Intercom

Step-by-step guide on sending your event data from RudderStack to Intercom.

Intercom is a real-time business messaging platform that lets you bring together and manage all your customer life cycle activities in a single platform.

Find the open source transformer code for this destination in the GitHub repository.

This destination supports Intercom API v1.4..

Getting started

Before configuring Intercom as a destination in RudderStack, verify if the source platform is supported by Intercom by referring to the table below:

Connection mode	Web	Mobile	Server
Device mode	Supported	Supported	-
Cloud mode	Supported	Supported	Supported

To know more about the difference between cloud mode and device mode in RudderStack, refer to the RudderStack Connection Modes guide.

Once you have confirmed that your source platform supports sending events to Intercom, follow these steps:

• From your RudderStack dashboard, add the source. Then, from the list of destinations, select Intercom.

• Assign a name to the destination and click on Next.

Connection settings

To successfully configure Intercom as a destination, you will need to configure the following settings:

• Access Token: Enter your Intercom API access token. You can obtain the token by going to your Intercom dashboard and navigating to Settings > Developers > Developer Hub. Then, select your app and go to Configure > Authentication.

For more information on obtaining the Intercom API access token, refer to the Intercom Knowledge Base.

• App ID: The Intercom app ID is required for sending events via the web and mobile SDKs. You can get this ID from your Intercom dashboard by going to Settings > Installation and selecting the relevant platform.

For more information on obtaining the your Intercom app ID, refer to the Intercom Knowledge Base.

• Android API Key / iOS API Key: This is required for sending events from your mobile apps to Intercom. You can get it from your Intercom dashboard by going to Settings > Installation and selecting the relevant platform.

• Include Context with Identify Calls: Enable this option to send the user context details to Intercom in the identify calls.

• Send AnonymousId as Secondary UserId: Enable this option to send anonymousId as the user ID to Intercom when the userId is absent from the event payload.

This option is helpful for tracking anonymous users on your site. For more information on the scenario where this setting is useful, refer to the FAQ section below.

Adding device mode integration

Depending on your platform of integration, follow the steps below to add Intercom to your project:

Android iOS If this is the first time you are integrating the RudderStack Android SDK to your project, refer to the Android SDK documentation for more information.

Your Android app must be on version 5.0 (API level 21) or higher for RudderStack to be able to send events to Intercom.

Once confirmed, follow these steps to add Intercom to your Android project:

1. In your app-level build.gradle file, add the following repository:

   repositories {
       mavenCentral()
   }

2. Then, add the following under dependencies:

   // Rudder core sdk and intercom extension
   implementation 'com.rudderstack.android.sdk:core:1.0.2'
   implementation 'com.rudderstack.android.integration:intercom:0.1.1'
   
   // intercom core sdk
   implementation 'io.intercom.android:intercom-sdk-base:6.+'
   
   // gson
   implementation 'com.google.code.gson:gson:2.8.6'
   
   // FCM
   implementation 'com.google.firebase:firebase-messaging:20.2.0'

3. Change the initialization of your RudderStack client with the following:

   val rudderClient:RudderClient = RudderClient.getInstance(
       this,
       WRITE_KEY,
       RudderConfig.Builder()
           .withDataPlaneUrl(DATA_PLANE_URL)
           .withLogLevel(RudderLogger.RudderLogLevel.DEBUG) // optional
           .withFactory(IntercomIntegrationFactory.FACTORY)
           .build()
   )

If this is the first time you are integrating the RudderStack iOS SDK to your project, refer to the iOS SDK documentation for more information.

To add the RudderStack iOS SDK to your project, follow these steps:

1. Add the required pod followed by pod install:

   pod 'Rudder-Intercom'

2. Initialize the client as follows:

   RSConfigBuilder *builder = [[RSConfigBuilder alloc] init];
   [builder withDataPlaneUrl:DATA_PLANE_URL];
   [builder withFactory:[RudderIntercomFactory instance]];
   [builder withLoglevel:RSLogLevelDebug]; // optional
   [RSClient getInstance:WRITE_KEY config:[builder build]];

3. Add a Privacy - Photo Library Usage Description entry to your Info.plist. This is required by Apple for applications that can access the photo library.

   Users will be prompted for the permission to access the photo library only when they tap the button to upload their images.

Identify

The identify call captures the details about a visiting user.

A sampleidentify call looks like the following code snippet:

rudderanalytics.identify("1hKOmRA4GRlm", {
  name: "Alex Keener",
  email: "[e-mail]",
  company: {
    id: "group01",
    name: "Tech Group",
  },
  createdAt: "Mon May 19 2019 18:34:24 GMT+0000 (UTC)",
})

Using identify calls

You can use the identify call to create or update user information in Intercom, as explained below:

• Create/update a user: When you make anidentify call, RudderStack creates or updates the user in Intercom using their Users API.

• Remove users from a company: To remove users from a company, you can pass remove: true inside the company object, as shown:

rudderanalytics.identify("1hKOmRA4GRlm", {
  name: "Alex Keener",
  email: "[e-mail]",
  company: {
    id: "group01",
    name: "Tech Group",
    remove: true
  },
  createdAt: "Mon May 19 2019 18:34:24 GMT+0000 (UTC)",
})

• Unsubscribe users: To unsubscribe users from emails, you can pass unsubscribedFromEmails: true inside the context object, as shown:

rudderanalytics.identify("1hKOmRA4GRlm", {
  name: "Alex Keener",
  email: "[e-mail]",
  company: {
    id: "group01",
    name: "Tech Group",
  },
  unsubscribedFromEmails: true,
  createdAt: "Mon May 19 2019 18:34:24 GMT+0000 (UTC)",
})

RudderStack does not support Intercom's Last Seen feature currently.

Traits mapping

The following table lists the mapping of the RudderStack traits to the Intercom properties:

RudderStack trait	Intercom iOS property	Intercom Android property
traits.userId	user_id	user_id
traits.email	email	email
traits.name	name	name
traits.phone	phone	phone
traits.company	company	company
traits.createdAt	signedUpAt	signed_up_at

Collecting identify context

If you enable the Include Context with Identify Calls option in the RudderStack dashboard, RudderStack collects the following contextual properties through its mobile libraries (if available):

• device.type

• device.model

• device.manufacturer

• os.name

• os.version

• app.name

• app.version

Track

The track call lets you record the customer events, that is, the actions they perform, along with any properties associated with them.

A sample track call is shown below:

rudderanalytics.track("Order Completed", {
  order_id: "140021222",
  checkout_id: "WAP3211",
  products: "sports_shoes"
  revenue: 77.95,
  currency: "USD",
})

RudderStack converts and sends all the track event properties as per the Intercom API.

Page

The page call lets you record your website's page views with any additional relevant information about the viewed page.

The page call is supported only for the JavaScript SDK when sending events via the device mode. It works by triggering Intercom's update method, which looks for a list of new open conversations to be displayed to the current user.

A sample page call looks like the following code snippet:

rudderanalytics.page("Best Seller")

Reset

The reset method resets the previously identified user and any related information.

Android iOS To reset user identification in your Android app, run the following command:

rudderClient.reset();

To reset user identification in your iOS app, run the following command:

[[RSClient sharedInstance] reset];

FAQ

Does RudderStack support Intercom's push notification and deep linking features?

Unfortunately, none of the RudderStack SDKs support push notifications and deep linking features currently. Refer to the Intercom documentation for more information on configuring these features for your project.

What happens if both userId or email are missing in the identify / track calls sent to Intercom?

For both identify and track calls, either userId or email is a mandatory field. In case both these fields are missing, RudderStack will drop the event.

It is highly recommended to enable the Send AnonymousId as Secondary UserId setting in your RudderStack dashboard to avoid any event loss in such a scenario.

Contact us

For queries on any of the sections covered in this guide, you can contact us or start a conversation in our Slack community.