If activated, agents, light agents, and admins can create side conversations on open or closed tickets. When someone replies to a side conversation on a closed or archived ticket, triggers won’t be run on it even if they include side conversation conditions, but afollow-up ticketis automatically created (seeUnderstanding follow-up tickets for side conversations).
Any time someone creates a side conversation, a notification appears in the Zendesk Support interface for 60 seconds.
Related articles:
Creating email side conversations
If activated, agents and light agents can create email side conversations. Email side conversations can be sent to up to 100 recipients, with a maximum of 48 of those recipients being non-agents. You can add recipients to email side conversations with theTofield or you can CC or BCC recipients.
| Agent Workspace | Standard agent interface |
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To create an email side conversation
- In a ticket, open thecontext paneland click theSide conversations(
) icon, then click the plus sign (+).If you don’t have theAgent Workspace, in a ticket click theSide Conversationsplus sign (+) in the upper-left.
- SelectEmail.
If you have an email signature set up, it automatically appears in the message. You can remove your signature by clicking theOptions menu(
) and selectingRemove signature. To learn more about signatures, seeAdding an agent signature.
- Enter the recipients, a subject, your message, and add attachments. You have these options:
- For agents (and light agents) that are already in the system, type their name. When you see the person you are looking for, click their name. Address autocomplete for agents and light agents include a badge to show they are agents.
- For everyone else, enter their email address. You only have to type or paste the full email address once. The next time you initiate a side conversion with that person, the address will autocomplete. Users you add by emailautomatically become end usersin your account, if they aren't there already.
- An email address highlighted in red has incorrect formatting and needs to be corrected.
- You can also CC or BCC agents and end users. ClickCCon the right side of the comment header and the CC recipient field and the option to BCC users appears. SeeAdding CCs and BCCs in email side conversations.
Note:BCC recipients are not visible to other recipients on the email, but are visible to anyone who can view the side conversation within Support. - When you add attachments, you can select a file from your computer or include one or more attachments that already exist in the ticket. Click the attachment icon (
) and selectFrom computerorFrom ticket.
Note:You can add attachments directly from the ticket in most cases. Some attachments, such as attachments via WhatsApp tickets, can’t be attached to a side conversation from a ticket. If an attachment can't be added directly from a ticket, then you can download the attachment and add it by selectingFrom computer.
- For agents (and light agents) that are already in the system, type their name. When you see the person you are looking for, click their name. Address autocomplete for agents and light agents include a badge to show they are agents.
- ClickSend.
All of the recipients on the side conversation receive an email notification with your message. This doesn’t automatically include the assignee of the ticket or the creator of the side conversation. SeeRecommendations about side conversations.
Adding ticket comments to a side conversation
- Using Slack. SeeUsing Slack in side conversations
- By creating a child ticket. SeeUsing side conversation child tickets
You cannot include call recordings when you add ticket comments to a side conversation. Call recordings aren't supported in side conversations.
To forward a ticket comment
- On a ticket, locate the comment you want to include, then selectForward via emailfrom the options menu.
A side conversation appears with the ticket title and comment already included, ready for you to add introductory text and include a forwarding address. You can start a side conversation from any comment in the ticket.
To include multiple comments
- Start a side conversation. You can start the conversation from an individual ticket comment or from the main side conversation interface in the ticket.
- Click the comments icon (
) at the bottom of the message.
A page appears with a list of ticket comments to include.
- Select the comments you want to include. You can select each comment separately, or selectTicket commentsto include all comments.
- ClickAdd.
Creating macros that generate side conversations
When the side conversation feature is enabled, macro actions are added that allow you to create side conversations in a ticket. There's a macro action for each side conversation channel options you have. For example:
- Side conversation via email
- Side conversation via Slack
- Side conversation via child ticket
Email side conversations can be sent to one or more email addresses. When you create a side conversation macro for Slack, you chose a Slack channel to send the message to. For child ticket side conversations, you select a group to assign to the macro-generated side conversation child ticket.
For more information, seeUsing macros to start side conversations.
12 Comments
Hi!
This link is broken:Recommendations about side conversations.
Maria
Hi again.
I found it but you have to fix it in this article:
Recommendations about side conversations
Maria
Thanks for letting us know, Maria. We'll get that fixed ASAP!
Thanks, Maria. The link should be fixed now.
Why won't a side coversation email send?
Is there an attachment file size limit to sending the side conversation email? We use this feature often, but one email has not worked recently, and the only thing we can see different to the others is that it has large files. 3 files, with a combined size of ~62MB.. No error message is received. It is being sent to only 2 people, who have both successfully received side conversation emails in the past.
Email and web form attachment limits are as follows:
所有邮件附件的总不能超过10 MB. When these limits are exceeded, Support will attempt to process the attachment as a linked attachment instead.
If you try to attach a file that is larger than 50 MB, an error message will display and inform you that the file is too large. The attachment will be dropped, meaning it will not be attached to the ticket (as either an email or linked attachment).
For more information about attachment types, seeAbout email attachments.
Thanks,Christine. As I understand in the two examples, the email will still go through; however, if they are too large, the attachments will not.
The issue I'm experiencing is the email (from Side Conversation) looks like its sends, and I can see it in the ticket body, but the recipients do not receive the email at all.
I created a ticket on your behalf, and continue to assist you from there. Kindly check your email for updates. Thanks!
We have created a trigger & macro that initiates a side conversation for email however, in the To field we are populating it with a placeholder to the organization area.
ie.
{{ticket.organzation.custom_fields.xxxxxx}}
However, this is not expanding. If we use any ticket.ticket ticket.assignee type placeholders those do expand. Nothing in the custom org fields are retrievable, is this a limitation or not support thing we can use for email side converations.
你可以通过使用正确的placehol工作der.
If it is for the email address for an example, you can use ticket.organization.custom_fields.
Please, notice that you should not referencing it by ID, instead you need to use the field_key to get the To field populated.
For a drop down field type, you can useticket.organization.custom_fields.
More details about it on the following article:
Zendesk Support placeholders reference
I hope that helps.
Hi Afabio,
Yes, I was able to ascertain that the user fields and org fields in placeholders use different id values. We've resolved that issue now.
Finding: Email based side conversations do not apply the same logic with attachments as normal tickets do. There is incorrect information above in this discussion.
If you attach a large file to side conversation, for example 40MB, it would be sent as normal email attachment, not link. Now depending on the receiving email service, you may or may not receive a rejection email due too large size of the email.
Therefore it might look like your message was not sent, as receiver does not get it, and you do not get rejection back, but message was sent, just not delivered.
I reviewed a couple of cases we experienced with Zendesk support, and they verified, that is the case with large attachments. It is by design, at least for now.
Pleasesign into leave a comment.