What I’m Trying to Accomplish
I want to automatically add users to Helpjuice when a tag gets applied to a contact in Keap. I’m using Zapier to handle this automation by calling the Helpjuice API.
My Setup Process
API Authentication: I created an API token in Helpjuice, converted it to Base64 format, and added it to my request headers.
Request Data: This is the JSON payload I’m submitting:
{
"user": {
"first_name": "john",
"last_name": "smith",
"email": "[email protected]",
"role_id": 0,
"group_ids": [12345]
}
}
Request Headers: I’m using Basic Authentication with my Base64 API token and setting Content-Type as application/json.
Helpjuice Configuration
- API functionality is enabled in my account settings
- My user account has full administrator rights
- I verified that group ID 12345 exists in my setup
The Problem
Every time I test this in Zapier, I get this response:
HTTP 403 Forbidden
API Response: {“exception”:“Not allowed.”}
I tried the same request in Postman and got identical results. The endpoint I’m hitting is POST /api/v3/users for user creation.
Has anyone successfully integrated Helpjuice user creation with Zapier? What might be causing this permission issue?
Your issue is probably the user object structure. I hit this same error when automating user creation through their API. It wasn’t authentication - it was how Helpjuice validates user data. Set a valid role_id instead of 0, and check if the email domain is whitelisted in your settings (if you’ve got domain restrictions on). Also check if you’ve hit any user limits - Helpjuice throws 403 errors for quota violations too. One more thing - make sure your API token has the right permissions scope. Admin accounts sometimes create tokens that don’t get full API privileges by default.
Had the same issue with Helpjuice API automation. Your Base64 encoding’s probably wrong. I kept getting 403s because I was only encoding the API token itself. You need to encode “api_token:X” where X is your actual token - not just the token alone. Also check your API endpoint URL. Wrong subdomain or version path will break auth even with a valid token. Test with a simple GET request first to make sure auth works before trying to create users.
check your endpoint URL - you using the right subdomain? I got 403s bcuz I was hitting api.helpjuice.com instead of my-account.helpjuice.com/api/v3/users. also try removing group_ids completely first to see if that’s what’s breaking it.
Everyone’s getting caught up in API token permissions and formatting, but there’s an easier way. Zapier’s just finicky with API authentication - especially custom headers and Base64 encoding.
I’ve been down this road before. Zapier’s webhook action sucks at handling authentication edge cases, and you’ll waste hours debugging token formats.
I switched to Latenode for these API integrations. Way better error handling for auth issues, and it actually shows you what’s breaking in the request. You can test the Helpjuice API call step by step instead of dealing with Zapier’s black box nonsense.
Latenode’s authentication is way more transparent. You see the actual headers being sent and can tweak them live. Had a similar 403 issue with another API - immediately spotted that the Authorization header was formatted wrong.
Your Keap to Helpjuice user creation flow would be much easier to debug there. Real logging and proper API response handling when things go sideways.
Check it out: https://latenode.com
Check if your Helpjuice account has IP restrictions turned on. I hit this same 403 error because my API calls were getting blocked by IP whitelist settings I’d forgotten about. Even with perfect auth and valid tokens, requests fail if your server IP isn’t whitelisted. This happens a lot with Zapier since their webhook IPs change all the time. Go into your Helpjuice admin panel and find the IP restriction settings - they’re usually under security or API config. Try turning off IP restrictions temporarily to see if that fixes the 403. Also check for rate limiting rules that might be causing it - sometimes it’s request frequency, not auth issues.
Check your API token permissions in the Helpjuice admin panel. I hit the same 403 error and found that even with admin access, the API token needs specific permissions. Go to Settings > API and make sure your token has user creation privileges checked. Also verify the group_ids array format - some APIs want a comma-separated string, not an array. Test with an empty group_ids array first to see if it’s a permission issue or group assignment formatting problem.
had this issue too - turning out role_id: 0 was the issue for me. use an actual role ID instead of 0. also check if your api token has user management permissions enabled. good luck!