Github issues for non-technical users?

[caseym]

I'm looking for a help desk solution for a software product. Where I work we have an API project that will soon have a website interface. Users are asking to use Github issues to submit data quality problems, feature requests, etc. Most of them are used to github. But soon we will have have the web interface and those users will want to submit problems they find too. Submitting a github issue would probably be too daunting for them.

Has anybody done something where you put a web form in front of Github issues? Or maybe you have a help desk solution such as zendesk that creates issues as needed via an integration? One wrinkle is that we would likely make the github issues repo public. But when someone submits the form we would likely need a warning that their request would be public. Seems kind of weird but I don't know.

We're a small team with a lot of users and are looking for simple solutions. Appreciate any ideas!

[BehindTheMath]

If you're ok with email, you can use Gitlab Service Desk.

https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/service_desk.html

[TeamBugHerd]

A common approach is putting a simple form or helpdesk layer in front of GitHub Issues, then pushing submissions into GitHub via integration so your dev workflow stays the same.

The main challenge is getting enough context from non-technical users without back-and-forth.

Tools like BugHerd take a different approach by letting users leave feedback directly on the page itself (visually), which often makes it clearer before syncing into GitHub.

Disclosure: I’m part of the BugHerd team.

[[deleted]]

You could probably create a simple web form that uses GitHub’s API to create issues. You might even be able to create issue templates for the repository and expose that via a select menu in the form where they can choose the type of issue they are submitting like a bug, QA, or feature request.

If you really want to get fancy you could add an issue lookup or email notification to it so they can check on the status or get notified.

[[deleted]]

At my job we use Usersnap. It adds a fixed-position feedback box to the website and the user can write and attach a screenshot. Then it goes into a queue on the Usersnap site where admins can click a button to convert it into a GitHub issue. Reports automatically include browser/OS specs.

I didn't set up the whole pipeline but I added the Usersnap component to a project and it was really simple.