How to shorten a URL

During the course of a flow, you may need to send a lengthy URL to a customer - whether it be a link to their order, a shipping label, or generated document. This is fine if your messaging steptype supports rich text with hyperlinks, but what if it's a chat steptype that only supports plain text? That's where URL shortener steptypes come in. With these steptypes and their supporting integrations, you can shorten and even brand any URL. 

Bitly

Bitly is one of the most popular URL shortenings services, but also one of the most basic. If you or your customers won't mind your links appearing as bit.ly/random-slash-tag-here, use the Bitly Shorten a URL steptype. If you want more control over the shortened URL, use the Rebrandly steptype instead (see below).

Title

The title appears up top in Sidekick when your team reaches this step in the flow. We recommend keeping it simple and using this field to explain that this step is shortening the provided URL.

Enter URL - Run Automatically?

Check this box if you want to pass through a long URL using a FlowEQ variable and immediately shorten with Bitly when your team reaches this step in the flow. When this box is checked, your team will not be given the chance to enter the long URL manually.

Group

If Groups have been configured in the Bitly account you used to set up the integration with FlowEQ, you can specify which group a newly shortened URL should belong to. When you select a group, you will also be presented with four checkbox options:

• Hide Selection Field
  • Check this box to hide the Group dropdown entirely in Sidekick.
•  Hide?
  • Check this box if you want to hide a single group from the dropdown in Sidekick
• Show?
  • Check this box if you want to show the group name in Sidekick.
• Default?
  • Check this box to set the default group as it will appear in Sidekick.

URL to Shorten

Use this field to pass through the long URL to be shortened. You can leave this field blank for your team to copy/paste into in Sidekick, or use the ➕ button to pull in a URL variable from other systems you have connected with FlowEQ.

Hide field in Sidekick?

Check this box to stop the URL to Shorten field from appearing in Sidekick. If you check this box, you'll need to fill out this field in Flow Builder for this steptype to work properly.

Rebrandly

While Rebrandly is less well-known than Bitly, it offers more features. You can buy domains at Rebrandly.com and use them to create your own branded short URLs and even set the slashtag (the part of the URL that appears after the last forward slash sign) automatically.

If you want to give your customers a branded experience or slash tag customized just for them, use the Rebrandly Create New Link steptype.

Title

The title appears up top in Sidekick when your team reaches this step in the flow. We recommend using this field to explain what the steptype is shortening. For example "Shortening Shipping Label URL..."

Rebrand URL - Run Automatically?

Check this box to immediately shorten the given URL when your team reaches this step in the flow. You will need to fully configure the URL shortening here in Flow Builder, since your team won't have the chance to copy/paste their own URL if this box is checked.

Select Domain

Select which domain you want to use for the shortened URL. You can always use rebrand.ly by default, but any other domains you have set up at Rebrandly.com will appear here too.

• Hide Selection Field
  • Check this box if you don't want to present your domain names for your team to select in Sidekick.

Destination URL

Enter the URL to be shortened here. You can present this field for your team to copy/paste into in Sidekick, or you can use the ➕ button to pull in a URL using a variable from any of your FlowEQ-connected systems.

• Hide Field in Sidekick?
  • Check this box if you don't want to give your team a chance to enter or copy/paste a URL to be shortened in Sidekick. If this box is checked, you'll need to fill in this field in Flow Builder.

Slash Tag

Enter the value that will appear after the forward-slash in the newly shortened URL.

Since all URLs need to be unique, this value should also be unique. The best way to do this is to pull in a variable that is unique to the customer, case, or ticket.

For example: Let's say your customer, John, has contacted you in Zendesk ticket 12345 and you want to give him a shortened URL to his return shipping label.

Since John is a common name, you'll need to add another detail to ensure the shortened URL is always unique. John's ticket ID (12345) is great for this since it's unlikely that two customers will have both the same name and ticket ID.

In this case, to create this shortened URL...

rebrand.ly/ReturnLabelForJohn-12345

... you'll want to use the ➕ button to build out the Slash Tag using these variables.

ReturnLabelFor<%= verifiedCustomerFirstName %>-<%= zendesk_ticketId %>

• Hide Field in Sidekick?
  • Check this box if you don't want to give your team a chance to enter their own slashtag in Sidekick.