Embedding customer service in mobile apps with the Support SDK

The Support SDKs for iOS and Android lets you embed Zendesk Support options natively in your mobile app so your customers can get help directly in the app. The Support SDK lets users do any of the following:

• Browse and search your Help Center knowledge base in the app without using the mobile web browser
• Create tickets in the app
• View and comment on existing tickets in the app without switching to email

This article covers the following topics:

• What does the Support SDK do?
• Adding the Support SDK to a mobile app
• Registering the mobile app in Zendesk Support
• Configuring the SDK in Zendesk Support

What does the Support SDK do?

If the Support SDK is integrated in an Android or iOS app running on a mobile device, a user can tap a button in the app to open a screen listing your Help Center articles:

The user can tap any article in the list to read it.

The user can also search your knowledge base, then tap any article in the results:

Tapping an article opens it:

The user can tap the pencil icon on the lower-right to submit a ticket to your agents working in Zendesk Support:

If the user prefers not to use the keyboard, they can tap the microphone icon and describe their problem out loud. The description will be transcribed and added to the ticket.

The Support SDK lets you configure the options you want for the app:

• You can provide users with only Help Center, only ticketing, or both.
• You can provide a filtered view of your knowledge base content. For example, you could show only the categories or sections that are relevant to mobile users.
• You can brand the UI or build your own customized UI from the ground up in iOS or Android.

Adding the Support SDK to a mobile app

The first step is to meet with product managers and developers to decide how to integrate the Support SDK in your iOS or Android app. Use the Zendesk SDK integration checklist for guidance.

Once your organization has decided how to integrate the SDK, complete the following steps to add the SDK to your app:

1. Register the SDK in Support admin interface. See Registering the mobile app in Zendesk Support.
2. Configure the SDK in Support admin interface. See Configuring the SDK in Zendesk Support.
3. Ask your developer team to integrate the SDK in the app. You can refer them to the developer documentation for iOS or Android.

Registering the mobile app in Zendesk Support

You must be a Zendesk Support administrator to complete these steps.

To register the mobile app

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Channels > Mobile SDK.
2. Click Add app.

   If this is your first time setting up the SDK, click Get Started, then click Add app.

   The Setup tab opens by default.

3. Enter a Name for your app.

   The name is for your reference only and is not shown to your customers.

4. Copy and save the code snippet for Android or iOS or both, depending on the application versions.

   Your app developers need the snippet to initalize the SDK in the mobile app. If your developers are working on an iOS app, ask them if they need the Objective-C or Swift version of the snippet.

5. For Authentication method, select Anonymous or JWT. This is required.
   • Select Anonymous if you don't know, or don't need to know, the details of the end user.
   • Select JWT if you want only trusted users to access your organization's Help Center or to submit tickets. This option requires additional setup.

   For more information, see User identification decision in the SDK integration checklist.

6. If you selected JWT as the authentication method, enter a placeholder URL for JWT URL. Example:

   https://yoursubdomain.com/api/zendesk-jwt

   You can only enter a value for JWT URL after a team in your organization builds a dedicated JWT endpoint for the Zendesk SDK. They can't build it until you provide them with the secret in the next step.

   You can't use an existing JWT endpoint with the SDK. The endpoint must meet the requirements outlined in Building a dedicated JWT endpoint for the Zendesk SDK.

7. If you selected JWT, copy and save the JWT secret. The secret is only shown once, so make sure you save it somewhere safe.
8. Click Save.
9. Send the code snippet or snippets to the application developers in charge of integrating the SDK.
10. If applicable, send the JWT secret to the team in charge of building the dedicated JWT endpoint. Refer the team to Building a dedicated JWT endpoint for the Zendesk SDK. Include instructions for the team to send you the endpoint URL when they're done.

    When you receive the final URL from them, return to the Setup tab and update the JWT URL field.

To deregister the mobile app from Zendesk Support

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Channels > Mobile SDK.
2. Click the options menu on the right side of the app you want to edit, then click Delete.
3. Click OK to confirm the deletion.

This removes the app from the Mobile SDK page but it doesn't remove the SDK from your app. To remove the SDK from your app, an app update is required.

Configuring the SDK in Zendesk Support

You can configure the Support SDK in the admin interface to provide only the customer service options you want in the mobile app. For example, you can enable or disable Help Center in the mobile app from the admin interface.

There's no option to disable ticketing in the admin but your developers can disable it in the SDK. Refer them to "Disable Ticket Creation" in the iOS or Android developer docs.

A chat option is provided by separate Chat SDKs for iOS and Android.

Your configuration changes in Zendesk Support are automatically reflected in the mobile app. However, you can't turn the SDK off completely from Support. To fully remove the SDK from the app, an app update is required. Consult your developers.

You must be a Zendesk Support administrator to configure the Support SDK.

To configure the Support SDK

1. If you're not already on the Mobile SDK page in the admin interface, click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Channels > Mobile SDK.
2. Select the registered mobile app you want to configure from the list.
3. Click the Support SDK tab to display the configuration options.

   

4. Make your changes to the settings.

   See the descriptions on the page for details on each setting.

   The Enable Guide setting is disabled if you haven't activated Guide. Click Settings to open a page where you can activate Guide.

   The Conversations setting refers to ticket conversations – the back and forth comments added by the ticket requester and the agent. When this option is Off, users can still create tickets in the app but they won't have access to their existing tickets.

   Note: The choice to turn on Conversations is not available on the Essential plan.

   The Tags setting adds the specified tags to each ticket, which is useful for creating a view to see all the tickets submitted from the mobile app.

5. Click Save.

Enabling Guide lets you monitor knowledge base usage initiated from the SDK. For information on filtering Help Center analytics for SDK see Analyzing knowledge base activity and Analyzing Help Center search results.

The Mobile SDK page also has a Rate My App tab. As of the end of August, 2017, the Rate My App feature is deprecated. Consider migrating to an open source alternative.