Magento is a popular eCommerce platform allowing you to create an online store and sell products. 

Connecting your Magento account will allow your messages, orders, and order information to flow directly into eDesk. 

All messages will continue to be delivered to your Magento account and it will also update when you send messages from eDesk.

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Before you start

• You’ll need an Admin login to eDesk. If you don’t have an Admin login, you can request one from an Admin user within your business.

• You'll need a Magento account. To find out how to create one, click here.
• You’ll need to be familiar with Composer and using a command-line interface, e.g., Terminal, or find somebody that is!

Note: This guide outlines the Version 2.4 extension. If you are looking for instructions to set up Version 2 API, click here.
 

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01 How do I connect Magento 2.4 in eDesk?

Connecting Magento 2.4 requires the following:

1. You’ll need to login as an Admin and install the Magento app in your business’ eDesk account.  
2. You’ll use Composer to install the eDesk extension (also referred to as a module) in your business’ Magento account.
    

We’ll take you through this process, step by step.

02 Installing the Magento app in eDesk

1. Go to the App Store and select the Magento tile. 
   
2. The App Store page for Magento provides an Overview of how the channel works with eDesk, and an Installed Channels tab will also be shown if you already have an app for a Magento store installed.  Select Install App to go ahead and install a new Magento store.
   
3. Select Connect eDesk to open the channel wizard.
4. Under Magento 2, select the use extension (most popular) radio button, and select Next.
   
   Note: If you're not sure which version of Magento you use for your store, click here.
5. Keep this channel wizard page open in eDesk, and open a new browser tab to set up the extension in your Magento account. We’ll return to the eDesk page shortly.

03 Installing the eDesk extension in Magento

We’ll assume that you are familiar with using a command-line interface and Composer. You’ll use Composer to install the eDesk extension.

Note: If you’re using Composer for the first time, you’ll need your authentication keys. See instructions under Getting your authentication keys below.  

1. In the new browser tab, login to the Magento Marketplace and place an order for the eDesk extension.
   
   In the Edition field, select Open Source (CE).
   In the Your Store Version field, select 2.4 Open Source (CE).
   
   Note: If 2.4 Open Source (CE) is not available in the menu, then select 2.3 Open Source (CE).
   
   Once you have completed the purchase, the extension will be available for you to install.
    
2. To install the extension, open a command-line interface and run the following command in your Magento directory:
   
   composer require xsellco/edesk
   
   If prompted to login, your username is your Magento public authentication key, and password is your Magento private authentication key. See instructions under Getting your authentication keys below.
   
   Wait for Composer to finish updating your project dependencies and make sure there aren’t any errors.
    
3. Set up the module by running the following commands:
    

   php bin/magento setup:upgrade
   php bin/magento cache:flush
   php bin/magento cache:clean

4. If you run Magento in production mode, you must also compile and deploy the module’s static files:
   
   php bin/magento setup:di:compile

   php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy

You have now installed the eDesk extension in your Magento account. The next steps are to configure it with the API token from eDesk.

Getting your authentication keys
Note: You’ll only need to follow these instructions if you haven’t already saved your authentication keys in ~/.composer/auth.json

1. Log in to the Commerce Marketplace.
2. Click your account name in the top-right of the page and select My Profile.
3. Click Access Keys in the Marketplace tab.

The keys are listed on screen. Copy the keys now, or keep the page open so that you can copy the keys when you need to.

Pro Tip: If you haven’t already created authentication keys for eDesk in Magento, then click Create a New Access Key. Enter a specific name for the keys ( e.g., eDesk access) and click OK.

Installing Composer
If you don’t have Composer installed, follow these installation instructions.
If you have to enter your username and password during installation, use your public Magento authentication key as username and private Magento authentication key as password.
If you see the error Invalid Credentials, update the keys by editing ~/.composer/auth.json or delete the file and run the composer command again.

04 Configuring the Extension

1. Login to your Magento store.
2. Go to System→ Configuration.
3. Once on the new menu, select Sales→ eDesk.
4. Enter the admin email of your eDesk account and click Save. 
5. Paste in your API token. You can copy it from the eDesk channel wizard page that we left open in section 01 of this article. Click Save.
6. Return to the channel wizard page in eDesk and click I have completed these steps.
7. Continue in the channel wizard, by moving to the next step and selecting the store that you want to connect to eDesk.

03 Mail Forwarding 

Now that you’ve connected, you just need to set up mail forwarding in your email Inbox settings to forward the Magento messages to eDesk. To find out more about this, click here.

04 Where do I see data from Magento in eDesk?

Now that you successfully connected your Magento webstore, we will import data directly into your eDesk account.

You will be able to see all your buyer messages on the Mailbox screen:

You will see the Magento data related to each ticket on the right-hand side of every single ticket:

And you also will be able to consult all your Magento orders directly on the Orders screen in eDesk:

Further Readings

If you would like to find out more about connecting Shopify with eDesk, click here.

If you're interested in learning more about connecting BigCommerce with eDesk, click here.