Integrating output with Zendesk (or similar)

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Colum
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Integrating output with Zendesk (or similar)

Post by Colum »

Hi everyone.

I've got a general query that I'm hoping some bright person can provide an insight with.

We are looking to move from our current knowledge base and user community provider. They are on the same platform. The great and the good here started thinking that having the user community and knowledge base on the same platform was the way to go. I've managed to convince them that this may not be the best way to go. The primary reasons for this is that all of the tools I've seen don't have anywhere near the same capabilities as Flare.

Now here's the thing. The community will still exist somewhere, and we want the community users to be able to search for the knowledge base content. Not only that, but support desk staff want knowledge base content to be "publicized" in the community according to the case being raised. They are looking at Zendesk, but I quickly poured scorn on their knowledge base's editor!

So my question is, does anyone have any idea whether it would be possible to take Flare output and feed it into ZenDesk or some other similar tool. This would not be a one-off exercise, as we'd be publishing almost daily. I'm 99% it can't be done out of the box, but maybe there's another way.

Over to you...
Nita Beck
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Re: Integrating output with Zendesk (or similar)

Post by Nita Beck »

There's a company that offers a Flare-to-Zendesk solution: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=28545

I haven't ever explored the solution myself so can't speak to its effectiveness or ease of use.
Nita
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RETIRED, but still fond of all the Flare friends I've made. See you around now and then!
Colum
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Re: Integrating output with Zendesk (or similar)

Post by Colum »

Great. Thanks Nita. I'll take a look.
juliech
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Re: Integrating output with Zendesk (or similar)

Post by juliech »

They have stopped development on this app, so it's "use at your own risk" from now on.
Does anyone use it? Are you happy with is? Any issues?

I would also like to publish to Zendesk.

Has anyone tried publishing the new clean xhtml output to zendesk?
MunchMan
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Re: Integrating output with Zendesk (or similar)

Post by MunchMan »

Zendesk has an API for receiving data from Flare (probably Clean HTML), but I am just getting started on pinging my IT dept. and programmers to figure out if we can use it and how. Has anyone used the API? Successfully? :D And what about exporting our PDF library to ZD?
cdschroeder
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Re: Integrating output with Zendesk (or similar)

Post by cdschroeder »

Have any of you successfully set up a system for transferring content from Flare to Zendesk? Our support team is going to be using Zendesk Guide as a sort of "lite" help site for common topics, quick answers, etc. It would definitely be useful to port select common content from Flare.
Casey

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juliech
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Re: Integrating output with Zendesk (or similar)

Post by juliech »

It's still in my wishlist. @MunchMan, you mention a zendesk API. Do you or others have info about it.

Right now, I resorted to manually copying the clean HTML to zendesk, which is not ideal. I will likely not use Madcap to update the content going forward for this project, and will work natively in zendesk.
Niclas Karlin
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Re: Integrating output with Zendesk (or similar)

Post by Niclas Karlin »

Now when there is a SalesForce pluginhttps://www.madcapsoftware.com/products ... ct-plugin/, it must be much closer with a Zendesk one too?
yipenburg
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Re: Integrating output with Zendesk (or similar)

Post by yipenburg »

Hi Everyone, a support guy manually copies and pastes content from our docs into the Zendesk Guide.With an API key to Zendesk Guide it is possible to get/post the updates to existing articles, and in our Flare project I intend to use some kind of mapping from our docs to the Zendesk doc structure, like an alternate CSH, and some tweaks to the contetnt in particular inline links and images. Either way my organization has to decide whether it is worth the effort to make a new Zendesk ouptput target in Flare. In theory the Zendesk Guide/help center is really a knowledge base so striclty speaking you could say that it can only contain the problem solving KB articles, and that there's no reason to include a docs lite to be served up by the Zendesk widget. To me the jury is out on it.
agracer
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Re: Integrating output with Zendesk (or similar)

Post by agracer »

I have the same goal. Manage my content in Flare, output to Clean XHTML, and import to Zendesk using their API.

Working with a Zendesk consultant to create a utility to accomplish that task.

I still have some wrinkles to iron out, but we decided it was worth it.

I'll keep you updated on progress.
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