Zendesk Side-Conversation to Vendor Email

Overview

Solution: FlowLibs - Zendesk Side-Conversation to Vendor Email · CF-721 · Status: Built (ships Off)

This solution manages third-party (vendor) follow-ups that live inside a Zendesk ticket as *side conversations*. It is built as two coordinated cloud flows sharing one Dataverse tracking table:

- Flow A — Vendor Side-Conversation Email Sender: detects new vendor side conversations on open tickets, sends a templated tracked vendor email (Outlook), posts a private internal note on the ticket, logs a Dataverse tracking row, and notifies the support Teams channel. - Flow B — Vendor Reply SLA Reminder: hourly, checks each awaiting side conversation for a vendor reply (marks it Replied + notes + Teams) or, if the SLA window has elapsed with no reply, reminds the agent via Teams + email and stamps the row so it reminds only once.

Why it matters: vendor follow-ups fall through the cracks. Tracking each one against its ticket, with reply detection and a single SLA reminder, keeps external dependencies moving without leaving Zendesk.

> Connector-first note: Zendesk's Power Automate connector is tabular (GetItems/PatchItem on object tables) — it has no side-conversation operation and cannot set a comment's public/private visibility. Side conversations and private notes are therefore handled with built-in HTTP calls to the Zendesk REST API (a legitimate §4b case-1 fallback, since no connector op exists). Every other interaction uses the premium/standard connector action.

Use Case

Support agents coordinate with vendors/suppliers on tickets via Zendesk side conversations and need those exchanges tracked, chased on an SLA, and surfaced to the team — all without manual babysitting.

Flow Architecture

Environment Variables

Connectors & Connections

Connector	API name	Actions used
Zendesk	shared_zendesk	GetItems
Office 365 Outlook	shared_office365	SendEmailV2
Microsoft Teams	shared_teams	PostMessageToConversation
Microsoft Dataverse	shared_commondataserviceforapps	ListRecords CreateRecord UpdateRecord

Customization Guide

Almost every realistic variant of this flow can be implemented by changing environment variable values. A few cases require small edits inside the flow definition — those are called out explicitly below.

Vendor recipient logic

Flow A picks the first side-conversation participant email; refine to target the specific vendor participant (exclude internal/agent addresses) if your side conversations include multiple recipients.

SLA window

Change Initialize SLA Hours (Flow B) to adjust the reminder threshold; change the Recurrence interval to poll more/less often.

Templates

The vendor email subject/body and the Teams/notification text are inline; lift them into env vars for per-vendor or per-category templates.

Reply detection

Flow B approximates "replied" as side-conversation updated_at after send time; for stricter detection, call the side-conversation events endpoint and match on inbound vendor messages.

Escalation

Add a second reminder tier (e.g. manager email) gated on a longer elapsed window and a second stamp column.

Key Expressions

The flow is intentionally light on Power Fx / WDL gymnastics — the heaviest expressions are the branch-name concatenation and the approval outcome check. They are listed below in the order they appear in the flow.

@{concat('flowlibs_sideconvid eq ''', string(items('For_Each_Side_Conversation')?['id']), '''')}

@{concat('https://', parameters('EnvVar_ZendeskSubdomain'), '.zendesk.com/api/v2/...')}

@{concat('Basic ', parameters('EnvVar_ZendeskAuthBase64'))}

@{coalesce(first(items('For_Each_Side_Conversation')?['participants'])?['email'], 'vendor-unknown')}

greater(ticks(...side_conversation.updated_at), ticks(addMinutes(senton, 1)))

and( greater( div(sub(ticks(utcNow()), ticks(senton)), 36000000000), varSlaHours ), not(equals(remindersent,'Yes')) )

{ "ticket": { "comment": { "body": "...", "public": false } } }

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