Zendesk Talk Chromium Extension

Contents

• Introduction
• Limitations
• Prerequistes
• Setup
• Usage

Introduction

This repo contains a simple extension for Chromium-based browsers like Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave and Opera to support making calls via Zendesk Talk from anywhere in the browser, rather than just directly from within the Zendesk Customer Experience Suite interface.

The inspiration for this repo was a Reddit post requesting such a tool. Because of how Zendesk works, the configuration required to set this tool up for local use is not straightforward. Put bluntly, Zendesk doesn't support making Talk calls via API, which is the central feature of this product-- therefore, the extension creates callbacks in their place. The result is more or less the same if you don't mind the obvious reporting challenges that might be created using such a method. It seems to me that if one is interested in the feature on offer, perhaps they are also willing to make certain concessions on the back end as well.

Ultimately, this product supports what I believe is a creative workaround rather than a truly productised feature set and alongside the fact that the setup is non-trivial anyway, requiring some monthly fee to use this tool feels disingenuous.

You should feel no obligation to make any kind of contribution to use this project, but if you wish to support open source projects like this one, you have the opportunity to do so.

Limitations

This extension has a number of limitations that can make its day-to-day use impractical in production. This section of the documentation intends to enumerate and explain the limitations of this product for users to ensure that they have a clear understanding of how this product works. I am more than happy to offer support to users who raise an issue when and where possible.

• Zendesk Customer Experience Suite uses Twilio telephony services on their own backend. Because of this, Zendesk offers no way to directly create calls via API. As such, this product uses the Callbacks API endpoint to create a similar end result. Reporting on these calls is covered in the Zendesk Explore documentation (please consider the Call Type Attribute).
• The nature of callbacks in Zendesk prevent them from being made to the same number more than once per hour. As such, you will not be able to place a call to the same number from this extension more than once per hour.
• The authentication mechanism for this extension is an API key. Any user who wishes to use this application must have the ability to generate an API Key according to the Zendesk documentation. Allowing access to this feature is a security decision owned by your organisation for which I make no statement of support.

Prerequisites

You will need to supply the following parameters to this tool during setup:

1. Your organisation's Zendesk subdomain
2. The email address that you use to log in to Zendesk
3. An API key generated by an authorised Zendesk user
4. The id parameter of the telephone number from which to place outgoing calls
5. The id parameter of the Zendesk Support group from which to place outgoing calls