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LINQ to Zendesk Data


LINQ offers versatile querying capabilities within the .NET Framework (v3.0+), offering a straightforward method for programmatic data access through CData ADO.NET Data Providers. In this article, we demonstrate the use of LINQ to retrieve information from the Zendesk Data Provider.

This article illustrates using LINQ to access tables within the Zendesk via the CData ADO.NET Data Provider for Zendesk. To achieve this, we will use LINQ to Entity Framework, which facilitates the generation of connections and can be seamlessly employed with any CData ADO.NET Data Providers to access data through LINQ.

See the help documentation for a guide to setting up an EF 6 project to use the provider.

  1. In a new project in Visual Studio, right-click on the project and choose to add a new item. Add an ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
  2. Choose EF Designer from Database and click Next.
  3. Add a new Data Connection, and change your data source type to "CData Zendesk Data Source".

  4. Enter your data source connection information.

    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.

    Below is a typical connection string:

    URL=https://subdomain.zendesk.com;[email protected];Password=test123;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH
  5. If saving your entity connection to App.Config, set an entity name. In this example we are setting ZendeskEntities as our entity connection in App.Config.
  6. Enter a model name and select any tables or views you would like to include in the model.

Using the entity you created, you can now perform select , update, delete, and insert commands. For example:

ZendeskEntities context = new ZendeskEntities(); var ticketsQuery = from tickets in context.Tickets select tickets; foreach (var result in ticketsQuery) { Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} ", result.Id, result.Id); }

See "LINQ and Entity Framework" chapter in the help documentation for example queries of the supported LINQ.

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