DevelopersIntegrationsHelp Scout

Help Scout

Help Scout is the one support-tool connector with a real, working integration today — a customer-context sidebar inside Help Scout’s own inbox — rather than just credential storage. Other support connectors in the marketplace (Zendesk, Intercom, Gorgias) can be installed for basic credential storage but don’t have this sidebar feature yet.

What the store owner configures

From Integrations → Help Scout in the admin:

  • Sidebar secret (required) — from Help Scout: Manage → Apps → Custom Apps → the sidebar app → Secret Key.
  • Mailbox API OAuth client ID / secret (optional, both or neither) — only needed if the store wants to post notes back into a Help Scout conversation from Orchard, not just read customer context.

What a support agent sees

Once configured, the store owner points a Help Scout Custom App’s sidebar URL at:

https://admin.theorchard.dev/api/v1/integrations/helpscout/customer-sidebar?tenant_slug=<slug>

Help Scout calls this (HMAC-signed with the sidebar secret) whenever an agent opens a conversation from a known customer email, and Orchard returns their order history and context:

{
  "found": true,
  "context": {
    "email": "shopper@example.com",
    "full_name": "Jamie Rivera",
    "lifetime_value_cents": 24800,
    "order_count": 3,
    "recent_orders": [
      { "order_number": "ORD-0042", "status": "paid", "total_cents": 8600, "tracking_number": "..." }
    ],
    "open_returns": [],
    "admin_customer_url": "https://admin.theorchard.dev/admin/commerce/customers/..."
  }
}

This is read-only at the sidebar layer — it surfaces context for the agent, it doesn’t let them take action on the order from inside Help Scout. Two fields are reserved but not populated yet: subscription_status always reads null and tags always reads [].

What’s not built yet

Don’t rely on these — they’re either stubbed or not wired to a real trigger surface today:

  • Triggering a refund, return, or profile update, or resending a tracking email, from inside a Help Scout conversation.
  • Subscription status or customer tags in the sidebar payload.
  • The sidebar-context feature for any other support connector (Zendesk, Intercom) — only Help Scout has it.
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