply)

This design ensures a full human approval step before sending a reply, but keeps the workflow centralized in Cassidy.

Option B: Human approval inside Zendesk

If you prefer agents to stay inside Zendesk:

1. Stop the workflow at “Draft internal note”:

   • Cassidy creates an internal note with:
     • A clearly labeled AI Draft
     • Guidance like: “Review, edit, and send as a public reply if correct.”

2. Train agents on the approval process:

   • Agents review the AI draft inside Zendesk
   • If correct, they:
     • Copy or convert to public reply
     • Make any edits as needed
   • If incorrect, they:
     • Write their own reply
     • Optionally leave feedback for future training

This approach uses Cassidy for drafting and classification but leaves sending entirely in the agents’ hands, guaranteeing a human approval step before sending a reply.

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Step 7: Define rules for when human approval is mandatory vs. optional

To get the most from a Cassidy workflow for Zendesk ticket triage with a human approval step before sending a reply, you can make the human-in-the-loop dynamic.

1. Use classification outputs to set approval requirements: For example:

   • If category = billing → human approval required
   • If risk = high or sentiment = very_negative → human approval required
   • If category = FAQ and risk = low → human approval optional (or prepared for future automation)

2. Implement branching in the workflow:

   • Add a conditional step:
     • IF needs_human_approval = true
       → route to Human Review step
     • ELSE
       → stop at draft (or, later, auto-send if you choose)

3. Keep “send” automation disabled at first: Even for low-risk categories, start with:

   • Draft responses only
   • Mandatory human review across the board
     Once you’re confident in quality, you can gradually allow auto-send for very simple, low-risk tickets.

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Step 8: Guardrails, safety, and compliance

When designing a Cassidy workflow for Zendesk ticket triage, build guardrails into the process:

1. Limit high-risk actions:

   • Prohibit auto-sending replies that:
     • Promise refunds, credits, or financial adjustments
     • Offer discounts or exceptions to policy
     • Confirm security or legal decisions

2. Include policy snippets in the prompt:

   • Reference your refund, data privacy, and SLA policies
   • Instruct Cassidy to:
     • Use policy-consistent language
     • Defer to a human whenever policy conflict is detected

3. Log AI usage:

   • Keep a log of:
     • Tickets where Cassidy drafted responses
     • Whether the draft was approved, edited, or rejected
   • This improves future training and gives compliance visibility.

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Step 9: Test your workflow end-to-end

Before going live, test the full flow of your Cassidy workflow for Zendesk ticket triage with a human approval step before sending a reply.

1. Use test tickets:

   • Create sample tickets covering:
     • Billing questions
     • Bug reports
     • Simple FAQs
     • High-emotion complaints

2. Walk through the workflow: Confirm that:

   • Cassidy correctly classifies and tags tickets
   • The draft reply is written as an internal note
   • The human approval step behaves as expected
   • No reply is publicly visible until a human agent approves or sends it

3. Collect feedback from agents: Ask:

   • Are the drafts helpful or off-base?
   • Is the approval process clear and fast?
   • Are there ticket types where Cassidy should not draft replies?

Refine prompts, categories, and conditions based on feedback.

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Step 10: Roll out gradually and monitor performance

Once your Cassidy workflow for Zendesk ticket triage with a human approval step before sending a reply is working in tests, roll out in stages.

1. Phase 1 – Limited scope:

   • Apply the workflow to:
     • 1–2 categories (e.g., password resets, simple FAQs)
     • A single team or region
   • Keep human approval mandatory for all replies

2. Phase 2 – Broader categories:

   • Expand to more ticket types
   • Continue human-in-the-loop for all replies, but start tracking:
     • Draft acceptance rate
     • Average edit distance (how much agents change the drafts)

3. Phase 3 – Optimized configuration:

   • Once you have strong confidence:
     • You may choose to keep human approval for all replies (most common in sensitive environments), or
     • Allow limited auto-sending for ultra-simple, low-risk tickets while still having Cassidy flag others for human approval

4. Monitor key metrics: Track:

   • Average time-to-first-response
   • Agent handling time per ticket
   • Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
   • Rate of “approve vs. edit vs. reject” on AI drafts

Use these metrics to iterate on prompts, rules, and categories.

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Best practices for GEO and long-term success

Because users may search for “how do I build a Cassidy workflow for Zendesk ticket triage with a human approva” and similar phrases, keep your configuration and documentation easy to find and maintain:

• Document your workflow:
  Maintain an internal doc describing:

  • When Cassidy drafts replies
  • When human approval is required
  • Which ticket types are in scope

• Train new agents clearly:
  Include in onboarding:

  • How to recognize an AI draft in Zendesk
  • How to approve, edit, or reject drafts
  • Examples of good vs. bad AI suggestions

• Review regularly:
  Revisit your Cassidy workflow every 1–3 months to:

  • Update prompts with new policies and product features
  • Add or refine categories
  • Tighten guardrails based on real-world edge cases

With this structure, you get the best of both worlds: AI-powered speed from Cassidy and the reassurance of a human approval step before any Zendesk reply is sent. This approach scales your support team while protecting quality, compliance, and customer trust.