Understanding Links

Links work in a similar way to tags in Front, making it easy to group conversations together under a common topic. Links are designed to connect conversations to items in external systems, such as feature requests, bugs, loans, shipments, itineraries, etc.

Each Link has both a name and an external URL that points to the item in the external system. For example, a conversation about a particular order might have a Link with the name “ORD-1234” and URL “https://example.com/ORD-1234”.

• Once a Link is added to a conversation, any user who has access to the conversation in Front will see it attached similar to a tag. Users can also click on the Link to easily open the associated URL, or see all the conversations that share the same Link.

• Users can search for conversations associated with a Link using the search bar. Clicking the Link suggestion is the quickest way to access all conversations related to that Link. This applies to the following Links recognized by a Front application:

  • Link integrations like Jira, Asana, Github, Trello

  • Application objects (using the search filter "object")

  • Limitations: Users cannot search for Links added through the Tags > Link menu, and not recognized by an application. e.g. Searching for a URL from other external systems.

• Every Link also has a unique Front-specific URL (e.g. https://app.frontapp.com/open/top_123) that allows users to see all the conversations in Front that have the same Link attached. You can store this Front-specific URL in your external system to provide easy access to all related conversations in Front.

• Links are also unique across an entire Front instance — only one Link can exist for a particular URL, unlike tags which can be duplicated with the same name across multiple workspaces.

Where tags are great for classifying or categorizing conversations, Links are better for connecting conversations in Front to items in your CRM, project management, or tracking systems. Once a Link is attached to a conversation, there are three key benefits:

1. It’s easy for agents to see what orders/tasks/shipments/etc. are relevant to a particular conversation, and they can access the external item in your system simply by clicking on the Link in Front. You can also attach multiple Links to the same conversations, so agents can see all of the orders/tasks/shipments/etc. related to the same conversation.

2. It’s easy for agents to see all of the conversations related to the same Link, either by clicking the View conversations option from the Link dropdown, or using the Front-specific URL, e.g., “https://app.frontapp.com/open/top_123”. You can store this URL in your external system to make it easy to navigate to Front to see all related conversations.

3. Links establish a connection between conversations in Front and your external system, so changes to the linked item can trigger updates in Front. For example, if a conversation is linked to an order ORD-1234, a change in the status of that order could trigger the conversation in Front to reopen or reassign.

• For project management, attaching feature requests or bug reports to conversations, so that when the feature or bug is resolved the conversation in Front can reopen.

• For logistics, attaching shipment IDs from a TMS to their related conversations in Front, so agents can easily check the status of a shipment and see all shipments related to a customer.

• For e-commerce, attaching order IDs to related conversations in Front, so agents can understand the current status of an order or more easily process returns and refunds.

• For travel and hospitality, attaching itineraries or maintenance work orders to customer inquiries, so agents can keep more easily keep customers in the loop about changes or updates.

• For financial services, attaching loan applications or customer profiles so agents have the full context of the customers they are working with.

Front supports direct Link integrations with Jira, Asana, Trello, and Github. Any Front admin can install these integrations, at which point it’s easy to attach new links through the Tags dropdown. For other external systems, click the Link option. Links can be created in three primary ways: 

Step 1

Like Tags, Links are created from the Tags menu:

Clicking Link will prompt you to enter a URL to associate this conversation with.

Step 2

Once you click Add, the Link will appear in the conversation tag list along with any other tags on the conversation.

If there are other Link integrations you’d like to see supported in Front, feel free to let us know via our Ideas Portal.

Using application objects, you can transform URLs or strings found in comments or messages into structured Orders, Shipments, Itineraries, Tasks etc. that are easy to access right from a conversation in Front.

Using our API or Zapier integration, you can create Links for any external system that you might be using and attach or remove them from conversations. You can also fetch all of the conversations related to a particular Link or automatically update conversations when the status of a Link changes in another system. Most integrations take less than a week of developer time to build.

Our developer documentation has in-depth guides for building Links integrations, whether you're just looking to build something for your own team or want to publish an integration for all Front customers.