Analyze Zendesk Data in R via JDBC

Access Zendesk data with pure R script and standard SQL on any machine where R and Java can be installed. You can use the CData JDBC Driver for Zendesk and the RJDBC package to work with remote Zendesk data in R. By using the CData Driver, you are leveraging a driver written for industry-proven standards to access your data in the popular, open-source R language. This article shows how to use the driver to execute SQL queries to Zendesk and visualize Zendesk data by calling standard R functions.

Install R

You can match the driver's performance gains from multi-threading and managed code by running the multithreaded Microsoft R Open or by running open R linked with the BLAS/LAPACK libraries. This article uses Microsoft R Open 3.2.3, which is preconfigured to install packages from the Jan. 1, 2016 snapshot of the CRAN repository. This snapshot ensures reproducibility.

Load the RJDBC Package

To use the driver, download the RJDBC package. After installing the RJDBC package, the following line loads the package:

library(RJDBC)

Connect to Zendesk as a JDBC Data Source

You will need the following information to connect to Zendesk as a JDBC data source:

• Driver Class: Set this to cdata.jdbc.zendesk.ZendeskDriver
• Classpath: Set this to the location of the driver JAR. By default this is the lib subfolder of the installation folder.

The DBI functions, such as dbConnect and dbSendQuery, provide a unified interface for writing data access code in R. Use the following line to initialize a DBI driver that can make JDBC requests to the CData JDBC Driver for Zendesk:

driver <- JDBC(driverClass = "cdata.jdbc.zendesk.ZendeskDriver", classPath = "MyInstallationDir\lib\cdata.jdbc.zendesk.jar", identifier.quote = "'") 

You can now use DBI functions to connect to Zendesk and execute SQL queries. Initialize the JDBC connection with the dbConnect function.

Connecting to Zendesk

To connect, set the URL and provide authentication. The URL is your Zendesk Support URL: https://{subdomain}.zendesk.com.

Authenticating to Zendesk

You can authenticate using the Basic or OAuth methods.

Using Basic Authentication

To use Basic authentication, specify your email address and password or your email address and an API token. Set User to your email address and follow the steps below to provide the Password or ApiToken.

• Enable password access in the Zendesk Support admin interface at Admin > Channels > API.
• Manage API tokens in the Zendesk Support Admin interface at Admin > Channels > API. More than one token can be active at the same time. Deleting a token deactivates it permanently.

Using OAuth Authentication

See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for an authentication guide.

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Zendesk JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

java -jar cdata.jdbc.zendesk.jar

Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)

Below is a sample dbConnect call, including a typical JDBC connection string:

conn <- dbConnect(driver,"jdbc:zendesk:URL=https://subdomain.zendesk.com;[email protected];Password=test123;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;")

Schema Discovery

The driver models Zendesk APIs as relational tables, views, and stored procedures. Use the following line to retrieve the list of tables:

dbListTables(conn)

Execute SQL Queries

You can use the dbGetQuery function to execute any SQL query supported by the Zendesk API:

tickets <- dbGetQuery(conn,"SELECT Id, Subject FROM Tickets")

You can view the results in a data viewer window with the following command:

View(tickets)

Plot Zendesk Data

You can now analyze Zendesk data with any of the data visualization packages available in the CRAN repository. You can create simple bar plots with the built-in bar plot function:

par(las=2,ps=10,mar=c(5,15,4,2))
barplot(tickets$Subject, main="Zendesk Tickets", names.arg = tickets$Id, horiz=TRUE)

👁 A basic bar plot. (Salesforce is shown.)