Installing and using the Response Builder app

The Response Builder app helps agents quickly generate URLs to insert into a ticket in Zendesk Support. It allows you to choose specific fields with the end user data from the Zendesk record, and use it to dynamically build a URL. For instance, you can use the tool to create a customized link to a customer's order page on an external site by adding the customer ID to a URL. You can also send a message via an internal note that includes a link to all the user's tickets.

This article covers the following topics: 

• Installing the app
• Using the app
  • Adding a URL using the hotkey
• Available variables

Installing the app

The Response Builder app is installed from the Zendesk Marketplace.

To install the app

1. In Zendesk Support, click Admin (), then select Apps > Marketplace. Enter "Response Builder" in the search bar at the upper right of the page.
2.  Double-click on the Response Builder app icon, and click Install.
3.  In the Installation section, enter a name for the Response Builder app, enable group and role restrictions if required. These configuration options are also available after installation by navigating to  Admin > Apps > Manage.
4. In the URI templates box, specify the URL title, URL, and hotkey in JSON format as shown in the example below.  
   Note: Make sure to include the leading and closing square brackets around the entire set, and the leading and closing curly braces around each entry, with commas between each set of curly braces.

   [
    {
       "title": "URL to all user tickets",
       "url": "http://example.com/{{user.id}}/tickets.json",
       "hotkey": "u"
    },
    {
       "title": "URL to requester's tickets with description",
       "url": "http://example.com/?name={{ticket.requester.id}}&desc={{ticket.description}}",
       "hotkey": "r"
    }
   ]

   • The title is what the agent sees in the dropdown list.
   • The URL is the link that is inserted into the ticket, with the fields enclosed in curly braces inserted from the ticket.
   • The hotkey is the letter used to insert the URL when typing the hotkey indicator (default is #) and the hotkey. So, for the first example above, an agent can type #U and the URL is inserted.
5. To see a link to the URL before inserting the response into the ticket, select the Confirm the URL box. 
6. On the app details page, click Install.

Using the app

While typing a public comment or internal note in a ticket, the Response Builder app helps you insert URLs or customized URLs with variables that are frequently used.

There are three ways to insert a URL in the ticket comment - either at the bottom of the comment window, in the ticket app sidebar, or using your defined hotkeys.

To insert a URL using the comment window 

1. At the end of your typed comment, click the small arrow at the bottom of the comment window. A drop-down list of URLs is displayed. 
   
2. Select the URL and it will be inserted at the end of your ticket comment.
3. If you selected Confirm the URL in the settings, the link will render in the comment. You can click this link to open the page in a new window.
4. If you choose to add fields to the URL on setup that Zendesk does not recognize, it will just render those as you typed them in. For instance, if you want to use your own variables, it will just output those as you typed them in. Then, your agents can substitute the needed variables for your own systems.

To insert a URL using the app sidebar 

1. In the ticket app sidebar,  select the Response Builder app.
   
2. Click the drop-down list in the right-hand app sidebar.
3. If you are using the window in the app sidebar, you will see the Response button, the Internal Note button, and Cancel. Click Response to insert the URL into the public comment, Internal Note to insert it into the internal note, and Cancel to cancel your action.

Adding a URL using the hotkey

If you have Hot key enabled, you can type the hotkey indicator and the letter you specified in the settings to add the URL to the comment. For instance, if you wanted to insert the first URL in the example in Installing the app, you would type  "#u".

Note: If you have your tickets set to display in markdown instead of rich content in the admin settings, the hotkey does not work. Rich content is the default setting.

Available variables

The following field variables can be used to build the URLs. These are the items that appear between the curly braces, as shown in the JSON example in Installing the app. For example, {{ticket.assignee}}.

• ticket.assignee
• ticket.brand
• ticket.collaborators
• ticket.comment
• ticket.comments
• ticket.createdAt
• ticket.customField:custom_field_##### (For example, ticket.customField:custom_field_23875827)
• ticket.description
• ticket.editor
• ticket.externalId
• ticket.form
• ticket.id
• ticket.isNew
• ticket.organization
• ticket.organization.externalId
• ticket.postSaveAction
• ticket.priority
• ticket.recipient
• ticket.requester
• ticket.sharedWith
• ticket.status
• ticket.subject
• ticket.tags
• ticket.type
• ticket.updatedAt
• ticket.via
• ticket.viewers
• currentUser.id
• currentUser.email
• currentUser.groups
• currentUser.organizations
• currentUser.identities
• currentUser.name
• currentUser.role
• currentUser.externalId
• currentUser.locale
• currentUser.details
• currentUser.notes
• currentUser.alias
• currentUser.signature
• currentUser.timeZone
• currentUser.tags
• currentUser.avatarUrl
• currentUser.customField:custom_field_##### (For example, ticket.customField:custom_field_23875827)