Christos Pazaras

For anyone looking for a solution in PHP:

https://github.com/cpazaras/zendesk-webhook-signature-verification-php

 

 

After our constructive dialog and being prompted by mr. Dwight Bussman of the Zendesk team I am reposting this here, in the hopes that it gets some attention by the appropriate people.

The relevant post: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/1260802716109-Bulk-upload-contacts-multiple-contacts-upload

A quick overview of the discussion: I am trying to upload our contacts to Sell (about 100.000 contacts) but on the Sell API there does not exist an efficient automated way to bulk-upload contacts. There seem to be 2 ways available to upload a large number of contacts: 1) by manually importing CSV files, or 2) by using the single-contact API endpoint.

Both ways are discussed in detail in the post above - as a quick recap, the CSV files method apart from being considerably cumbersome is after all not an automated way; and on the other hand the single-contact API endpoint method requires a significant amount of time since every contact requires a separate request.

A use case for such an endpoint could be adding a new field for example, or realizing that there exist inconsistencies between your database and the contacts data on Sell, etc. - i.e. any scenario that would require a bulk upload of contacts, either all of them or a significant amount thereof.

Curious as to why this basic functionality does not yet exist on Sell when it exists on most modern APIs (Zendesk products included, e.g. Zendesk Support), and hoping it will :P

Hey Dwight!

Thanks very much for the insights :)

So based on these facts, we have the following:

• CSV files import - As you very well said one would have to generate ~34 files to import ~100k contacts.
  In addition to that, we must also consider that:
  - after uploading each file, the CSV fields must then be matched to the respective Sell fields, manually and one by one (~40 columns per file --> 40 extra clicks, times 34 files)
  - adding to that the actual import duration (in my case ~10min per file) we're looking at ~15 minutes per 3000 contacts, or ~8,5 hours for ~100k contacts
  - this method does not provide any possibility for automation (which is the goal), meaning every time a full contacts upload has to take place, somebody must allocate ~8,5 hours to do it.

• API method: This is what I tried. Calling the individual create contact endpoint, it takes about 1 minute per 100 calls (the code is single-threaded - meaning simultaneous API calls are sadly not possible - each call can be made only after the previous one has finished) - so to upload ~100k users it would take ~1000 minutes or about 16,5 hours.

I believe we will agree that both of these scenarios are not very attractive - and might I say even a tad bit unproductive.

...which begs the question, why on earth should we have to go through all this, when there could simply exist a bulk import endpoint, as is the case with most modern APIs 🙂

(On a serious note - I of course am not aware of the reasons why such an endpoint may not exist, and there may very well be a justifying reason - it is quite baffling though, seeing as among other products we are also using "Zendesk Support" for example, with whose API it is perfectly possible and easy to bulk upload contacts. Takes a single click and about 1-2 hours to upload 100k contacts.)

Always in a friendly manner.

Best,
Christos

Hi everyone,

How do you manage bulk uploading of contacts via the API?

I need to upload 100.000 contacts and I'm not sure how best to do it. Although most other Zendesk APIs I've used do provide an endpoint for that, for some reason the Sell API does not provide an endpoint to upload multiple contacts. Not sure why, support were not able to provide an explanation.

Support suggested 2 solutions - either using the single contact upload endpoint, or manually uploading CSV files. Using the single contact endpoint and making a single call per contact isn't viable for 100.000 contacts as that way the request rate limit is reached fairly quickly. Using CSVs did do the job but was tedious work, files took a lot of hours to be imported, and ultimately it was a one-timer and not an automated solution - what happens in case a new custom field is added for example, how would you sync all users again in that case without requiring manual work?

Thanks a lot in advance.