Synchronizing Dropzone Recipients with your Agent List

If you are using the SendSafely Dropzone with Zendesk and add or remove Zendesk agents on a frequent basis, you may want to consider using an automated process to synchronize your Dropzone with the Agent List from Zendesk. We've developed two simple command line examples that allow you to do this. One is written in Java and another is written in Javascript (using Node.js). Both code examples are published in our public Github repository.  

The code requires two accounts:

• A Zendesk login (may require admin rights to get the full list)
• A SendSafely account (the account must own the Dropzone that you are trying to synchronize)

For each account, you'll need to generate an API Key for the code to use. 

 

Instructions for Java

Once you download and extract the zip file, everything you need should be in the "/Code-Examples/Synchronize Dropzone with Zendesk Agent List/Java Example" folder. The example app will pull all agents and admins from Zendesk and then run through all active Dropzone recipients and then add/remove recipients from SendSafely so that the Dropzone recipient list matches the list of Zendesk agents & admins. 

Here are steps/commands on how to compile and run the code from a machine with Java installed:

1. Update ZendeskSyncDropzone.java with credentials for the Zendesk and SendSafely Users

 

2. Recompile the code

javac -d bin -cp lib/sendsafely-java-api-3.1.7.jar:lib/bcpg-jdk15on-1.65.jar:lib/bcprov-jdk15on-1.65.jar:lib/gson-2.8.6.jar:lib/zendesk-client.jar:lib/async-http-client-1.9.15.jar:lib/handy-uri-templates-1.1.7.jar:lib/jackson-annotations-2.1.4.jar:lib/jackson-core-2.1.4.jar:lib/jackson-databind-2.1.4.jar:lib/slf4j-api-1.7.2.jar:lib/slf4j-simple-1.7.2.jar src/ZendeskSyncDropzone.java

 

3. Run the app 
java -cp lib/*:bin/ ZendeskSyncDropzone

 

NOTE: There is also a "previewOnly" flag that is set to "true", meaning that the program will print what it would normally do without actually making the updates. You can use this to prevent any updates from occurring until you are comfortable that the program is working correctly.

 

Instructions for Node

 

Once you download and extract the zip file, everything you need should be in the "/Code-Examples/Synchronize Dropzone with Zendesk Agent List/Javascript Example (Node)" folder.  In order to run the script, you will need to have Node.js installed. Here are instructions on how to install node and run the script:

1. Visit https://nodejs.org/en/ and install the most recent version of Node.js.

2. You will need to update a few variables at the top of the script. The following lines will need to be edited:

var zdHost = "https://company_name.zendesk.com";
var ssApiKey = "PUT_YOUR_SENDSAFELY_API_KEY_HERE";
var ssApiSecret = "PUT_YOUR_SENDSAFELY_API_SECRET_HERE";
var zdUsername = "PUT_YOUR_ZENDESK_USERNAME_HERE";
var zdPassword = "PUT_YOUR_ZENDESK_PASSWORD_HERE";

3. Save the edited script and open a command line window. Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the script and run the following commands to install three required node modules (this command must be run from the same folder where the script is stored):

npm install @sendsafely/sendsafely

npm install window

npm install jquery

npm install sjcl

4. Next, run the script using the following command:

node ZendeskSyncDropzone.js