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How to add session replays to Zendesk

Feb 08, 2024

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Session replays can be a useful support tool for debugging and recreating issues. The errors, console, and network data along with the rest of PostHog's tools make PostHog a powerful support platform.

To get easy access to session replays in Zendesk, you can link to them when users submit tickets. To show you how to do this, we build a basic Next.js app with a form, add PostHog, connect the form to Zendesk, and setup the session replay link in the submitted ticket.

1. Create a basic Next.js app with a form

First, make sure Node is installed (18.17 or newer), and then create a Next.js app:

Terminal
npx create-next-app@latest zendesk-sessions

Select No for TypeScript, Yes for use app router, and the defaults for every other option. Once created, go into your app/page.js file and set up a basic form for users to submit.

JavaScript
// app/page.js
"use client"
import { useState } from 'react';
import styles from "./page.module.css";


export default function Home() {
  const [content, setContent] = useState('');


  const handleSubmit = async (e) => {
    e.preventDefault();
  }


  return (
    <main className={styles.main}>
      <h1>Submit Your Ticket</h1>
      <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
        <textarea 
          value={content} 
          onChange={(e) => setContent(e.target.value)} 
        />
        <br />
        <button type="submit">Submit</button>
      </form>
    </main>
  );
}

Once done, run npm run dev and go http://localhost:3000 to see your app.

Next.js app

2. Add PostHog

To set up session replays, we need to install PostHog in our app. If you don't have a PostHog instance, you can sign up for free.

Important: Make sure to enable "Record user sessions" in your project settings.

After doing this, install the posthog-js SDK:

Terminal
npm i posthog-js

Next, create a providers.js file in your app folder. In it, initialize PostHog with your project API key and instance address and export a provider component. If you have a US Cloud instance, also make sure your ui_host config option is set to https://us.posthog.com.

JavaScript
// app/providers.js
'use client'
import posthog from 'posthog-js'
import { PostHogProvider } from 'posthog-js/react'


if (typeof window !== 'undefined') {
  posthog.init('<ph_project_api_key>', {
    api_host: '<ph_instance_address>',
    ui_host: 'https://us.posthog.com' // remove if EU
  })
}


export function PHProvider({ children }) {
  return <PostHogProvider client={posthog}>{children}</PostHogProvider>
}

Once created, you can import PHProvider into your layout.js file and wrap your app in it:

layout.js
import "./globals.css";
import { PHProvider } from './providers'


export default function RootLayout({ children }) {
  return (
    <html lang="en">
      <PHProvider>
        <body>{children}</body>
      </PHProvider>
    </html>
  );
}

3. Connect the form to Zendesk

Connecting the form to Zendesk requires you to have access to your admin center at your-subdomain.zendesk.com/admin/home. Once here, click "Apps and integrations" in the sidebar and then select "Zendesk API." Enable token access, add a new API token, copy its value, and head back to your app.

API key

In app/pages.js, we set up a server-side function to submit a ticket to Zendesk. In it, we set up a POST request with a subject, body content, requester, and authorization. Ideally, you would have their real name and email, but we will use my own as a placeholder for now.

JavaScript
// app/page.js
// ... your existing code


async function submitTicket(content) {
  const user = 'ian@posthog.com'
  const pwd = 'mUndDjKGW3Qu1jPqTKsw1k7hDtLUALswwQlggK27'
  const url = 'https://your-subdomain.zendesk.com'


  const res = await fetch(`${url}/api/v2/requests.json`, {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    },
    body: JSON.stringify(
      { 
        request: { 
          subject: 'New Ticket', 
          comment: { body: content },
          requester: {
            name: 'Test User',
            email: 'ian@posthog.com'
          } 
        }}
    ),
    auth: {
      username: user,
      password: pwd
    }
  })
  console.log(res);
}

After adding this, we have handleSubmit trigger it with the content like this:

JavaScript
"use client"
import { useState } from 'react';
import styles from "./page.module.css";


export default function Home() {
  const [content, setContent] = useState('');


  const handleSubmit = async (e) => {
    e.preventDefault();
    await submitTicket(content);
  }


  return (
    <main className={styles.main}>
      <h1>Submit Your Ticket</h1>
      <form onSubmit={handleSubmit}>
        <textarea 
          value={content} 
          onChange={(e) => setContent(e.target.value)} 
        />
        <br />
        <button type="submit">Submit</button>
      </form>
    </main>
  );
}


async function submitTicket(content) {
    //... rest of your code

Now when we go to our app and submit a value, it creates a ticket in Zendesk.

Ticket in Zendesk

4. Add the session replay link to the ticket

The final piece is including a link to the session replay in the ticket. The JavaScript SDK makes this easy with the get_session_replay_url() method. We just add PostHog and then modify the content value we pass to submitTicket .

JavaScript
"use client"
import { useState } from 'react';
import styles from "./page.module.css";
import { usePostHog } from 'posthog-js/react'


export default function Home() {
  const [content, setContent] = useState('');


  const posthog = usePostHog();


  const handleSubmit = async (e) => {
    e.preventDefault();
    console.log(posthog.get_session_replay_url())
    const finalContent = `
      ${content}\n\n
      Session Replay: ${posthog.get_session_replay_url()}
    `
    await submitTicket(finalContent);
  }
// ... rest of your code

Now, when you check your ticket in Zendesk, you'll see a session replay link to watch the replay in PostHog.

Bonus: Beyond a session replay link, you can customize the content for the ticket with information like:

  • User ID
  • Report event ID
  • Admin links
  • Target area

As an example, you can see what we do in GitHub.

Further reading