Integrate Live Zendesk Data into Amazon SageMaker Canvas with RDS

Amazon SageMaker Canvas is a no-code machine learning platform that lets you generate predictions, prepare data, and build models without writing code. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Zendesk data for building custom machine-learning models, predicting customer churn, generating texts, building chatbots, and more. This article shows how to connect to Connect Cloud from Amazon SageMaker Canvas using the RDS connector and integrate live Zendesk data into your ML model deployments.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for Zendesk, allowing you to easily integrate with live Zendesk data in Amazon SageMaker Canvas — without replicating the data. CData Connect Cloud looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Amazon SageMaker Canvas and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Zendesk, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Zendesk data.

Configure Zendesk Connectivity for Amazon SageMaker Canvas

Connectivity to Zendesk from Amazon SageMaker Canvas is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Zendesk data from Amazon SageMaker Canvas, we start by creating and configuring a Zendesk connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections, and click Add Connection.
2. Select "Zendesk" from the Add Connection panel.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Zendesk.

   Connecting to Zendesk

   To connect, set the URL and provide authentication. The URL is your Zendesk Support URL: https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com.

   Authenticating to Zendesk

   You can authenticate using the Basic or OAuth methods.

   Using Basic Authentication

   To use Basic authentication, specify your email address and password or your email address and an API token. Set User to your email address and follow the steps below to provide the Password or ApiToken.

   • Enable password access in the Zendesk Support admin interface at Admin > Channels > API.
   • Manage API tokens in the Zendesk Support Admin interface at Admin > Channels > API. More than one token can be active at the same time. Deleting a token deactivates it permanently.

   Using OAuth Authentication

   See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for an authentication guide.

4. Click Create & Test.
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Zendesk Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Zendesk data from Amazon SageMaker Canvas.

Connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Amazon SageMaker Canvas

With the connection in CData Connect Cloud configured, you are ready to integrate live Zendesk data into Amazon SageMaker Canvas using its RDS connector.

1. Select a domain and user profile in Amazon SageMaker Canvas and click on "Open Canvas".
2. Once the Canvas application opens, navigate to the left panel, and select "My models".
3. Click on "Create new model" in the My models screen.
4. Specify a Model name in Create new model window and select a Problem type. Click on "Create".
5. Once the model version gets created, click on "Create dataset" in the Select dataset tab.
6. In the Create a tabular dataset window, add a "Dataset name" and click on "Create".
7. Click on the "Data Source" drop-down and search for or navigate to the RDS connector and click on " Add Connection".
8. In the Add a new RDS connection window, set the following properties:
   
   
   • Connection Name: a relevant connection name
   • Set Engine type to sqlserver-web
   • Set Port to 14333
   • Set Address as tds.cdata.com
   • Set Username to a Connect Cloud user (e.g. user@mydomain.com)
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
   • Set Database name the Zendesk connection (e.g., Zendesk1)
9. Click on "Create connection".

Integrating Zendesk Data into Amazon SageMaker Canvas

With the connection to Connect Cloud configured in the RDS, you are ready to integrate live Zendesk data into your Amazon SageMaker Canvas dataset.

1. In the tabular dataset created in RDS with Zendesk data, search for the Zendesk connection configured on Connect Cloud in the search bar or from the list of connections.
2. Select the table of your choice from Zendesk, drag and drop it into the canvas on the right.
3. You can create workflows by joining any number of tables from the Zendesk connection (as shown below). Click on "Create dataset".
4. Once the dataset is created, click on "Select dataset" to build your model.
5. Perform analysis, generate prediction, and deploy the model.

At this point, you have access to live Zendesk data in Amazon SageMaker that you can utilize to build custom ML models to generate predictive business insights and grow your organization.

SQL Access to Zendesk Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live Zendesk data from Amazon SageMaker Canvas. You can create more connections, datasets, and predictive models to drive business — all without replicating Zendesk data.

To get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, see the CData Connect Cloud.