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Adding and removing the delimiter from email notifications

Amy Malka
  • Edited
Zendesk Documentation Team

Suite allall plans

Fastpath: Admin Center > Channels > Talk and email > Email

The email delimiter is a line of text used to inform the email recipient that any text entered into a reply must be above a certain line in the email.

You can choose to include or exclude the delimiter from email notifications, depending on the email experience you want to give your end users. The email delimiter is disabled by default.

Note: If your account was created before July 3, 2020, the delimiter was enabled by default.

This article contains the following topics:

Related articles:

Adding the delimiter to email notifications

When the recipient's reply is received in Support, the delimiter is used to separate old content from new. The new content is added to the ticket as a comment. If the delimiter is enabled, you can customize the delimiter's text and font size, color, and type.

Enabling the delimiter

The delimiter is disabled by default for accounts created after July 3, 2020. You can enable the delimiter in email notifications, if you want.

To enable the delimiter

  1. In Admin Center, click the Channels icon () in the sidebar, then select Talk and email > Email.
  2. In the Mail delimiter section, select the Enable check box.
  3. (Optional) If needed, edit the delimiter text.
  4. Add the delimiter placeholder to the email template.
    Note: Do not skip this step. If you do, new email notifications will include the entire email thread.
  5. Click Save.

After you complete these steps, new email notifications will include the delimiter. However, earlier email notifications did not include the delimiter, so replies to those notifications will include the entire email thread.

When the delimiter is enabled, if the email was too long (64 KB of text or ), there is a Show more icon which launches the original email in a separate browser window.

Adding the delimiter placeholder to the email template

If you enable the delimiter, you must also add the delimiter code to the email template. If you don't, new email notifications will include the entire email thread.

To add the delimiter placeholder to the email template

  1. In Admin Center, click the Channels icon () in the sidebar, then select Talk and email > Email.
  2. In the Email templates section, add the {{delimiter}} placeholder and any surrounding CSS to the template.

    For example:

    <div style="color: #b5b5b5;">{{delimiter}}</div>

  3. Make sure that the {{delimiter}} placeholder comes before the {{content}} placeholder.

    For example:

    <body {{attributes}} style="width: 100%!important; margin: 0; padding: 0;">
  <div style="padding: 10px ; line-height: 18px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande',Verdana,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color:#444444;">
    <div style="color: #b5b5b5;">{{delimiter}}</div>
    {{content}}
  </div>
  <div style="padding: 10px ; line-height: 18px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande',Verdana,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: #aaaaaa;
    margin: 10px 0 14px 0; padding-top: 10px; border-top: 1px solid #eeeeee;">
    {{footer}} {{footer_link}}
  </div>
</body>
  4. Scroll down and click Save.

Editing the delimiter text

You can edit the delimiter text to better reflect your organization. Using placeholders, you can also support multiple languages in the delimiter.

To edit the delimiter text

  1. In Admin Center, click the Channels icon () in the sidebar, then select Talk and email > Email.
  2. In the Mail delimiter section, enter a personalized delimiter that's between 20 to 65 characters long.
  3. Click Save.

Your delimiter can also support multiple languages if you use the {{txt.email.delimiter}} placeholder. The text in the delimiter is drawn from the translations provided for the languages supported in Zendesk. The language shown in the email message is based on each user's language preference. This is a convenient way to support different languages in your email template. However, it also means that you have no control over the words in the translated versions of the delimiter.

Note: If your users don't have a language preference selected, as is the case with unverified users in a Zendesk set up for email-only support (see Setting up to provide email-only support), the delimiter is displayed in your primary (default) language.

Editing the delimiter font size, color, and type

You can edit your delimiter font size, color, and type in your Email template HTML. Your edits should be on the same line as the placeholder. Do not make these changes on any other line as it will affect the rest of your text.

For more information on customizing text see, Jordan Wheelock's support tip Changing your email template content fonts and Ben Lucier's community tip, A better email template for Zendesk.

Removing the delimiter from email notifications

Some Support customers remove the delimiter because it looks automated or machine-generated. Without it, emails may look cleaner and feel more personal.

Disabling the delimiter

The delimiter was enabled by default for accounts created before July 3, 2020. You can disable the delimiter, if you want.

When the delimiter is disabled, all new outgoing email notifications will no longer include the delimiter. This is true for tickets that were created before disabling the delimiter. It doesn’t change the email experience for your end users in any other way.

For example, this email notification includes the delimiter. It's the first line of text used to inform the email recipient that any text entered into the reply must be above a certain line in the email.

When the delimiter is disabled, the delimiter text is not added to email notifications. For example:

To disable the delimiter

  1. In Admin Center, click the Channels icon () in the sidebar, then select Talk and email > Email.
  2. In the Mail delimiter section, clear the Enable check box.
  3. Click Save.
  4. Remove the delimiter code from the default email template (as described below).

To remove delimiter placeholder text from the default email template

If the delimiter is disabled, but you don’t complete the following steps, the delimiter text will be removed from email notifications, but any CSS styling applied to the delimiter placeholder's container may still render.

  1. In Admin Center, click the Channels icon () in the sidebar, then select Talk and email > Email.
  2. In the Email templates section, do the following:
    1. Remove this code:

      <div style="color: #b5b5b5;">{{delimiter}}</div>

    2. If you customized the template, you need to remove {{delimiter}} and any surrounding CSS.
  3. Scroll down and click Save.

If you re-enable the delimiter, you'll need to add the code back to your email template.

About comment appearance when the delimiter is disabled

Disabling the delimiter changes the appearance of comments from the ticket interface. This section explains what agents can expect to see when they are looking at comments from the ticket interface.

Quoted email replies

When viewing comments from the ticket interface, there is an ellipsis (…) below the comments that were created from email. You can click the ellipsis to expand the quoted email reply.

Inline replies

Your end users may sometimes reply to emails by adding inline text to the body of the message. For example, they may say “Please see my comment below” and then add inline text to the body of the previous message. If they do this, here’s what the inline reply may look like:

  • If the reply is partially inline, there will be an ellipsis (...) at the end of the comment. You can click the ellipsis to expand the reply, and view the portion of the message that includes the inline text that was added by the end user.

  • If the reply is completely inline, the entire email appears in the comment.

    Note: Inline replies aren't fully supported. Images in the inline reply are not sent out as a ticket comment.
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22 Comments

  • Stoyan Tsekov

    Hello Guys,

    We have a support pro plan for Playwing.

    I just wanted to confirm the above text regarding the mail delimiter.

    If i understood correctly, we could either go with customer text but only visible in English or leave the default placeholder to have "Please type your reply above this line" translated in the respective language.

    Is that correct and is there a work around?

     

    Thank you in advance,


    Stoyan

    0
  • Molly
    Zendesk Customer Success

    Hi Stoyan - Welcome to The Community!

    I'd like to clarify your request so I'm going to followup with you in a ticket. I'll reach out via email shortly!

     

    0
  • Molly
    Zendesk Customer Success

    Just wanted to follow up publicly on Stoyan's request. The default delimiter placeholder will translate to the customer's language. However, you cannot use any custom DC placeholders in that field at this time.

    1
  • Mark Baker

    I find that the delimiter text is kind of confusing to the end user.  A new customer emails in for support.  They get a reply saying:

    • ##- Please type your reply above this line -##

    and then this::

    • Your request (92) has been received and is being reviewed by our support staff.  To add additional comments, reply to this email.

    I remember the first time I got a reply email from a company that used Zendesk and I go that.  I was looking at it thinking, "how do I type my reply above the line," "what line are they talking about" "I can't type above the line." 

    Then I read the bottom part saying I can reply to the email so I did that.  I remember thinking, "this makes no sense to me."   

    So my comment is, why have that written there as default.  I get it must be there in order for Zendesk to work but if it is causing some people, like me, when I was an end user, that the company must have made some mistake or something, then it needs to be changed.  The average person who writes in doesn't understand what it is about I am willing to wager and wastes a few seconds on it and it may give the end user a bad first impression in a way. 

    Regardless, does anyone have some samples of other delimiter text that I can replace the default one with that would make more sense to the end user.  

    2
  • Nicole Saunders
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hi Mark - 

    You might be interested in an Early Access Program (beta) we have running that will allow you to remove the email delimiter altogether: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/360001479273-Zendesk-Support-EAP-Delimiter-Removal

    0
  • Jacob Christensen

    Since the delimiter is no longer required, you may want to update the last paragraph of the help text when hovering over the delimiter {{delimiter}} element in the HTML template.

    0
  • Peter Hochstrasser

    We started to work without the delimiter recently, and found that in some cases, customer replies are entered as internal comments - despite their e-mail address being correctly shown as the sender, which should lead Zendesk to find that an end user has submitted the comment.

    Have others seen that kind of mixup as well?

     

    1
  • Nicole Saunders
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hey Peter - 

    I ran this by the product team and they said it doesn't sound right; I'm going to create a ticket so that the dev team can dig into this further and see what's going on. Look for that email notification from us shortly. 

    0
  • Hannah Ehrlich

    Hi Peter,

     

    I have also seen this in my tickets. @Nicole, I am happy to provide some ticket examples here or in a support ticket if that would be useful.

    0
  • Robert Lehman

    Hi, 

    @Nicole I would also like to remove the Delimiter.  

    I would like an update on Peter's concern prior to doing so, if possible.

    Thanks.

    0
  • Peter Hochstrasser

    Let me comment on this:

    It seems to be at least not totally bound to the missing delimiter. We seem to have had similar cases before removing the delimiter.

    So far, we had no such problems in the brand with a standard Organization setup.
    We have some special setup regarding Organizations in this brand, and we are inquiring still, together with Zendesk.

    0
  • Nicole Saunders
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hi all -

    We're still trying to sort out what's going on with Peter's account. Peter, I just sent you some questions from the dev team in the private ticket.

    0
  • Peter Hochstrasser

    Hi all -

    I think that my problem is unrelated to the delimiter presence or absence. We apparently had cases before the one we found here, and it has occured before we turned the delimiter off. 

    So, it seems that I jumped to a conclusion and made a connection where there is none.
    The problem I see has in all likelihood a different source.

     

    0
  • Nicole Saunders
    Zendesk Community Team

    Thanks for the update, Peter. Did you want us to continue troubleshooting in the private ticket? Or should we solve that out?

    0
  • Peter Hochstrasser

    Hi @nicole
    There IS a problem, it‘s just not generated by the missing delimiter, and I‘d really like to know how to prevent this from happening - we have notifications set up such that private comments don‘t generate the usual initial mails, which is not helping.
    So, we need this wrong comment type to be fixed for good.

    0
  • Brett Bowser
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hey Peter,

    Thanks for the additional information! I'm going to reach out to you directly on the internal ticket we have with you so we can continue troubleshooting this.

    Cheers!

    0
  • Peter Hochstrasser

    Hi all

    Let me clear Zendesk from any wrong doing in this case.

    The problem has been that a user started the conversation with e-mail address

      f.lastname@publisherCompany.com

    then replied to that mail from address

      f.lastname@companyPublisher.com

    So, he used two adresses from different domains. The answer thus has been classified as a bit fishy by Zendesk and its comment mode has thus been set to private.

     

    So, as said before, not a problem of the missing delimiter - sorry for the noise here.

     

    Yours truly

    Peter

    0
  • Brett Bowser
    Zendesk Community Team

    Thanks for taking the time to share this Peter :)

    Glad we were able to troubleshoot what the issue was!

    0
  • Jennifer Becker

    It seems as though Hannah Ehrlich said she had examples of the issue Peter originally reported. Did those get worked out as well? I would like confirmation that the issue is either a non-issue or there is a valid reason why it is happening when you disable the delimiter. 

    0
  • Elissa
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hello Jennifer Becker

     

    Thank you for that note. We never did get clarity on the issues Hannah Ehrlich was having. I've tagged her again here in case she is able to join back in with some more details.

    That being said, the delimiter is not related to ticket transmission. So there is no reason removing the delimiter would have an effect on whether a reply came in as an internal note. This only happens (as Peter's experience exemplifies) when a customer is replying from a different email than the one listed on the ticket. You can learn more about those scenarios in this article: Understanding when email replies become public or private comments.

    So, if the delimiter is absent or if the delimiter is present (either way), if the end-user comment comes in from an external email address that's not listed on the ticket, that comment will be an internal note. 

    I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any concerns or any further questions!

    0
  • Hannah Ehrlich

    Hi Elissa,

     

    I'm happy to provide some examples here or in a ticket but it looks like most of the follow-up was with Peter. Should I add some censored screenshots, or?

    0
  • Elissa
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hello Hannah Ehrlich

    Thanks so much for your reply! I have created a ticket for you so we can troubleshoot and take a look at those examples securely. Then we can report back here with any final findings.

    You should see an email for a ticket created for you. Please let me know if you don't find it!

    Thanks again for coming back, and sorry we missed your comment earlier!

    0

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