In what some (not us) might describe as a bit of a rug pull, Zendesk announced that it will end access to its Incremental APIs for third-party integration developers.

The change will roll out between December 2, 2026 and January 19, 2027. If you're syncing Zendesk data into Snowflake, or vice versa, through a third-party integration tool, this change may break your pipeline.

Omnata customers are not affected. Here's why.

Why Zendesk is making the change

Zendesk's incremental APIs are designed for bulk data transfer, pulling all records changed since a given timestamp. That's efficient for data replication, but it creates a security exposure, as Zendesk claims. If a third-party app's credentials are compromised, an attacker can rapidly exfiltrate large datasets.

They said, "As companies rapidly adopt AI and automate critical workflows, APIs handle larger volumes of sensitive data." Restricting third-party access to transactional and search APIs limits the blast radius of a credential breach.

The key word is third-party. The change targets integration vendors who register apps in the Zendesk ecosystem and hold credentials on behalf of their customers. Internal integrations, where the customer owns the OAuth client and credentials, are explicitly unaffected.

How SaaS integration vendors may be affected

Most data-integration tools work the same way: you hand your Zendesk credentials to the vendor, they store them on their servers, and they make API calls on your behalf from their infrastructure. Under Zendesk's new policy, those vendors are "third-party developers" and will lose access to incremental APIs.

The fallback is transactional and search APIs, which require targeted, per-record requests rather than bulk pulls. For vendors that built their Zendesk connectors around incremental exports, this means re-engineering how they fetch data, likely with slower syncs and higher API consumption.

About to be stitched up? How Omnata helps

Omnata runs as a Snowflake Native App inside your account. When you set up a Zendesk connection, you create your own OAuth client in Zendesk and provide your own credentials. Those credentials are stored as Snowflake secrets inside your account boundary. Omnata's servers never see them.

This is what matters:

• Third-party integration = a vendor's app, using the vendor's OAuth client, storing your data on the vendor's servers. Affected.

• Internal integration = your own OAuth client, your own credentials, running inside your own infrastructure. Not affected.

Omnata is customer-owned. The API calls originate from within your Snowflake account, authenticated with your own OAuth client.

With Omnata, your Zendesk syncs will continue to use incremental APIs with full capability.

More to come?

This isn't just a Zendesk issue. A number of SaaS platforms have changed policies in response to AI and security risks.

We don't know the real reason behind every one of these decisions. Security is the stated motive, but there are other possibilities like defending a platform's data moat in the age of AI, or simply cutting the cost of supporting high-volume APIs that hurt margins.

Whatever the reason, the architectural pattern that created the exposure is real: a third-party vendor holding your credentials and doing bulk data transfers from their servers. That's enough to give any platform a reason to clamp down.

Omnata's architecture eliminates the risk at the root. We never handle your credentials. We never handle your data. The integration runs inside your Snowflake account, connects directly to the target platform, and the credentials never leave your control. If a SaaS vendor decides to restrict third-party access, your Omnata syncs are on the right side of that line.

Why Omnata?

• Flat pricing. Unlimited records, syncs and refreshes.

• Buy one connector or bundle multiple.

• Native to Snowflake; skip cyber reviews, data sovereignty issues and procurement hurdles.

• Easy to use; start in minutes, click to config, rich with sync features.

Get started

If your current Zendesk integration vendor is affected by this change and you use Snowflake, Omnata may be the solution.

The Omnata Zendesk Support Plugin runs as a Snowflake Native App and requires Omnata Sync (free core listing) installed in your Snowflake account. Available on the Snowflake Marketplace with a 30-day free trial.

Visit the docs for a detailed step-by-step of the configuration.

You can pay for Omnata using Snowflake Credits (if in an eligible region).

More questions?

Feel free to get in touch to discuss your requirements

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