Integrating Zendesk Chat Widget into Discourse Platform

[Discourse]

This guide explains how to add a Zendesk Chat widget to your Discourse forum, allowing you to provide real-time support to your users.

Required user level: Administrator

Adding a Zendesk Chat widget to Discourse

This guide will walk you through the process of integrating a Zendesk Chat widget into your Discourse forum. This feature allows you to offer real-time support to your forum users.

Creating a Zendesk account

1. Go to Register and complete the registration form.

2. Follow the registration steps and choose your team name. This will automatically become the URL for accessing Zendesk.

3. Check your email and verify your email address, then sign in to Zendesk.

Configuring the Zendesk Chat widget

1. Once your account is set up, go to your Zendesk Admin Center (https://your_team_name.zendesk.com/admin/home).

2. In the Admin Center dashboard, click on Channels in the left-hand menu, then select Messaging:

3. On the Messaging page, click on your team name:

4. Complete the Add Web Widget steps:
   • Confirm the channel name
   • Copy the web widget code snippet
   • Customize the chat appearance (color, position, sound, etc.)

Adding the Zendesk Chat widget to Discourse

1. In your Discourse admin panel, go to Admin > Customize > Themes > Components and click on Install.

2. Select Create new.

3. Enter a name for the component, ensure the Type is set to “Component”, and click Create.

4. Choose the theme(s) where you want to add the new component, then click Edit CSS/HTML.

5. Navigate to the common > /head tab, paste your Zendesk script, and click Save.

Configuring Content Security Policy

1. In your Discourse site settings, search for “content security policy script src”.
2. Add https://static.zdassets.com/web_widget/ to the whitelist.

Verifying the installation

1. Reload your Discourse site. You should now see the chat icon at the bottom of your site, visible to both visitors and registered users.

Finalizing Zendesk Chat setup

After adding the widget to your Discourse forum, you’ll need to configure your chat settings:

1. Go back to https://your-team-name.zendesk.com/admin/channels/messaging_and_social/channels_list

2. Click on your team name to access the widget settings.

3. You can customize various aspects of your chat:

   • Style: Adjust the appearance of your chat widget to match your forum’s design.
   • Responses: Set up automated responses or canned messages for common inquiries.

Remember to test your chat widget thoroughly after making any changes to ensure it’s functioning as expected on your Discourse forum.

Last edited by @jessii 2024-08-06T18:46:24Z

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