How to Integrate Retool with Freshdesk

In Freshdesk, click your profile picture or avatar in the top-right corner. Select Profile Settings from the dropdown menu. On the Profile Settings page, scroll down to the bottom-right section. You'll see a field labeled Your API Key with a masked value and a clipboard/copy button. Click to copy your API key. Freshdesk API keys are account-specific to each agent — they provide API access with the same permissions as that agent's Freshdesk role. For a Retool integration shared across your team, use the API key from an admin account so the integration has access to all tickets, all agents, and all Freshdesk settings. Your Freshdesk subdomain is visible in your browser URL when logged in: it's the part before .freshdesk.com. For example, if you access Freshdesk at https://acme.freshdesk.com, your subdomain is 'acme'. This subdomain goes into your Retool resource's base URL. Note: Freshdesk's Basic Auth scheme is unique — the API key serves as the username, and the password can be any value (the convention is to use 'X'). Freshdesk ignores the password field when an API key is provided as the username.

In Retool, navigate to the Resources tab and click Add Resource. Select REST API from the connector list. Name: Freshdesk API Base URL: https://YOUR_SUBDOMAIN.freshdesk.com/api/v2 Replace YOUR_SUBDOMAIN with your actual Freshdesk subdomain. Include /api/v2 in the base URL. Authentication: Select Basic Auth. In the Username field, enter your Freshdesk API key. In the Password field, enter X (the literal letter X — this is Freshdesk's documented Basic Auth convention when using API keys). For better security, store the API key in Configuration Variables first: Settings → Configuration Variables → create FRESHDESK_API_KEY → mark as secret. Then use {{ retoolContext.configVars.FRESHDESK_API_KEY }} as the Username field value. Add a Content-Type header: Key: Content-Type, Value: application/json. Click Create Resource. Test immediately with GET /agents/me — this should return your agent profile if the authentication is working. If you get 401, the API key or auth format is incorrect.

Create a getTickets query. Set method to GET and path to /tickets. Freshdesk's ticket list endpoint supports filtering via query parameters: - filter: open (predefined filters — also: 'resolved', 'spam', 'watching') - order_by: created_at (also: updated_at, status, priority, due_by) - order_type: desc - page: {{ pagination.offset / 30 + 1 }} (Freshdesk paginates at 30 tickets per page) - include: description,requester,stats The include parameter is crucial — by default Freshdesk returns minimal ticket data. Adding requester gives you the customer's name and email. Adding stats gives first_responded_at and resolved_at timestamps for SLA calculations. For more complex filtering (by agent, group, tag, or date range), use the Freshdesk search API: GET /search/tickets?query=\"status:2 AND priority:3\" (Freshdesk uses numeric values: status 2=open, 3=pending, 4=resolved; priority 1=low, 2=medium, 3=high, 4=urgent). Create a transformer to calculate SLA status for each ticket. Freshdesk provides due_by (response due date) and fr_due_by (first response due) fields.

1// Transformer for Freshdesk tickets with SLA status
2const tickets = data || [];
3const now = new Date();
4
5const STATUS_MAP = { 2: 'Open', 3: 'Pending', 4: 'Resolved', 5: 'Closed' };
6const PRIORITY_MAP = { 1: 'Low', 2: 'Medium', 3: 'High', 4: 'Urgent' };
7
8function getSLAStatus(due_by) {
9  if (!due_by) return 'No SLA';
10  const due = new Date(due_by);
11  const diffMs = due - now;
12  if (diffMs < 0) return 'Breached';
13  if (diffMs < 3600000) return 'At Risk'; // within 1 hour
14  return 'Compliant';
15}
16
17return tickets.map(ticket => ({
18  id: ticket.id,
19  subject: ticket.subject,
20  status: STATUS_MAP[ticket.status] || ticket.status,
21  priority: PRIORITY_MAP[ticket.priority] || ticket.priority,
22  requester_name: ticket.requester?.name || 'Unknown',
23  requester_email: ticket.requester?.email || '',
24  agent_id: ticket.responder_id,
25  group_id: ticket.group_id,
26  created_at: new Date(ticket.created_at).toLocaleDateString(),
27  due_by: ticket.due_by ? new Date(ticket.due_by).toLocaleString() : 'None',
28  sla_status: getSLAStatus(ticket.due_by),
29  tags: (ticket.tags || []).join(', '),
30  fr_escalated: ticket.fr_escalated || false,
31  url: `https://YOUR_SUBDOMAIN.freshdesk.com/helpdesk/tickets/${ticket.id}`
32}));

To enable ticket reassignment and filtering, fetch agents and groups. Create a getAgents query: GET /agents with page: 1 and per_page: 100. The response is an array of agent objects with id, contact.name, contact.email, and role_ids. Create a getGroups query: GET /groups. Response includes id, name, and description. Groups in Freshdesk are used to organize agents by product, skill, or geography. Set both queries to run on page load (they're reference data that changes rarely). Bind them to Select components for your ticket filtering and assignment forms: - A Group dropdown (select_group) for filtering tickets by team - An Agent dropdown (select_agent) for filtering and reassigning For the ticket reassignment feature, create an updateTicket query: PATCH /tickets/{{ table1.selectedRow.data.id }} with body: { "responder_id": {{ select_agent.value }}, "group_id": {{ select_group.value }} } Set this to manual trigger and add an Assign button that fires it. On success, refresh getTickets to update the Table. Add a cache of 5 minutes to the getAgents and getGroups queries — these lists rarely change and caching them avoids redundant API calls every time the dashboard loads.

1// Transformer for agents dropdown
2const agents = data || [];
3return agents.map(agent => ({
4  label: agent.contact?.name || agent.contact?.email || `Agent ${agent.id}`,
5  value: agent.id,
6  email: agent.contact?.email || '',
7  role: agent.role_ids?.[0] || '',
8  ticket_scope: agent.ticket_scope // 1=Global, 2=Group, 3=Restricted
9}));

Build out the ticket detail and action panel. When a user clicks a ticket row in the Table, show a detail Container on the right with: - Ticket subject and description (fetched from GET /tickets/{{ table1.selectedRow.data.id }}?include=description to get the full description text) - Status and Priority Select dropdowns pre-populated from the selected row - Agent and Group dropdowns - A TextArea for adding an internal note or public reply Create three action queries: 1. updateTicketStatus: PATCH /tickets/{{ table1.selectedRow.data.id }} Body: { "status": {{ select_status.value }}, "priority": {{ select_priority.value }} } 2. addInternalNote: POST /tickets/{{ table1.selectedRow.data.id }}/notes Body: { "body": "{{ textArea_note.value }}", "private": true, "user_id": {{ retoolContext.currentUser.id || 1 }} } 3. addPublicReply: POST /tickets/{{ table1.selectedRow.data.id }}/reply Body: { "body": "{{ textArea_reply.value }}" } For canned responses, fetch them with GET /canned_responses and display them in a dropdown. When a canned response is selected, populate the reply TextArea with its content using a component state setter event handler.

1// updateTicketStatus request body
2{
3  "status": {{ select_newStatus.value }},
4  "priority": {{ select_newPriority.value }},
5  "responder_id": {{ select_newAgent.value || 'null' }},
6  "group_id": {{ select_newGroup.value || 'null' }},
7  "tags": {{ JSON.stringify((textInput_tags.value || '').split(',').map(t => t.trim()).filter(Boolean)) }}
8}

Create a dedicated SLA monitoring tab in your Retool app. For SLA data, Freshdesk provides ticket-level SLA fields: fr_due_by (first response due), due_by (resolution due), fr_escalated (first response escalated), and stats.reopened_at. For the SLA overview, use summary Stat components: - Breached: {{ getTickets.data.filter(t => t.sla_status === 'Breached').length }} (red background) - At Risk: {{ getTickets.data.filter(t => t.sla_status === 'At Risk').length }} (yellow background) - Compliant: {{ getTickets.data.filter(t => t.sla_status === 'Compliant').length }} (green background) For the SLA breach trend chart, you'd need to query Freshdesk's Reporting API (available on Pro+ plans) or pull historical ticket data and compute breach rates yourself. For historical performance, create a query that fetches tickets resolved in the last 30 days: GET /search/tickets?query=\"status:4 AND resolved_at:>{{ new Date(Date.now() - 30*24*60*60*1000).toISOString().split('T')[0] }}\" Compute resolution time by subtracting created_at from stats.resolved_at for each ticket. Display average resolution time by agent, group, and priority in a bar chart. For teams building comprehensive customer support analytics combining Freshdesk with your internal database, RapidDev's team can help architect the multi-resource Retool solution.

1// Compute SLA metrics from ticket data
2const tickets = getTickets.data || [];
3const now = new Date();
4
5const breached = tickets.filter(t => t.sla_status === 'Breached');
6const atRisk = tickets.filter(t => t.sla_status === 'At Risk');
7const compliant = tickets.filter(t => t.sla_status === 'Compliant');
8
9// Average resolution time in hours (for resolved tickets with stats)
10const resolvedTickets = tickets.filter(t => t.stats?.resolved_at && t.created_at);
11const avgResolutionHours = resolvedTickets.length > 0
12  ? resolvedTickets.reduce((sum, t) => {
13      const created = new Date(t.created_at);
14      const resolved = new Date(t.stats.resolved_at);
15      return sum + (resolved - created) / 3600000;
16    }, 0) / resolvedTickets.length
17  : 0;
18
19return {
20  breached_count: breached.length,
21  at_risk_count: atRisk.length,
22  compliant_count: compliant.length,
23  sla_compliance_rate: tickets.length > 0
24    ? ((compliant.length / tickets.length) * 100).toFixed(1) + '%' : 'N/A',
25  avg_resolution_hours: avgResolutionHours.toFixed(1)
26};