Developer Q&A

‘A future update to Front's OAuth implementation will allow you to specify the permissions scopes that you need’I need scope in OAuth token to get private resourcesCan you confirm how to add scope for private in OAuth

Hello, I need to write a script that will download attachments (specifically Excel spreadsheets) from Front shared inboxes. I have the API key/ InboxID however AI isn’t much help on the actual process of it. If anyone could point me to some resources I would appreciate it, thank you.

Hello everyone,We are planning to create custom fields for both contacts and dynamic objects and import data through API to get the most up to date data in Front. So far so good. Now we were wondering if it’s possible to send data back as well. So let's say a certain custom field is manually adjusted/updated in Front, is there a way to send that updated data back? We had hoped to use the webhooks for that but it seems like the events for webhooks do not include events for that purpose.Also, I believe that until a few weeks ago there was the possibility to use webhooks in rules? I don't see that option anymore. Can anyone confirm or am I mixing things up?

I recently got an error calling the `messages` api but the error was truncated. Is there a place I can see the full error? [2024-05-27 22:35:20] production.ERROR: HTTP request returned status code 400:{"_error":{"status":400,"title":"Bad request","message":"Body did not satisfy requirements","details":["body.to: should (truncated...) {"exception":"[object] (Illuminate\\Http\\Client\\RequestException(code: 400): HTTP request returned status code 400:{\"_error\":{\"status\":400,\"title\":\"Bad request\",\"message\":\"Body did not satisfy requirements\",\"details\":[\"body.to: should (truncated...) 

Hi all,I can’t see, inside the API Reference, a way to list messages based on specific criteria such as from/to adresses, dates, or even a Conversation IDIt seems Events could be used for this intent but I can’t find a way to filter the events I list based on the type = message (seems type can’t be used as query filter ‘q’)…Is there any way you can think of to identify whether or not, a message has been received:Within 24hours From a specific email address Containing a specific keyword inside the subject or body oThanks you so much for your help guys !Cheers,Sacha

Hi all,I’m building an API integration that requires data from the “quotes” in comments. I’m not sure if that’s the right Front technical term for them. The visual objects in comments that are created when you highlight text in a message and click “comment”. This:I need to be able access the text of the quote (e.g. “We’ll pass...”), and get a reference to the message the quote is from and it’s sender (e.g. “Su ____”, and their email, etc.). I’ve looked pretty extensively at what’s included in the response to the "Get comment" endpoint, and what’s linked to from there, as well as perusing the other API endpoints. As far as I can tell, these “quotes” are not represented in the API at all. Even the `body` of the comment obje

Hi there, Is it possible to get a list of contacts by a custom field value? I’ve got a scenario where I need to apply some updates to contacts based on an account number, which we stamp on the contacts as a custom field. In our internal systems we have no idea which contacts in Front are linked with which account numbers as our internal systems allow a contact to exist against multiple accounts/branches, in Front however the contacts are stamped with a single account number, which users can edit in Front.

Good Morning all, I have been developing performance metrics based off the analytics exports for activity, and have encountered a use case I wish to accommodate. I want to know the amount of time between a snooze expiring and action being taken on a case. the activity dataset currently holds when a snooze was initiated, but as neither the expiry date/time or length of snooze. Is data on snooze expiry/length stored elsewhere? I’d appreciate any assistance on this, Chris.

I’m new to front and new to apis so forgive me if this is simple but any help would be greatly appreciated. We use an ITSM tool called Autotask and I’m trying to create dynamic variables in front that recognise autotask ticket numbers (T20240518.1010) and then using the autotask API pull through details about the ticket. I’ve got the connection to autotask working.The difficulty I’m facing is trying to get the target URL to work. It’s thishttps://ww16.autotask.net/Mvc/ServiceDesk/TicketDetail.mvc?workspace=False&mode=0&TicketID=TICKETIDUnfortunaltey TICKETID isn’t the ticket number mentioned above, it’s a separate 6 digit number.So….I’m creating a dynamic variable that uses the autotask API to get the ticket ID when inputting the ticke

Hi.I’m trying to embed an app with react-router as a sidebar plugin, but navigation doesn’t work because of iframe’s sandbox prop (absent allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation?).Is there any way to edit sandbox prop? Thank you in advance.  

Hi there! I’ve been tasked with pulling data from a few different inboxes starting from a certain time.I’m trying to use the `q[after]` parameter, but it doesn’t seem to work- it just gets ignored completely. My request is as follows: /inboxes/<inboxid>/conversations?after=1715382074&limit=10&q[after]=1715382074&q[types][]=assigned&q[types][]=unassigned&q[types][]=archived&q[types][]=deleted&sort_by=date&sort_order=ascWhich, more legibly, looks like this:/inboxes/<inboxid>/conversations{ after: 1715382074, limit: 10, sort_by: date, sort_order: asc, q: { after: 1715382074, types: [assigned, unassigned, archived, deleted] },}As you see, the `after` parameter is included in both the top level params and nested under the `q` param. We’ve tried both ways and they are bot

Hi! I am trying to re-create metrics for our own reporting in Tableau but I have a hard time with new and archived conversations. I went through the documentation, and timezone differences are excluded as an error too.New conversations: (https://help.front.com/en/articles/2310)I set new_conversation attribute to true (I assume it’s a flag) and excluded conversations without message_idI still get less than in the front overview reportArchived conversation: https://help.front.com/en/articles/2396For this, I couldn’t find a flag, so I wrote a query in Snowflake. If the last ‘type’ is archived or snoozed, then I counted the conversation ID.max_message_date =

Hi, I’ve built a front sidebar plugin a couple of years ago and I was using the auth_secret to authenticate the users from front to my app, before I was doing something like:export function getInstallationInformation(callback) { callback = once(callback); Front.contextUpdates.subscribe(context => { callback({authSecret: context.preferences.authSecret}); });}Now I’m refactoring the plugin, and I noticed that in the docs it says that the auth_secret is going to be sent in the URL.Does front still support the the context.preferences ?Thank you!

I’m attempting to sync messages by consuming the `events` api. However, what I’m noticing is that in some cases, there is no event for a given inbound message. Is this expected behaviour? For example, here is an events call I’m making:https://myorg.api.frontapp.com/events?q[after]=1706030839&q[types]=message_bounce_error&q[types]=inbound&q[types]=outbound&q[types]=out_reply&q[types]=sending_error&q[types]=forward While there are many inbound message events, I do not get all of them. For example, if I use the conversations/{id}/message endpoint with some conversation IDs, I can see messages received shortly after

how to Change tags name 

I have a question regarding how the frontChatChannel cookie is associated with previous session. Let me describe the weird behavior of Front’s chat bot on our website. See the steps described below. I navigate our webapp’s /login url as a logged out user, then locate frontChatChannel cookie and remove it for the domain.  I assume since there’s now no cookie/token, there’s also no association with prior user session, so the Front chat bot won’t recognize my user’s identity.  Now, I click the chat’s icon, and observe that there are some options to pick from before getting to the text input.  I clicked “Login & Access” option, and saw “How can we help” question with a text area. Observe that no email is being asked.  My message was received via Slack notification and Frontapp as well, and I’ve got this auto-generated name: Salmon BoaCan we change this anywhere so the generated names for anonymous users aren’

Hello,When using the Core API to create a new conversation and signature has dynamic variables such as {{user.name}}, it appears that it does not populate with the user name and just sends exactly that text {{user.name}}Is this a bug?If yes do you have some time line then it will be fixed?

I understand that the external ID can be set when creating an account, but I need to update the external ID after the account has been created. The documentation does not mention how to update an external ID. I attempted to patch the update using 'external_id', but this approach was unsuccessful. One possible workaround is to automate the process of deleting the account and recreating it with the correct external ID, although I would prefer to avoid this method.     

How can I get the tag id for a tag if I only know the tag name?Other than list all the tags with the API https://dev.frontapp.com/reference/list-tags and then search the tag name one by one, if there is any other way to do this?

Hi! I'm currently working on a use case within my company where we need to list conversations of a specific recipient, sorted by creation date. While the Search conversations endpoint seems promising and returns the created_at field, the conversations aren't sorted accordingly. Is there a way to sort conversations by created_at field in Search conversations endpoint? I'm unable to use the List conversations endpoint due to the need to filter conversations by recipient. Any insights or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you in advance!

I’m trying to receive incoming messages over a custom channel. I created the custom channel in my Front instance and copied the channel id from the Incoming API Endpoint. In order to test, I added the necessary values on the API docs page and gave it a try:➜  ~ curl --request POST \     --url https://api2.frontapp.com/channels/cha_g65ng/incoming_messages \     --header 'accept: application/json' \     --header 'authorization: Bearer XXXXX' \     --header 'content-type: application/json' \     --data '{  "subject": "Sample Subject",  "body": "Sample Body"}'{"_error":{"status":400,"title":"Bad request","message":"Body did not satisfy requirements","details":["body.sender: missing"]}}I tried a couple of modifications hoping to back into a solution, but still the same general error:➜  ~ curl --request POST \     --url https://api2.frontapp.com/channels/cha_g65ng/incoming_messages

Hi there!I’m looking for a smart way how to catch-up again with customers later - if they would love to.We frequently get request from customers e.g. where they can buy our products (if out of stock).Out team replies that the given product is currently out of stock but will be available again soon.We would love to give the customer the choice:"If you would like to be notified as soon as the product is available, click this LINK."Kind of RSVP. If the customer clicks the link, Front should somehow add a dedicated TAG to the conversation (or put the customer contact to a list or anything else). Our goal is that we can easily find, follow up and inform those customers later. I can imagine of a lot of similar scenarios for this: feature requests, keep-me-posted on delays, RSVP, etc.How can this be solved best?ThanksPaul

Hi,I have organized my call/voicemail logs into the custom channel and it is showing as expected. i want to associate those logs in respective contacts too. is there a way to organize custom channel message to the contacts object ? 

I’m trying to use this Open API json file to generate Java client code to call Front’s API. I’m using maven and the openapi-generator-maven-plugin version 6.2.1.The first time I tried to do this, it failed with this message:-attribute components.schemas.KnowledgeBaseArticleResponse.items is missingI fixed this by adding"items": { "type": "string"},to line 2590.Then I tried again. It failed because the Java code is not valid. There's errors in a number of files, like EventResponseSourceData. Has anyone had success g

With the current sandboxing rules if you have a link that opens in a new window (which is allowed) using `target=”_blank”` the window opens but it is restricted to the same sandbox as the original iFrame. Adding `allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox` should allow that new window to break out of the sandbox. This is useful because once you are out of the sidebar iframe allowing confirm and alert pop ups no longer has the risk that they will be confused with popups from the container page. Allowing these as well as downloading etc on the new page would be useful in a number of cases. I understand that you should be able to use the SDK and the `openUrl` function that should function similarly, but depending on the application and use case updating the `target` on urls could be simpler solution. I can add this to the ideas board as well, but this seems like more of a bug or oversight since the sandbox already includes `allow-popups`.