Consuming the JSON API end point using .NET

osTicket has an HTTP based API end point that can accept JSON payloads (apart from the other end point that accepts XML). This page gives an idea of how to file new tickets using .NET (in a language independent manner) into your osTicket instance. The information given here is based off of https://colab.interlegis.leg.br/browser/osTicket-1.7/setup/doc/api/tickets.md.

The JSON Structure

The file below represents an example payload that can be sent to the API.

{
    "name": "Angry User",
    "email": "api@osticket.com",
    "phone": "3185558634X123",
    "subject": "Testing API",
    "ip": "123.211.233.122",
    "message": "MESSAGE HERE",
    "topicId": "1",
    "attachments": [
        {"image.png": "data:image/png;base64,R0lGODdhMAA..."},
    ]
}

Libraries Needed

You will not need much in order to encode the JSON payload and send it to the osTicket API end point. In fact you will need to use the .NET base class libraries (namely mscorlib.dll and System.dll) together with the JSON.NET library. The latter can be obtained by downloading the Newtonsoft.Json package from NuGet.org using your favourite NuGet client.

Steps Needed

The following steps highlight the method required for encoding and sending a ticket to the JSON API end point.

• Import the System, System.Net, Newtonsoft.Json and System.Collections.Generic namespaces
• Make a Dictionary<string, object> instance, and name it ```payload``
• Use the Add method on the payload dictionary to add key value pairs for all the attributes in the desired JSON. Leave out the attachments key value pair for now.
• Make a new Dictionary<string,string> instance named atts.
• Add key value pairs to atts with the key being the file name and the value being a data URL string with the file. (A data URL string would be produced by putting the file mime type and the file's Base64 encoding into the following template: data:{{mime}};base64,{{base64}}.
• Add the entry with attachments being the key and a Dictionary<string,string> array having atts as its only element as the value to the payload dictionary.
• Now to send it, make a WebClient instance named client.
• Add the following headers to the client.Headers collection using its Add method:
  • "X-API-Key", "YOUR API KEY HERE"
  • "Expect", string.Empty
  • "User-Agent", "My osTicket Client"
• Next, encode the payload using JSON.NET by calling JsonConvert.SerializeObject(payload) and putting the result in a new string`` variable named json```.
• Finally send the request using client.Upload("http://yourdomain.tld/api/http.php/tickets.json", "POST", json).