Read Freshdesk data in SSIS – REST API Call

Introduction

In this post we will learn how to read Freshdesk data in SSIS using ZappySys JSON / REST API Source. We will see how to authenticate, paginate / parse and load Freshdesk data into SQL Server Table in just few clicks. If you don’t use Freshdesk and considering using Zendesk instead then check our previous post on how to Read Zendesk data in SSIS.

Freshdesk is a cloud based / managed service like Zendesk to for Support / Customer service.

Getting Started

So let’s get started. We will see step by step instructions to configure Freshdesk API connection, setup JSON Source to read data from Freshdesk and finally load data into SQL Server table. We will use List Tickets API in this article for demo purpose but read other useful information on that page if you are new to REST API.

Setup Freshdesk REST API Connection

Very first step to call any Freshdesk API in SSIS is to configure HTTP connection (Basic Authentication – Using UserID/ Password).

1. Open Visual Studio (i.e. SSDT) to create new SSIS Package
2. From Control Flow SSIS Toolbox drag REST API task
3. Select URL From HTTP Connection Option from Drop down
4. Click New HTTP Connection
5. Configure HTTP connection like below.
6. Enter any Valid URL (This will be ignored if you Override URL on REST API Task)
7. Select Basic Authentication (Use User ID and Password)
   

   Configure Freshdesk REST API Connection in SSIS – Basic Authentication (User ID / Password)

8. Click OK to close HTTP Connection
9. On Main UI of REST API Task, check Use Direct URL and enter below URL (Change YourDomain Part)
   https://{your-domain}.freshdesk.com/api/v2/tickets
10. Click Test Request / Response. If you see OK status then you have successfully called Freshdesk API. That’s all.
    

    Calling Freshdesk REST API in SSIS ( Read Tickets example)

In the section we will see how to Parse REST API response and load data into SQL Table.

Read Freshdesk data in SSIS

Now let’s look at steps to configure SSIS JSON Source to read from Freshdesk REST API.

1. Drag Data Flow task from toolbox. Double click to go to Data Flow designer
2. Drag ZS JSON Source (For File / REST API)
3. Configure JSON Source like below.
4. Check Use Connection option and select HTTP connection created in the previous section.
5. Enter API URL from which you like to read data. In out example we want to read tickets created after 2019-01-01 so we will call API like below. You can skip ?updated_since=2019-01-01 if you like to read all tickets.
   
   https://{your-domain}.freshdesk.com/api/v2/tickets?updated_since=2019-01-01

   1	https://{your-domain}.freshdesk.com/api/v2/tickets?updated_since=2019-01-01

6. You can also Use Variable Placeholder in URL to make things dynamic like below
   
   https://{your-domain}.freshdesk.com/api/v2/tickets?updated_since={{User::MyDateVar,yyyy-MM-dd}}

   1	https://{your-domain}.freshdesk.com/api/v2/tickets?updated_since={{User::MyDateVar,yyyy-MM-dd}}

7. Click Preview to see sample data.
   

   Read Freshdesk data in SSIS – Fetch Tickets example (With REST API pagination)

8. Configure Pagination like below. Basically you have to select Pagination Mode = URL Parameter Mode. Enter Page num indicator as  page
   

   Configure REST API pagination (URL Parameter Mode)

9. Thats it. Now click OK to save UI.

Load Freshdesk data into SQL Server Table

Conclusion

In this article we saw how easy it is to read data from any REST API service like Freshdesk REST API and load into Relational DB like SQL Server. Try SSIS PowerPack for FREE and explore many other 70+ Tasks /Components not discussed in this article.