Restflow.io

## Introduction

For startup teams, support and engineering need to collaborate seamlessly to turn customer-reported bugs into actionable engineering tasks. Zendesk’s integrated bug tracking helps unify support tickets with GitHub issues, but it comes at a subscription cost and adds vendor lock-in.

This detailed guide shows how to replace Zendesk’s bug tracking by building an automation workflow in n8n that listens for new support tickets (from Gmail, a support form, or Zendesk’s own webhook), and then creates GitHub issues automatically. This saves costs and maintains control by leveraging open automation.

## Problem Statement and Who Benefits

### Problem
Manual tracking of bugs from customer support into GitHub issues leads to delays, lost context, and operational friction. Zendesk offers a feature to link tickets to GitHub issues, but it is paid.

### Beneficiaries
– Support teams get faster engineering visibility
– Engineering receives consistent, detailed bug reports
– Startup operations save money by removing SaaS dependency

## Tools and Services Integrated
– **Source of support tickets:** Zendesk webhook, Gmail, or Google Forms
– **Automation platform:** n8n
– **Issue tracker:** GitHub

We will focus specifically on using n8n’s Zendesk webhook or Gmail trigger to start workflows and GitHub node to create issues.

## Workflow Overview

### Trigger
– Incoming new support ticket in Zendesk or email matching bug report

### Processing
– Extract relevant ticket info: title, description, priority, reporter
– Format a GitHub issue body with details and support ticket link

### Action
– Create a GitHub issue in the appropriate repository
– Optionally comment back on Zendesk ticket or send Slack notification

## Step-by-Step Technical Tutorial

### Prerequisites
– n8n instance running (cloud or self-hosted)
– GitHub personal access token with repo access
– Zendesk with webhook enabled or access to support emails via Gmail

### Step 1: Set Up Your Trigger Node

**Option A: Zendesk Webhook Trigger**
– In Zendesk admin, create a webhook targeting your n8n HTTP webhook URL.
– Use the n8n HTTP Webhook node to catch ticket creation events.

**Option B: Gmail Trigger**
– Use n8n Gmail Trigger node to monitor support email inbox.
– Use filter to select only bug report emails (e.g., by subject or label).

### Step 2: Extract and Transform Ticket Data

Add a **Set** node or **Function** node:
– Parse out subject or ticket title
– Extract description or email body
– Capture critical metadata like priority, reporter email, or ticket URL

Example Function code snippet to parse Zendesk webhook JSON:
“`javascript
return [{
json: {
title: $json.ticket.subject,
body: `Customer reported a bug:\n${$json.ticket.description}\nPriority: ${$json.ticket.priority}\n
Zendesk Ticket: https://yourdomain.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/${$json.ticket.id}`,
reporterEmail: $json.ticket.requester.email
}
}];
“`

### Step 3: Create GitHub Issue

– Add **GitHub** node set to “Create an Issue”
– Configure credentials with personal access token
– Select repository
– Map the `title` and `body` fields from previous node

### Step 4 (Optional): Comment Back on Zendesk Ticket or Slack Notification

– Use Zendesk node to add a comment to the ticket with the GitHub issue URL.
– Or use Slack node to notify the engineering channel of a new incoming bug.

## Error Handling and Robustness Tips
– Validate webhook payloads to ensure required fields exist
– Use n8n’s error workflow configuration to capture and log failed events
– Implement retries for GitHub API failures with exponential backoff
– Sanitize inputs to avoid injection or formatting issues in GitHub issues

## Scaling and Adaptation
– To scale, separate workflows by product or priority
– Store supported product mappings in a n8n static data store or database
– Enrich issues with labels or assignees dynamically based on ticket metadata
– Extend integration to pull in attachments or screenshots from Zendesk

## Summary

By using n8n’s flexible workflow automation, startups can replace Zendesk’s bug tracking feature that links tickets to GitHub issues. This approach reduces cost, increases control, and improves the flow of bug reporting across teams. With robust error handling and scalability, it forms a foundation for custom-tailored support-engineering automation.

## Bonus Tip: Use n8n’s Expression Editor

Leverage n8n’s expression editor to dynamically build GitHub issue titles or bodies from JSON fields or concatenate multiple source fields. For example:

“`${$json.ticket.subject} (Priority: ${$json.ticket.priority})“`

This ensures issues are informative and actionable right from creation.

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