If you're using Freshdesk for customer support and want to give those same customers access to your Sleekplan feedback website without requiring separate logins, this guide is for you! We'll show you how to create an automated SSO workflow with zero coding required using n8n (a no-code automation platform) that passes authenticated users from Freshdesk directly to Sleekplan.
Who Is This For❓
This setup is particularly valuable for companies who use Freshdesk as their support platform and that meet similar characteristics as below:
🎯B2B Software Companies - Where customers receive support credentials after purchase and feedback access is part of the service package
🎯Hardware/IoT Manufacturers - Who want verified product owners to suggest features through their existing support portal
🎯Professional Service Firms - That maintain client-only websites and need integrated feedback collection
🎯Educational Platforms - Where enrolled students access both support and feature requests through one login
🔑The key requirement: You already authenticate users through Freshdesk and want to extend that authentication to Sleekplan with no coding required.
ℹ️Prerequisites
Before we begin, make sure you have:
Step 1: Configure Sleekplan for SSO
First thing is to setup SSO in your Sleekplan admin dashboard . Whether you choose to make your feedback webpage private with SSO or public with SSO required , make sure to enable the SSO toggle from Settings > Privacy :
Go to Settings > Developer and copy the SSO secret key used to sign the tokens and needed when configuring the automation workflow.
Step 2: Create Your n8n Workflow
Now we'll build the automation workflow that creates and signs JWT tokens:
2.1 Set Up the Webhook
In n8n, create a new workflow
2. Add a Webhook node. This node is going to receive the HTTP calls from Freshdesk when users click on the Feedback link embedded in your Freshdesk Customer Portal :
ℹ️ For the Webhook settings:
-Select GET as the HTTP method
-Establish the path for your Webhook URL
- Select the Respond to Webhook node from the Respond options
2.2 Add JWT Signing
In your n8n workspace editor, add a JWT node and connect it to your webhook. Choose JWT Signing as the type of JWT node.
The Credential to connect with section in your JWT node is where you need to enter the secret SSO key obtained from the Sleekplan Admin dashboard (mentioned in Step 1). This is the key that is going to be used to sign the tokens.
ℹ️ For the Credential to connect with section :
-Select Passphrase as the Key Type
-Paste the secret key obtained from Sleekplan
-Choose HS256 as the signing algorithm
3. Turn on the Use JSON to Build Payload toggle and define the key-value pairs that are going to be sent to Sleekplan in the SSO token.
🚩 Sleekplan requires an email address to uniquely identify the user. This value must be present in the token. Here are some other values you can include in the token plus you can also define any custom SSO metadata.
The idea behind this is to send the authenticated user data from Freshdesk as query parameters in the HTTP call to the webhook. The automation n8n platform stores the query parameters as variables which then you can use as placeholders in the JSON payload :
👆 One of the fields in the JSON payload above must be "mail" or "email".
2.3 Add the Redirect to your Sleekplan feedback webpage
1. Add a Respond to Webhook node to your workflow in n8n.
2. In the Respond to Webhook node configuration settings select :
Redirect in the Respond with options
Enter the redirect URL , which is going to be your Sleekplan's feedback board URL + sso as a query parameter . See the image below as a reference:
ℹ️ When specifying the Redirect URL , you can drag and drop the token variable from the input section, as shown in the image. If the token variable does not show up, execute the previous nodes so that the Input section gets populated.
🏁 Your n8n workflow should be ready now with 3 nodes on it 🏁
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Step 3: Add the Feedback Link to Freshdesk
We'll use Freshdesk's Liquid placeholders to pass user data to the Customer Portal embedded link :
Go to your Freshdesk account and navigate to Admin > Channels>Portals> Edit> Appearance> Edit Theme
Go to the Pages section > Portal Home or to the page editor in which you wish to embed your Feddback portal link . Add an HTML block for it and include your webhook URL :
ℹ️ You can capture the Freshdesk user data by using the Insert placeholder option (highlighted in yellow). These are the Freshdesk user values that are going to be passed as query parameters to the Webhook.
Users navigating your Freshdesk Customer portal can now click on your embedded link and get redirected straight to your feedback webpage already authenticated.
