Getting started
Stand up a working deployment in a single afternoon. This guide walks through the steps every new Zentra customer takes — from first sign-in to first ticket.
Prerequisites
Before you begin, you should have:
- A signed order or trial activation email from your Zentra contact.
- Your deployment URL (provided after provisioning).
- The list of teams and roles you want on day one — this guides queue and permission setup.
- An OpenAI API key if you want to enable AI ticket classification and auto-resolution (optional but recommended).
1. Sign in for the first time
After your deployment is provisioned, you receive a setup email with the URL and your initial admin credentials. Open the URL in a browser and sign in.
Zentra uses email and password authentication by default. Google sign-in can be enabled additionally — admins toggle it in Settings → Authentication and supply a Google OAuth client ID and secret. Sign-up is intentionally disabled; admins seed users explicitly.
2. Understand the role model
Zentra ships with five built-in roles:
| Role | Typical assignee | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|
admin | IT admin, platform owner | Full access — settings, integrations, all records, automations. |
supervisor | Service desk team lead | Manages tickets across teams, edits SLAs and rules, views analytics. |
agent | Service desk agent, ops engineer | Works tickets, replies, transitions status, edits assigned records. |
readonly | Auditor, executive observer | View-only access for compliance and reporting. |
customer | End-user / requester | Submits requests, views own tickets, browses public knowledge. |
Assign roles when creating users in Settings → Users.
3. Create teams
Teams own tickets. A typical first setup:
- Service desk · Tier 1 — first-line support for the bulk of incoming tickets.
- Network — connectivity, VPN, edge issues.
- Identity & access — SSO, account provisioning, password resets.
- Field IT — hardware, mobile devices, on-site work.
Open Settings → Teams to create them and assign agents.
4. Configure priorities and SLAs
Zentra uses four priority levels: low, medium, high, urgent. Each priority has a first-response and resolution SLA. Defaults you can tune:
| Priority | First response | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
urgent | 30 min | 4 h |
high | 2 h | 1 d |
medium | 4 h | 3 d |
low | 1 d | 5 d |
SLA timers are tracked on every ticket (firstResponseDueAt, resolutionDueAt). They pause automatically when a ticket transitions into a configured on-hold custom status — for example Awaiting customer or Awaiting vendor. The paused duration is recorded so reporting reflects actual working time.
5. Configure categories
Tickets carry a category used for routing and analytics. Zentra ships a sensible default taxonomy; customize under Settings → Categories. Keep the list short — most teams find that 8–12 categories cover the vast majority of tickets.
6. Connect inbound email
Email is Zentra’s primary inbound channel. Inbound mail is parsed via a SendGrid Inbound Parse webhook.
- Add an MX record on a subdomain (e.g.
support.yourcompany.com) pointing at SendGrid. - Configure SendGrid Inbound Parse to forward incoming mail to your Zentra
/api/webhooks/inbound-emailendpoint. - Set the inbound webhook secret under Settings → Integrations → Inbound email.
- Send a test mail; it should appear in the queue within seconds.
Inbound mail is automatically threaded onto the originating ticket when the message references an existing ticket.
7. (Optional) Enable AI classification & auto-resolve
Zentra’s AI features run on top of any OpenAI-compatible API. Add an OpenAI API key in Settings → Integrations → AI. Two background jobs will then activate:
- Classify — assigns a category to every new ticket.
- Auto-resolve — attempts to resolve common requests using your knowledge base. If it can’t, the ticket transitions to
openfor a human agent.
The model is configurable (default gpt-4o-mini). Without an API key, both jobs are skipped and tickets simply land in the queue as open.
8. Walk through your first ticket
Send a test email to your inbound address. You should see:
- The ticket appears with status
new, then transitions toprocessingwhile AI jobs run. - If AI is enabled, a category is suggested and (sometimes) a draft auto-resolution is attempted.
- The ticket lands at
openin the appropriate team’s queue, orresolvedif auto-resolved successfully. - An auto-acknowledgement is sent to the requester with the ticket reference.
- The SLA timers start.
Next steps
- Service desk — agent workflow, intake, statuses, SLAs in depth
- Automation — your first workflow rule
- Integrations — Slack and Teams notifications
- Webhooks & API — wire Zentra to your existing tools