The Scenario
The finance team's monthly close process requires joining Zendesk customer data to a billing export. The Excel workbook has 150 customer email addresses in column A from the billing system. Each one needs the matching Zendesk user ID and organization name so the join can run. The close is tomorrow and the analyst has this as item three on her list.
She's looked up Zendesk users by email before. One at a time, through the search bar.
The bad version:
- Open Zendesk.
- Type the first email into the user search.
- Find the user. Note the ID and organization name.
- Switch to Excel. Enter the data.
- Tab back to Zendesk.
- Type the next email.
150 lookups. At 45 seconds per lookup — search, read, note, enter — that's more than two hours. The monthly close can't wait two hours on this one join operation.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent inside your Excel workbook. It reads the email list and uses the Zendesk integration to look up each user and write the results back to your workbook.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar in the billing close workbook and paste:
Look up each email in column A in Zendesk users and populate this Excel sheet with the matching user ID, display name, and role for each email
What You Get
- Column B: Zendesk user ID for each matched email.
- Column C: Display name.
- Column D: Role (end-user, agent, admin).
- Emails that don't match any Zendesk user get 'not found' in column B — explicitly labeled, not blank.
150 lookups in one pass. The join runs on time. The close completes.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Some emails have trailing spaces or inconsistent capitalization
Look up each email in column A in Zendesk — normalize each email (trim whitespace, lowercase) before searching. Write user ID, name, and role to columns B through D. Write 'not found' for unmatched emails
Normalization before search catches minor formatting issues.
You also need organization name for the join
Look up each email in column A in Zendesk and write user ID, display name, organization name, and role to columns B through E. Write 'not found' in column B for emails with no match
Organization name included in the same lookup — no second pass needed.
You need to flag users with admin or agent roles
Look up each email in column A in Zendesk — write user ID, name, organization name, and role to columns B through E. Flag any user with role 'agent' or 'admin' with 'internal user' in column F
Role flag for data validation before the billing join.
Full billing join lookup
Look up each email in column A in Zendesk — write user ID, name, organization name, and role to columns B through E for matched users. Write 'not found' in column B for unmatched. On the 'Not Found' worksheet, list all unmatched emails for manual follow-up. Write the total matched and unmatched counts to cells H2 and H3
Join-ready data, unmatched list for follow-up, and summary counts — one prompt, monthly close stays on schedule.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open your billing close workbook with customer emails in column A. Related: export the full user directory for a broader user data pull, or return to the Zendesk integration guide.