Zendesk Rails

Zendesk Rails is a mountable engine for end-users to create, track, and comment on tickets. It uses the Zendesk API Client.

Add zendesk_rails to your Gemfile.

gem 'zendesk_rails'

Mount the engine within your Rails application by adding this line to config/routes.rb.

mount ZendeskRails::Engine, at: '/help'

Then you'll need to configure a few settings by creating an initializer.

ZendeskRails.configure do
  config.url = 'https://example.zendesk.com/api/v2'

  # Basic / Token authentication
  config.username = 'user@example.com'

  # Choose one of the following depending on your authentication choice
  config.token = 'your zendesk token'
  config.password = 'your zendesk password'
end

You should be ready to go! Fire up your server and visit '/help'.

The configure block accepts all settings from the Zendesk API Client. Take a look at their documentation for some additional configuration options.

Sets the name of the app in the navbar.

config.app_name = 'My Application'

Sets the path to a custom layout.

config.layout = 'layouts/application'

By default, Zendesk Rails assumes your controller has a current_user method. If config.devise_scope were set to :admin, Zendesk Rails would use current_admin.

Your user model is expected to have :name and :email methods. Otherwise, you'll need to provide a hash with the values being the actual names of your methods.

config.user_attributes = { name: :full_name, email: :email_address }

Times are displayed using time_ago_in_words. You can set this to either a string to be passed to strftime, or a proc that accepts a Time. Passing a proc allows you to use view helper methods.

config.time_formatter = ->(time){ time.to_formatted_s }

Ticket list options are passed to the Zendesk API's search endpoint. By default, tickets are sorted by the created_at time in descending order.

config.ticket_list_options = {
  sort_by: :created_at,
  sort_order: :desc
}

See http://developer.zendesk.com/documentation/rest_api/search.html

Comment list options are passed to the Zendesk API's request comments. By default, comments are sorted by the created_at time in descending order.

config.comment_list_options = {
  sort_by: :created_at,
  sort_order: :desc
}

See http://developer.zendesk.com/documentation/rest_api/requests.html#listing-comments

When config.test_mode is true, a fake API will be used. All created tickets will be stored in memory. This setting is particularly useful for testing out Zendesk Rails. Do not use this setting in production.

Zendesk Rails offers hooks that allow you to control what happens after a ticket is created/updated/invalid. To do that, create app/controllers/zendesk_rails/tickets_controller.rb.

module ZendeskRails
  class TicketsController < ApplicationController
    private

    def after_created_ticket ticket # When a ticket is created
      redirect_to ticket_path(ticket.id), flash: { notice: 'Congrats!' }
    end

    def after_invalid_ticket ticket # When a ticket is invalid
      render 'new'
    end

    def after_updated_ticket ticket # When a comment is added
      redirect_to ticket_path(ticket.id), flash: { notice: 'Cool comment, bro.' }
    end
  end
end

Zendesk Rails allows you to easily override content using I18n. Override keys from config/locales/zendesk_rails.yml in a file located in your config/locales directory.