Hi there
I have a ticket form. I want to implement the full Cloudflare Bot Management solution, not just the captcha. However, I can't find step-by-step instructions for integrating it with Zendesk.
Cloudflare suggested the following steps, although they weren't sure that this would work with Zendesk:
- Create a Cloudflare account with a CDN and Bot Management enabled.
- Set the CDN to route to the origin <mydomain>.zendesk.com
- Update my DNS to go via this new Cloudflare CDN
Since ticket forms are already in front of a Cloudflare CDN, the suggested solution would end up having two CDNs in the path, which can cause issues. The current CDN will identify traffic coming from my new CDN as a bot due to its mostly static IP. There must be a simple way to implement this. Can anyone provide instructions?
Thanks
Jonathan
Thanks for sharing your detailed query.
Integrating full Cloudflare Bot Management with Zendesk can be a bit complex due to the nature of how Zendesk’s infrastructure is set up and managed. As you mentioned, having two CDNs in the path may indeed cause IP misidentification issues because Zendesk itself uses a CDN and proxy setup, which might conflict with Cloudflare’s Bot Management.
Currently, Zendesk does not provide native step-by-step support for full Cloudflare Bot Management integration beyond CAPTCHA. The recommended approach is to configure Cloudflare to protect your custom domain or any self-hosted elements you use alongside Zendesk, rather than routing all Zendesk-subdomains traffic through your Cloudflare CDN. This avoids double CDN layers and prevents IP conflicts.
If you are using Zendesk’s hosted domain (e.g., <mydomain>.zendesk.com), routing through Cloudflare is generally not advised because it may interfere with Zendesk’s own CDN and security layers.
To move forward, consider:
- Using Cloudflare Bot Management on your branded domains or help center that you embed or link externally.
- Relying on Zendesk’s built-in bot protection and CAPTCHA for your Zendesk-hosted domains.
- Consulting with Cloudflare and Zendesk security teams if you need enterprise-level configurations.
Hope this helps clarify the situation. Feel free to ask if you need more specific guidance!