Zendesk API Wrapper for Python

Zdesk is a Python wrapper for the Zendesk API. This library provides an easy and flexible way for developers to communicate with their Zendesk account in their application.

See the Zendesk developer site for API documentation. The underlying zdesk_api module has been automatically generated from this documentation.

Requirements

Zdesk works with both Python 2 and Python 3. Tested on Python 2.7.5 and 3.4.1.

httplib2 is used for authentication and requests

(pip install | easy_install) httplib2

simplejson is used to serialze and deserialze requests and responses

(pip install | easy_install) simplejson

Installation

Zdesk is available on pypi, so installation should be fairly simple:

(pip install | easy_install) zdesk

Related projects

• zdeskcfg: Automatically configure your zdesk scripts from a configuration file and command line arguments.
• zdgrab: Download and decompress ticket attachments.

Notes on module usage

API Keyword args

There are a few keyword arguments that every API method accepts that corresponds with Zendesk API query string options for most calls. These are kept in zdesk.common_params. The current list at the time of this writing is:

• page
• per_page
• sort_by
• sort_order

Results returned and getting all HTTP response info

Under normal circumstances, when a call is made and the response indicates success, the value returned will be formatted to simplify usage. So if a JSON response is returned with the expected return code, then instead of getting back all of the HTTP response information, headers and all, the only thing that is returned is the JSON, which will already be deserialized. In some cases, only a single string in a particular heading (location) is returned, and so that will be the return value.

Passing complete_response=True will cause all response information to be returned, which is the result of an httplib2.client.request.

Getting all pages

There is a common pattern where a request will return one page of data along with a next_page location. In order to retrieve all results, it is necessary to continue retrieving every next_page location. The results then all need to be processed together. A loop to get all pages ends up stamped throughout Zendesk code, since many API methods return paged lists of objects.

As a convenience, passing get_all_pages to any API method will do this for you, and will also merge all responses. The result is a single, large object that appears to be the result of one single call. The logic for this combination and reduction is well documented in the source (look for the line reading Now we need to try to combine or reduce the results, if the line number has shifted since this writing).

Example Use

from zdesk import Zendesk

################################################################
## NEW CONNECTION CLIENT
################################################################
# Manually creating a new connection object
zendesk = Zendesk('https://yourcompany.zendesk.com', 'you@yourcompany.com', 'passwd')

# Are you getting an error such as...
# "SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed"?
#zendesk = Zendesk('https://yourcompany.zendesk.com', 'you@yourcompany.com', 'passwd',
#    client_args={
#        "disable_ssl_certificate_validation": True
#    }
#)


################################################################
## TICKETS
################################################################

# List
zendesk.tickets_list()

# Create
new_ticket = {
    'ticket': {
        'requester_name': 'Howard Schultz',
        'requester_email': 'howard@starbucks.com',
        'subject':'My Starbucks coffee is cold!',
        'description': 'please reheat my coffee',
        'set_tags': 'coffee drinks',
        'ticket_field_entries': [
            {
                'ticket_field_id': 1,
                'value': 'venti'
            },
            {
                'ticket_field_id': 2,
                'value': '$10'
            }
        ]
    }
}
# Create the ticket and get its URL
result = zendesk.ticket_create(data=new_ticket)

# Need ticket ID?
from zdesk import get_id_from_url
ticket_id = get_id_from_url(result)

# Show
zendesk.ticket_show(id=ticket_id)

# Delete
zendesk.ticket_delete(id=ticket_id)

See the full example file on github, however this is not anywhere close to covering all of the over 400 REST API methods.