API news & updates

You can now manage ticket statuses through the Core API. Front released ticketing a couple months ago, which you can now access via the API if your company has the ticketing feature enabled. The following is a summary of the new ticketing functionality available in the Core API:Conversation responses return status_id, status_category, and ticket_ids fields. Search for conversations in the open, waiting, or resolved ticketing statuses via the is operator. Use ticketing filters in the q query string parameter when listing conversations. Access new Statuses API routes:  List company ticket statuses Get ticket status Update the status_id of a conversation. Update conversation reminders with a waiting status_id.

We are happy to announce that you can now access knowledge base API endpoints through the Core API. These endpoints allow you to read and update your internal and external Front knowledge bases. With the API, you now have the flexibility to process your knowledge base content for various purposes, including advanced display on different websites and additional means of importing content. Read the docs on our Developer Portal to start using the knowledge base API endpoints.

We are thrilled to announce a new enhancement to our Core API knowledge base resources: Endpoints now return a slug for article and category pages! The slug is a user-friendly, readable string that can be used to construct URLs to your knowledge base articles and categories. This addition makes it easier than ever to integrate and surface your knowledge base content within the search results or display components of systems external to Front's knowledge base, such as a community hub or other resource center. The following endpoints return the URL slug in their response:List articles in a knowledge base Get a knowledge base article List categories in a knowledge base Get a knowledge base category To construct the full URL, use the following pattern:<protocol>://<domain>/<locale>/<slug> For example, if an article slug returns as /articles/57 ...the full article URL in the EN locale would be:https://yourDomain.com/en/articles/57 Happy coding! 

You can now download attachments via the following resource-specific endpoints:Download attachment for a comment Download attachment for a message template Download attachment for a messageThe ability to download message template attachments is a new benefit. The other benefit of these endpoints is that Front validates that the requester has access to the resource in question versus only validating the attachment access credentials. Fetch attachments via their download URLFront recommends you fetch attachments via their download URL (which includes resource-specific routing) versus providing only the ID to the generic Download attachment endpoint. 

You can now access entry point data in the Plugin SDK to learn how a Front user opened your plugin. A new property called entryPoint is now available in the context object. Read the full details on our Developer Portal This property allows you to handle different scenarios depending on where the plugin was opened. The current plugin entry points are:SIDEBAR—User opened a plugin in the Front sidebar. COMPOSER_TOOLBAR—User opened a plugin in the composer toolbar while composing a message. CONTACT_HANDLE—User opened a plugin from a Front contact’s phone handle. More information on plugins that open from this entry point in order to make or handle calls will be coming soon!

The Plugin SDK now offers the delegateNewWindowsToFront utility function. This function allows you to capture link events that open in a new window and handle them through Front. This function replaces the deprecated delegateAnchorClicksToFront function.

You can now use token instrospection to specify an application channel’s name and address.Token introspection is an additional step in the OAuth2 flow where the client sends a request to the external server to retrieve information about the provided access token. This request allows Front to obtain details of the channel from the external service. Read more on our Developer Portal!

The Update conversation endpoint now correctly updates conversation statuses in personal inboxes. Before the update, the status update would only be applied at the team-level. The status update did not affect private conversations or propagate to the conversation assignee.From now on, the conversation status update will follow the behavior of our rule engine: the status update will be applied to the conversation assignee and owners for private conversations in addition to the shared inbox at the workspace level. This update will gradually be released to all customers over the next week. Please comment below if you want to access it immediately. PS: The update only impacts the conversation status for assignee and private conversation owners. It does not impact the status of the conversation for its followers (participants who are not the assignee or owner of the private conversation).

We are excited to announce that you can now manage teammate groups via the Core API! Teammate groups allow you to create centralized lists of users that make it easier to manage shared inbox and contact access. We’ve added 14 endpoints to help you fetch, create, update, and delete teammate groups or related access like inboxes or teammates within the group. Some example endpoints include:List teammate groups Create teammate group Add teammate group team inboxes Add teammate group teammates Add teammate group teams Check out our Developer Portal for the full list of endpoints. Happy coding!

We are pleased to announce that the Core API now supports:Updating comments via the API—Using the comment ID, you can update the body or the pinned status of the comment. Controlling whether a comment is pinned in the conversation—A pinned comment is displayed in the pinned comments link within the conversation UI. You can mark a comment as pinned via the API using the new is_pinned field, which is available when adding or updating a comment and in all comment responses. Let us know if you have any feedback in the comments below, no pun intended.

On July 22, 2024, Google released a blog post indicating that regulators may allow the continued use of third-party cookies if users opt into them. If this turns out to be the case, it will still be important to provide alternatives to third-party cookies for those users who do not consent to the use of third-party cookies, as noted in our original post. However, Google continuing to support third-party cookies would allow you to keep using these cookies in Front plugins if you have control over the browser decisions of your users (if all your plugin users belong to your company, for example).

Highway Integration Enhancements: New "spoof warning" workflow and cleaner dynamic object variables If you had configured the Highway dynamic object configuration per our tutorial prior to May 31st, 2024, then the configuration contained errors that could lead to false positives for the fraud use case described in the tutorial. It also did not include the spoof warning property from the Highway API. Our tutorial now reflects the correct setup, and we’ve created a migration guide to make it easier to know exactly what changes to make (limited only to the fraud use case). When you complete the changes, your dynamic objects will look like:  Let us know if there are any questions!

On September 1st 2024, we will be introducing E.164 phone number normalization to the Front API to address issues caused by inconsistent phone number handles attached to contacts. Phone number handles for contacts in Front can be created via the API, the Front contacts manager, incoming messages in channels, CRM contact syncs, and CSV import of contacts. With so many different ways of creating contacts and storing phone numbers for those contacts, it’s important to normalize the data because the different input formats can lead to duplicate contacts and related search issues. To prepare for this change, make sure your API requests (including those made through the Zapier integration) are sending valid phone numbers with the country code included. Country codes must be preceded by a plus (+) sign. Read the “Potential impacts” section below for details.If you experience any issues with phone number normalization, reach out to us and we can roll the feature back for your company instance

Based on recent developments, we’ve updated our original post on handling Chrome’s third-party cookie deprecation to note the following:Google has postponed the deprecation to Q1 2025 (originally Q3 2024) We now also recommend the Storage Access API as a viable solution to handling the deprecation, in addition to CHIPS. More details in the original post. We’ve linked to an example of handling partitioned cookies in Next.js for a Google Sign In authentication flow.

Due to breaking changes in Postman, the Postman collections previously supplied in our Developer Portal can no longer push changes to forks. To obtain the latest Postman collections of our Core API and Channel API, create new forks from the following links:Core API collection Channel API collection These forks should be able to pull changes as expected whenever we update the source collection. Thanks for being part of our Front developer community!

Dynamic objects are now integrated with rules. This means that you can use Front’s powerful rule system to customize when and how dynamic objects apply to your workflows.  IMPORTANTRules have been auto-generated for all existing dynamic object configurations. These auto-generated rules have been named Create dynamic objects. While you are welcome to edit these rules, please note that disabling or deleting these rules will stop the associated dynamic objects from working.   Where to manage dynamic object rulesYou can manage existing dynamic object rules from Settings > Company name / Workspace name > Rules. As noted in the above callout, dynamic objects that you created prior to March 12th, 2024 will have auto-generated rules named Create dynamic objects associated with them, but the rules you create from this point forth will be named whatever you choose to name them. If you create a dynamic object for the first time and no rule has been created before, the “Dynamic object config

You can now sort messages returned by the List conversation messages endpoint by their creation date.The endpoint now includes the query parameters sort_by and sort_order. Set sort_by to created_at, and then specify whether you want the sort_order to return messages as asc (oldest first) or desc (newest first) results.

Important update: Google will continue to support third-party cookies. It is still important to provide alternatives to third-party cookies for those users who do not consent to the use of third-party cookies, as noted in the rest of this article. However, Google continuing to support third-party cookies allows you to continue using these cookies in Front plugins if you have control over the browser decisions of your users (if all your plugin users belong to your company, for example). There is no longer a planned deprecation. The rest of this topic is left for historical context, but please note it is outdated.********************************************************************************************************** In a significant move towards enhancing user privacy, major web browsers are on a trajectory to deprecate support for third-party cookies to limit cross-site tracking. This shift has notable implications for developers of Front custom plugins or third-party integrations tha

We are making a breaking change to the Create a new analytics export endpoint offered by our Core API. The endpoint will now require you to specify the columns that will be present in the export. Previously, the endpoint generated an export that included all available columns. In addition, three columns will be deprecated from the export: Resolution time, Replies to resolve, and Final resolution. You should use Total reply time, Replies to resolution, and Stage resolution time instead. Why are we making these changes?We are making these changes for the following reasons:By explicitly specifying the columns you need in the export, future additions to the available columns will not affect your export. This ensures backwards compatibility as we continue to enrich the Analytics data.  Customers who need a subset of columns in their exports can benefit from faster exports and smaller response sizes. The Resolution time, Replies to resolve, and Final resolution columns are being deprecated b

Between Sunday 2023-01-07 0800 UTC and Sunday 2023-01-07 0900 UTC, customers in our us-west-1 data center region may experience a disruption to the following features:* Full text search* Contacts manager* Autosuggest in the composer including: recipients, tags, inboxes, and teammates* Certain parts of the settings UI including: search, teammates, inboxes, channels, rules, views, tags, time off and shifts* Conversation audit trailThis is due to planned maintenance work required on a core database service.What is the impact?During the window, parts of the app experience will be degraded or unavailable. The display of new messages in search, events in search, and autosuggest resources in search will be delayed.Why are we doing this?One of our core database clusters needs to be restarted during the maintenance window while we perform an important security upgrade. We are doing this type of work during off-hours to minimize disruption to customers.What will the exact experience be for our c

Between Sunday 2023-12-31 0200 UTC and Sunday 2023-12-31 0300 UTC, customers in our eu-west-1 data center region may experience a disruption to the following features:* Full text search* Contacts manager* Autosuggest in the composer including: recipients, tags, inboxes, and teammates* Certain parts of the settings UI including: search, teammates, inboxes, channels, rules, views, tags, time off and shifts* Conversation audit trailThis is due to planned maintenance work required on a core database service.What is the impact?During the window, parts of the app experience will be degraded or unavailable. The display of new messages in search, events in search, and autosuggest resources in search will be delayed.Why are we doing this?One of our core database clusters needs to be restarted during the maintenance window while we perform an important security upgrade. We are doing this type of work during off-hours to minimize disruption to customers.What will the exact experience be for our c

Between Sunday 2023-12-31 0800 UTC and Sunday 2023-12-31 0900 UTC, customers in our us-west-2 data center region may experience a disruption to the following features:* Full text search* Contacts manager* Autosuggest in the composer including: recipients, tags, inboxes, and teammates* Certain parts of the settings UI including: search, teammates, inboxes, channels, rules, views, tags, time off and shifts* Conversation audit trailThis is due to planned maintenance work required on a core database service.What is the impact?During the window, parts of the app experience will be degraded or unavailable. The display of new messages in search, events in search, and autosuggest resources in search will be delayed.Why are we doing this?One of our core database clusters needs to be restarted during the maintenance window while we perform an important security upgrade. We are doing this type of work during off-hours to minimize disruption to customers.What will the exact experience be for devel

We are excited to announce the release of sample code that demonstrates how to augment dynamic objects with information fetched from a server or API. The code also demonstrates how to verify that requests to the server are coming from Front.  We hope this code is useful and results in more powerful dynamic object use cases for customers!

The Fetch an analytics export endpoint now enforces a maximum of 5,120,000 events or messages within a single export. If your export exceeds this number, the API will return a response with the status parameter set to too_big. To address this scenario, reduce the time period of the export and fetch it again.

Between Sunday 2023-11-19 0800 UTC and Sunday 2023-11-19 0900 UTC, customers in our us-west-1 data center region may experience an interruption to loading conversations, loading conversation lists, and reopening conversations from an integration. This is due to planned maintenance work required on a core database service. What is the impact?During the window, the conversations viewing experience will be degraded or unavailable. The display of new messages, counter updates of all workspaces, and some asynchronous conversation mass-actions will be delayed. Developers trying to use the API via integrations may receive a 503 "service unavailable" error in their list conversations responses during the interruption. This should be resolved once the maintenance is complete. Why are we doing this?One of our core database clusters needs to be restarted during the maintenance window while we perform an important security upgrade. We are doing this type of work during off-hours to minimize disrup