Creating API connections for Flow Builder

Fastpath: Admin Center > Apps and integrations > Connections > Connections

A connection lets you safely store API credentials for a service or system, such as Slack or Shopify. You can use a connection to authenticate REST API calls in Flow Builder's Make API call step. You must be an admin to create connections.

This article covers the following topics:

• About connections
• Creating a connection
• Allowed domain
• HTTP headers for API keys

About connections

A connection supports one of the following API authentication methods:

• API key
• Basic authentication
• Bearer token

This authentication method determines the type of credentials the connection stores. For example, a basic authentication connection stores a username and password. After you create a connection, you can't change its authentication type.

Different APIs support different authentication methods. To determine the appropriate authentication method for an API call, consult the API's documentation.

HTTP headers for authentication types

When you use a connection to authenticate an API call in Flow Builder, Zendesk passes the connection's credentials in an HTTP header. Zendesk determines this header based on the connection's authentication type.

Authentication type	HTTP header
API key	Set when you create the connection. See HTTP headers for API keys
Basic authentication	Authorization: Basic
Bearer token	Authorization: Bearer

For more information about using a connection in Flow Builder, see Using the Make API call step in Flow Builder.

Creating a connection

You can create a connection in Admin Center from the Connections page.

To create a connection

1. In Admin Center, click Apps and integrations in the sidebar, then select Connections > Connections.
2. Click Create connection.
3. Select an authentication type.
4. Enter a name for the connection. You can't change this name after you create the connection.
5. Configure the connection's authentication credentials. The connection uses these details to authenticate REST API calls to the service or system.
6. Enter an allowed domain for the connection. You can't change the allowed domain after you create the connection. For more information, see Allowed domain.
7. Click Save to create the connection.

After you've created the connection, you can view its details from the Connections page in Admin Center. See Managing connections.

Allowed domain

Each connection requires a URL hostname as an allowed domain. Zendesk only passes the connection's credentials in API calls to this hostname. Attempts to use the connection with other hostnames will fail. This helps prevent an accidental leak of the connection's credentials. After you create a connection, you can't change its allowed domain.

For example, you can only use a connection with an allowed domain of "api.example.com" to make API calls to the “https://api.example.com” hostname.

Allowed domain requirements

A connection's allowed domain can't exceed 128 characters. A subdomain or domain in the value can't exceed 63 characters. The value must contain a valid domain name.

A connection always uses an https scheme. Other schemes, such as ftps, are not supported.

Wildcards for allowed domain

A connection's allowed domain supports an optional wildcard (*) subdomain. This lets you use the connection with the bare domain and any subdomain. For example, you can use a connection with an allowed domain of *.example.com to authenticate API calls to "example.com" or any subdomain of "example.com".

To use a wildcard subdomain, the first two characters of the allowed domain must be *.. You can't use a wildcard in other parts of the hostname. For example, you can't use a wildcard within a hostname, such as exam*.com or my-*.example.com.

You can't use a wildcard with only a public domain suffix, such as *.com, *.com.au, or *.myshopify.com. For a list of public suffixes, see the public suffix list on publicsuffix.org.

HTTP headers for API keys

When you create an API key connection, you must specify an HTTP header name. When the connection is used to make an API call, Zendesk passes the API key as the value for this header.

Many APIs use a custom header to accept API keys. To get the appropriate header name for an API call, consult the API's documentation.

Header name requirements

An API key connection's header name can't exceed 128 characters. The header name can only contain letters, hyphens (-), and underscores (_).

You can't use the following HTTP header names:

• accept
• accept-charset
• accept-encoding
• accept-language
• cache-control
• connection
• content-md5
• cookie
• date
• expect
• from
• host
• if-match
• if-modified-since
• if-none-match
• if-range
• if-unmodified-since
• max-forwards
• pragma
• proxy-authenticate
• proxy-authorization
• range
• server
• referer
• te
• trailer
• transfer-encoding
• upgrade
• user-agent
• via
• warning
• www-authenticate
• Header names starting with:
  • x-amz-
  • x-amzn-
  • x-forwarded-
  • x-zis-