Cookie Policy

Category

Description

Essential cookies

Essential Cookies are sometimes called “strictly necessary” as without them we cannot provide the functionality required to use the Services. For example, essential Cookies may support authentication or other features, bolster security, or help with load balancing as users navigate through the Services.  

Analytics cookies

Analytics Cookies track information about visits to the Services so that we or our Subscribers can make improvements and report on performance. For example, some Cookies help analyze Agent and End-User behavior so as to provide additional functionality or suggest certain activities. These Cookies collect information about how visitors use the Services, which site or page the user came from, the number of each user’s visits and how long a user stays on the Services. We might also use analytics Cookies to test new features to see how users react to them.

Functionality or preference cookies

During users’ interaction with the Services, Cookies are used to remember information users have entered or choices they have made. They also store user preferences when personalizing the Services to optimize the use of Zendesk, for example, preferred language. These preferences are remembered through the use of the persistent Cookies, and the next time a user engages with the Services they will not have to set them again.

Service

Name

Category

Purpose

Duration

Cloudflare (all products)

Cloudflare cookies are described here.

The following sections are in scope for Zendesk:

• __cf_bm cookie for Cloudflare bot product
• __cfruid to support Cloudflare Rate Limiting (previous version)
• _cfuvid for Rate Limiting Rules
• Additional cookies used by the Challenge Platform

Essential

Cloudflare uses various cookies to maximize network resources, manage traffic, and protect our customers’ sites from malicious traffic. 

Duration for each applicable Cloudflare cookie is described here.

All products

_zendesk_session

Essential

Stores account ID, route for internal service calls and the cross-site request forgery token.

8 hours.

Session duration is configurable by the Subscriber using the Session Expiration config in Admin Center > Security Settings. Can be anything from 5 minutes to 2 weeks. Default is 8 hours.

All products

zendesk_thirdparty_test

Essential

Used during sign in on hostmapped accounts for cookie-restricted browsers. This is necessary for the workflow described here.

8 hours

Session duration is configurable by the Subscriber using the Session Expiration config in Admin Center > Security Settings. Can be anything from 5 minutes to 2 weeks. Default is 8 hours.

All products

_zendesk_shared_session

Essential

Authentication cookie - set to be anonymous

8 hours

Session duration is configurable by the Subscriber using the Session Expiration config in Admin Center > Security Settings. Can be anything from 5 minutes to 2 weeks. Default is 8 hours.

All products

_zendesk_authenticated

Essential

This is a flag set when a user is authenticated to display the most up to date content.

Session

Help Center Functionality

_gat

Analytics

Google Analytics (when enabled in Guide Settings) allows subscribers to gain insights into the use of their Help Center Functionality.

See here to enable or disable these Google Analytics Cookies: Enabling Google Analytics for your Help Center Functionality.

1 minute

Help Center Functionality

_gid

Analytics

Google Analytics (when enabled in Guide Settings) allows subscribers to gain insights into the use of their Help Center Functionality.

1 day

Help Center Functionality

_ga

Analytics

Google Analytics (when enabled in Guide Settings) allows subscribers to gain insights into the use of their Help Center Functionality.

2 years

Help Center Functionality

hc:{user_identifier}:recently_ visited_articles

Analytics and/or Essential

[LOCAL STORAGE] To help subscribers understand the resources an end-user has attempted in seeking support, this object tracks recently-viewed articles within the Help Center Functionality.

This Cookie allows Zendesk customers to identify an end-user's recently-viewed articles. If used exclusively by Subscriber for providing customer support purposes, this could be deemed Essential.

Forever (Local Storage)

Help Center Functionality

articleVotes

Essential

This is only dropped when anonymous end-users actually vote on articles. It is used to track the fact that an anonymous user has voted on an article, so that they are not repeatedly prompted to vote on an article that they have already voted on nor are they able to submit multiple votes relating to one article.

Forever (Local Storage)/Session (cookie)

Help Center Functionality

_help_center_session

Stores unique session key for Help Center Functionality.

Session

Help Center Functionality

GUIDE_REQUESTS_APP_
COLUMN_CONFIG

Functionality

This cookie is only used in the Request List App. This cookie saves the settings that end-users choose when they configure their own view in the Request List App. It saves which of the available custom values end-users want to filter by and which columns they want to see.

Local storage duration is decided by the browser policy.

Help Center Functionality

help_center_data

Analytics

Stores the text string of an end-user’s search term in the Help Center Functionality. It stores this so that it can check whether a ticket was created after that term was searched. A user identifier is not stored so it is not possible to specify which user completed the search at the time of reporting.

48 hours

Help Center Functionality

_zdshared_user_
session_analytics

Analytics

Used to track information about visits for analytics purposes.

Persistent cookie, 90 days

Help Center Functionality

request_method

Essential

Used by the Turbolinks library to determine request information and preload links and navigation on the login pages.

Forever (Local Storage)

Connect

ob-{public-api-key}

Essential

Connect js snippet

3 years

Ticketing System Functionality

_zendesk_nps_session

Essential

Stores a unique key for a session, for landing page after responding to an NPS survey (if enabled)

Session

Sunshine Conversations Web Messenger

<integrationId>.appUserId

Functionality

Stores the appUser ID for the current session.

Sunshine Conversations Web Messenger will not drop any Cookies until the widget is initiated by the End-User. If you wish to further control these Cookies using a third-party cookie solution, that is supported.

Forever

Sunshine Conversations Web Messenger

<integrationId>.clientId

Functionality

Unique identifier of the SDK instance

Forever

Sunshine Conversations Web Messenger

<integrationId>.sessionToken

Functionality

Session token to be used to authenticate requests on behalf of an anonymous user. Session tokens are linked to a client ID (see clientId)

Forever

Sunshine Conversations Web Messenger

lsid

Functionality

(From Stripe)

Session

Sunshine Conversations Web Messenger

ab_disable_remember_me

Preference

(From Stripe)

Session

Sunshine Conversations Web Messenger

cid

Analytics

(From Stripe) Stripe analytics "client ID" used for service improvement

Session

Sunshine Conversations Web Messenger

checkout-test-session / checkout-live-session

Preference

(From Stripe) Used to power Legacy Checkout's Remember Me function

1 year

Web Widget (Classic)

ZD-zE_oauth

Essential

Stores the authentication token once the user has been authenticated.

Web Widget (Classic) offers pre-built API functionality for cookie consent; see here: Web Widget (Classic) Cookie Permission in Developer Center.

Alternatively, these Cookies respect external cookie bot functionality as well.

2 hours

Web Widget (Classic)

ZD-settings

Functionality

Stores a hash of settings so that we don't keep sending requests to our backend.

forever

Web Widget (Classic) and Web Widget

ZD-suid

Analytics

Used to create a sessionId and track analytics events for pages that load a Web Widget on them.

20 minutes

Web Widget (Classic) and Web Widget

ZD-buid

Analytics

Used to create a deviceId and track analytics events for pages that load a Web Widget on them.

forever

Web Widget (Classic)

ZD-store

Functionality

Ensures consistent presentation of the Web Widget (Classic) when an End-User navigates to a new web page.

forever

Web Widget (Classic)

_answer_bot_service_session

Essential

Stores unique session key for Answer Bot product.

Used to uniquely identify a user session when using Answer Bot Article Recommendations.

Session

Web Widget

<integrationId>.appUserId

Essential

Used to identify the particular End-User that has started the conversation.

Web Widget offers pre-built functionality to manage cookie consent: see here.

Customers can choose to use either localstorage or sessionstorage.  Duration is decided by the End-User's browser policy.

Web Widget

<integrationId>.clientId

Essential

Used to identify the device from which the conversation is initiated.

Customers can choose to use either localstorage or sessionstorage.  Duration is decided by the End-User's browser policy.

Web Widget

<integrationId>.sessionToken

Essential

Used to authenticate requests and verify that the End-User is who they say they are.

Customers can choose to use either localstorage or sessionstorage.  Duration is decided by the End-User's browser policy.

Web Widget 

ZD-widgetOpen

Functionality

Maintains the open/closed state of the Web Widget across page visits.

Forever

Web Widget

ZD-launcherLabelRemoved

Functionality

If the end user chooses to dismiss the launcher label, then we store this value to ensure that the message is not displayed again on other pages.

Forever

Web Widget

ZD-soundNotificationDisabledKey

Functionality

If the user chooses to disable sound notifications in the widget, we store this value to ensure sound notifications do not get played again after refreshing or changing tabs

Local storage duration is decided by the browser policy.

Web Widget

ZD-bannerDismissed

Functionality

If the user is using an Internet Explorer 11 browser, a banner is displayed to them in the widget to inform them that the support for IE11 is slowly being deprecated / ended. The user has the ability to dismiss the banner by clicking the close button. When the button is clicked, we store this information in storage so that we do not continue displaying the same banner every visit in the widget.

Local storage duration is decided by the browser policy.

Web Widget

ZD-campaigns

Functionality

If enabled, a "proactive message" is displayed to users on their first visit. Users can dismiss this proactive message by clicking on it. When they click dismiss, we store this information to have a reference of which proactive message had been dismissed along with the dismissed timestamp, to avoid repeatedly displaying the message.

Local storage duration is decided by the browser policy.

Web Widget

<integrationId>.
conversationStartedAt

Functionality

A messaging conversation can occur across multiple tabs. We synchronise these conversations and control the messaging conversation via a unique timestamp stored upon the conversation beginning.

Local storage duration is decided by the browser policy.

Live Chat Functionality

__zlcmid

Essential

Store visitor's machine-id for the Chat widget's authentication

Chat Widget offers out-of-the-box cookie consent management, see here: Adding a cookie banner.

Alternatively, these Chat Cookies respect external cookie bot functionality as well.

1 year

Live Chat Functionality

__zlcprivacy

Essential

Store visitor's decision on CookieLaw

1 year

Live Chat Functionality

__zlcstore

Essential

[Local Storage] Store visitor's account settings locally

Forever

Live Chat Functionality 

zte2095

Essential

Used to identify the domain/subdomain the Chat Widget is located on.

Session

Live Chat Functionality

AWSALB

Essential

Used to ensure user session remains with the same AWS instance to improve performance and stability.

Session

Live Chat Functionality

AWSALBCORS

Essential

Used to ensure user session remains with the same AWS instance to improve performance and stability.

Session

Live Chat Functionality 

__storejs__

Functionality 

Used to test if local storage can be written to/read from.

Local storage

Web Widget (Classic)

ZD-sendApiBlips

Functionality

Used to reduce the amount of analytics blips that we send in order to help us understand client side API usage.

Web Widget (Classic) offers pre-built API functionality for cookie consent; see here: Web Widget (Classic) Cookie Permission in Developer Center.

The storage duration is dependent on the End-User’s browser policy.

Ticketing System Functionality

_zendesk_cookie

Essential

Saves arbitrary preference settings. Two factor authentication features and device tracking will not work without it.

1 year

Ticketing System Functionality

support:{user_identifier}::
recently_searched

Functionality

[Local Storage] Captures recently-viewed search queries.

Used to enhance the search functionality by incorporating a recent search feature.

Forever (Local Storage)

Ticketing System Functionality

support:{user_identifier}::
recently_visited_organizations

Functionality

[Local Storage] Captures recently-viewed organizations.

Used to enhance the search functionality by incorporating a recent search feature.

Forever (Local Storage)

Ticketing System Functionality

support:{user_identifier}::
recently_visited_tickets

Functionality

[Local Storage] Captures recently-viewed tickets.

Used to enhance the search functionality by incorporating a recent search feature.

Forever (Local Storage)

Ticketing System Functionality

support:{user_identifier}::
recently_visited_users

Functionality

[Local Storage] Captures recently-viewed users.

Used to enhance the search functionality by incorporating a recent search feature.

Forever (Local Storage)

Ticketing System Functionality

support:{user_identifier}::
recently_visited_
side_conversations

Functionality

[Local Storage] Captures recently-viewed side conversations.

Used to enhance the search functionality by incorporating a recent search feature.

Forever (Local Storage)

Ticketing System Functionality

_zendesk_oidc_state

Essential

Used to maintain state between the client and provider during the Open ID Connect (OIDC) login process and help to prevent Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks.

Session

Voice Functionality

_zdsession_talk_
embeddables_service

Essential

Used for load balancing.

Session

lastReadMessageId_
<BOT_ID>

Functionality

Used to remember the last message the user saw to calculate the amount of unread messages and show a notification when there are unread messages

Forever (Local Storage)

Functionality

Used to recover the ongoing conversation upon page reload.

Forever (Local Storage)

Functionality

Used to remember if the user has actively turned their sound on/off.

Forever (Local Storage)