Understanding the Support SDK

Understanding the Support SDK

Overview

If your organization uses Zendesk Support or Zendesk Guide for customer service, you can use the Support SDK for Android to embed the same customer service in an Android app.

The SDK provides the following activities for embedding customer service features in an app:

• HelpCenterActivity - Lets the user access articles in your Zendesk Guide knowledge base and, optionally, submit a ticket. See Adding your help center

• ViewArticleActivity - Lets the user view a specific help center article.

• RequestActivity - Lets the user submit, view, and update tickets to your customer service team. See Adding a ticket form

• RequestListActivity - Lets the user view a list of their tickets. See Adding a ticket list

The activities have their own user interface that you can customize for branding purposes. If using a Material Design theme, the SDK will inherit your primary colour, dark primary colour, and accent colour. This level of customization is suitable for most use cases. Example:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.MaterialComponents.Light.DarkActionBar">
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/my_color_primary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/my_color_primary_dark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/my_color_accent</item>

</style>

If the included UI doesn't meet the product requirements, you can build your own. The SDK includes API providers to connect a custom UI to Zendesk functionality. For example, the game Nibblers by Rovio uses a custom UI and the API providers:

Dipping a toe

• In a hurry? See Using the SDK in a nutshell

• Browse this guide.

• Ask questions in the Zendesk SDKs community.

• Have a look at our sample apps on Github.

• See the Support SDK Javadocs on Github.

Diving in

Ok, your organization has decided to use the Support SDK to embed customer service in your Android app.

1. Before you start, meet with product managers, the customer service team, and the mobile team to decide how to integrate the SDK in the app. Use the Zendesk SDK integration checklist for guidance.

2. After deciding how to integrate, make sure one of your Zendesk Support administrators has registered your app and turned on SDK features in the Support account.

   See Registering the application in Zendesk Support in Zendesk help.

   Make sure the features you want to use are covered in your Zendesk plan. See the breakdown of features and limitations per plan.

3. Add the Support SDK to your Android project (Required).

4. Initializing the Support SDK (Required).

5. Set a user identity for the SDK (Required).
   The SDK uses the identity to access your Zendesk Support account as a user.

6. Initialize the Support SDK in your app.

7. Add a customer service feature:

   • Adding your help center
   • Displaying a specific knowledge base article
   • Adding a ticket screen
   • Adding a ticket list
   • Notifying the user of a ticket update

8. Customize the look and feel of the feature.

   See Customize the look.

9. (Optional) Build your own UI in Android and then use the SDK's API providers to connect your UI to Zendesk functionality.

   See API providers.

Common terms

• Anonymous - One of two identity types supported by the Support SDK. (The other is JWT.) An anonymous user can be a user with no information associated with them, or a user with some identifying information such as a name and email. See Setting an identity.

• API providers - A group of APIs included with the SDK that lets you build your own support features. See API providers.

• Contact us, Contact Zendesk - Submit a ticket.

• Help center - A self-service platform by Zendesk Guide consisting of a knowledge base and an online community. The SDK lets users access the knowledge base. Learn more on the product page.

• Request - A request by an end user for support. The term is interchangeable with "ticket". The request is handled by your customer service team using Zendesk Support. Learn more on the product page.

• Ticket - Same as a support request.

SDK fact sheet

Supported languages

The Support SDK supports 33 languages. For the full list, see Language codes for Zendesk supported languages in Zendesk help.

The SDK has full support for RTL (right-to-left) languages.

Accessibility

The Support SDK is fully accessible, with support for TalkBack and Switch Access.

Programming language

The Support SDK is written in Java. It does not include a dependency on Kotlin.

Android API compatibility

The current version of the Support SDK is compatible with Android API level 21 and higher.

Dependencies

As the support module contains our UI code, and the support-providers module doesn't, the support module has a larger list of dependencies.

Note: Please remember that using a higher version of one of the following dependency in your app may result in our Mobile SDKs not working as intended as the most recent version will be picked by Gradle. If you are using any of those dependencies, they should at least be in the same major as the version we are using.

'support'

+--- project :support-providers
+--- project :guide
+--- org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib-jdk8:1.6.10
+--- com.google.dagger:dagger-android:2.42
+--- androidx.multidex:multidex:2.0.0
+--- androidx.legacy:legacy-support-v4:1.0.0
+--- androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.2.0
+--- androidx.recyclerview:recyclerview:1.1.0
+--- com.google.android.material:material:1.4.0
+--- androidx.cardview:cardview:1.0.0
+--- com.jakewharton:disklrucache:2.0.2
+--- com.squareup.picasso:picasso:2.8
+--- com.zendesk.belvedere2:belvedere:3.0.5
\--- com.google.code.gson:gson:2.8.9

'support-providers'

+--- project :guide-providers
+--- org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib-jdk8:1.6.10
+--- com.google.dagger:dagger:2.42
+--- androidx.annotation:annotation:1.3.0
+--- com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.9.0
\--- com.google.code.gson:gson:2.8.9

Footprint

The footprint is smaller if your app and the Support SDK share libraries.

Dependencies like support contain UI elements and have a bigger footprint than the -providers.

You can reduce the footprint with ProGuard.

Method count

The executable bytecode of Android apps is contained in Dalvik Executable (DEX) files. The Dalvik Executable specification limits the total number of methods that can be referenced within a single DEX file to 65,536. As your app grows, you could exceed this limit and start getting build errors.

The totals are calculated using the dexcount-gradle-plugin tool on a Zendesk sample application that hasn't been optimized with ProGuard.

Total methods in support-debug.aar: 3446 (5.26% used) Total fields in support-debug.aar: 1609 (2.46% used) Total classes in support-debug.aar: 774 (1.18% used) Methods remaining in support-debug.aar: 62089 Fields remaining in support-debug.aar: 63926 Classes remaining in support-debug.aar: 64761

The method count is much lower if you're only using the API providers:

Total methods in support-providers-debug.aar: 857 (1.31% used) Total fields in support-providers-debug.aar: 471 (0.72% used) Total classes in support-providers-debug.aar: 206 (0.31% used) Methods remaining in support-providers-debug.aar: 64678 Fields remaining in support-providers-debug.aar: 65064 Classes remaining in support-providers-debug.aar: 65329

For ways to avoid the 65K limit, see Enable Multidex for Apps with Over 64K Methods on the Android developer site.

The following is a breakdown of the method count with dependencies, for an empty app module (no classes) with a dependency on support:

293      android
26       android.animation
6        android.app
30       android.content
3        android.content.pm
8        android.content.res
34       android.graphics
9        android.graphics.drawable
1        android.graphics.drawable.shapes
3        android.net
20       android.os
13       android.renderscript
33       android.text
2        android.text.format
1        android.text.method
7        android.text.style
1        android.text.util
3        android.util
56       android.view
5        android.view.animation
2        android.view.inputmethod
69       android.widget
107      androidx
31       androidx.appcompat
22       androidx.appcompat.app
9        androidx.appcompat.widget
4        androidx.cardview
4        androidx.cardview.widget
1        androidx.coordinatorlayout
1        androidx.coordinatorlayout.widget
11       androidx.core
3        androidx.core.app
2        androidx.core.content
2        androidx.core.graphics
2        androidx.core.graphics.drawable
2        androidx.core.util
2        androidx.core.view
1        androidx.core.view.animation
5        androidx.fragment
5        androidx.fragment.app
2        androidx.interpolator
2        androidx.interpolator.view
2        androidx.interpolator.view.animation
44       androidx.recyclerview
44       androidx.recyclerview.widget
4        androidx.swiperefreshlayout
4        androidx.swiperefreshlayout.widget
5        androidx.transition
87       com
29       com.google
22       com.google.android
22       com.google.android.material
3        com.google.android.material.appbar
4        com.google.android.material.bottomsheet
3        com.google.android.material.floatingactionbutton
7        com.google.android.material.snackbar
5        com.google.android.material.textfield
7        com.google.gson
1        com.google.gson.reflect
7        com.jakewharton
7        com.jakewharton.disklrucache
19       com.squareup
19       com.squareup.picasso
32       com.zendesk
5        com.zendesk.logger
2        com.zendesk.sdk
11       com.zendesk.service
14       com.zendesk.util
5        dagger
5        dagger.internal
175      java
12       java.io
60       java.lang
0        java.lang.annotation
2        java.text
101      java.util
11       java.util.concurrent
8        java.util.concurrent.atomic
2        java.util.logging
2        java.util.regex
1        javax
1        javax.inject
12       okhttp3
8        okio
13       org
13       org.xmlpull
13       org.xmlpull.v1
2745     zendesk
32       zendesk.belvedere
9        zendesk.configurations
31       zendesk.core
35       zendesk.messaging
13       zendesk.messaging.components
8        zendesk.messaging.components.bot
2638     zendesk.support
1613     zendesk.support.request
333      zendesk.support.requestlist
173      zendesk.support.suas

The following is a breakdown of the method count with dependencies, for an empty app module (no classes) with a dependency on support-providers:

13       android
2        android.app
11       android.content
0        android.os
25       com
25       com.zendesk
5        com.zendesk.logger
2        com.zendesk.sdk
2        com.zendesk.sdk.providers
6        com.zendesk.service
12       com.zendesk.util
4        dagger
4        dagger.internal
73       java
5        java.io
32       java.lang
0        java.lang.annotation
4        java.text
32       java.util
1        java.util.concurrent
1        javax
1        javax.inject
2        okhttp3
1        retrofit2
738      zendesk
32       zendesk.core
706      zendesk.support