Using SendGrid for outgoing emails (notifications) - HTTP Target + Triggers

A question (Send email via Sendgrid?) made me come up with this tip. Kudos to @Pedro for asking this question.

Disclaimer:

• This tip isn't meant to be replacement of Zendesk's built-in notification system. Zendesk pre-processes (email-template, placeholders, content, signatures, etc.) to generate email-body which is sent. One can build upon following example, and try html/markdown/liquid stuff to generate richer emails.
• Please use a sandbox or test environment; or limit the scope of trigger (by making it run only in presence of a tag or requester-email that you control)
• I am furnishing the following tip "as is". I (and Diziana) don't provide any warranty of the tip (or results) whatsoever, whether express, implied, or statutory, including, but not limited to any warranty that the contents of the tip will be error-free.
  In no respect shall I (and Diziana) incur any liability for any damages, including, but limited to, direct, indirect, special, or consequential damages arising out of, resulting from, or any way connected to the use of the tip.

Objective: Send outgoing email notifications via SendGrid

Prerequisite: SendGrid Account

Part 1: Setting up HTTP Target Extension for SendGrid API

1. Login as Admin in your Zendesk Support
   (<subdomain>.zendesk.com/agent/)
   
2. Go to Admin (Cog Icon) > Settings > Extensions
   (<subdomain>.zendesk.com/agent/admin/extensions)
   
3. Click on "add target"
   (<subdomain.zendesk.com/targets/select_target_to_add)
   
4. Enter "SendGrid" in Title field
   
5. Replace highlighted part in URL (below) with your SendGrid username and password.
   https://api.sendgrid.com/api/mail.send.json?api_user=<send_grid_user_name>&api_key=<send_grid_password>
   
6. Enter the URL (above with your SendGrid username and password) in URL field
   
7. Select "POST" from Method dropdown
   
8. Select "Form encoded" from Content type dropdown
   
9. Leave "Basic Authentication" UNCHECKED
   
10. Select "Test Target" from dropdown next to "Submit" button
    
11. Enter keys and valid values in the form
    
12. Click on Submit button (shown in above form) to test SendGrid Configuration
13. You will see results, an HTTP 200 status for success (i.e. our SendGrid configuration is good)
    
    
14. Close the Test Form Overlay Popup
15. Select "Create target" and Click "Submit"  to create HTTP Target
    

Part 2: Setting up a test Trigger to use SendGrid HTTP Extension

1. Go to Admin > Business Rules > Triggers
2. Clone any existing trigger by clicking Clone option for trigger. For example, we are going to clone "Notify requester of received request" trigger:
   
   
   
3. Change Trigger Name to whatever you want to. I am going to call it "SendGridTest Trigger"
   
4. Change Conditions of Trigger (Ticket is Updated, and Status is not Solved, and Tags contain "sendgridtest").  
   
   
   Note: I have added a tag in conditions to limit the scope of testing to tickets I control, and I don't triggers to run on any other updates until it's ready for production usage.
   
   
5. Add "Notify Target" Action, and select "SendGrid" as target
6. Enter key-values the same way you used earlier while testing HTTP Target; this time we will use placeholders instead of hardcode values:
   
   to: {{ticket.requester.email}}
   toname: {{ticket.requester.name}}
   from: support@yourcompany.com
   fromname: Yourcompany Support
   subject: [{{ticket.account}}] Re: {{ticket.title}}
   text: {{txt.email.delimiter}} Your request ({{ticket.id}}) has been updated. To add additional comments, reply to this email.  {{ticket.comments_formatted}}
   
   
   
7. Click "Create" button to create Trigger

Part 3: Testing

1. Create or open a test-ticket (where you have access to requester's mailbox)
2. Add "sendgridtest" tag in ticket
3. Submit as "New" or "Open"
4. Check requester's mailbox, and see if you received notification

I hope you it worked for you. If it didn't, please debug it, or feel free to post in this thread.

That's it for now. I think, it's good start and I am looking forward to see if someone can improve upon it -- specially email-template, and html emails.

Cheers

-abdul

==

Abdul Qabiz

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