Many of you LOVE triggers and the quick and easy ticket management it allows you to setup and automate, as well as the email notifications it allows you to send. But what if the email notification is not to a Zendesk Support agent or requester, such as a shipping partner, or someone in Finance who needs to know about refunds? Maybe it's an external email address to a different department, or company, or planet. Even though on the surface it seems like you can't do this, it's possible by notifying targets.
Notify target allows you to notify an external system about a new ticket or an important state change to a ticket. These systems include Twitter, JIRA, Salesforce, and many others. For an example, when a ticket is set to urgent, you would like an SMS sent to your CEO or an update sent to Twitter, Yammer or Flowdock. Or maybe when your customers creates a ticket and selects "Sales" from a dropdown field, it creates a case in Salesforce. All of this is possible with notify target.
In this article I'm going to show you two useful examples of how you can use notify target to send out email notifications to an external email address. Then show you how you can create your own:
- Email CEO when a ticket is set to urgent
- Email Security Department when "About" field is "Security"
- Useful tips when creating your own notifications
For other uses of notify target with other systems, check out this article here: Notifying external targets .
Email CEO when a ticket is set to urgent
In our first example, let's start with an agent-initiated notification. Since the priority field can only be set by an agent, this notification can only be initiated by an agent.
To set this up, first let's create a target:
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Settings > Extensions > Targets .
- Click Add target .
- Select Email target .
- Fill in the fields, like in the example below.
- Select Create target and click Submit .

Next, let's create a trigger:
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Business Rules > Triggers .
- Click Add trigger .
- Fill in conditions and actions, like in the example below.
- Click Create trigger .
Note: The reason we're using "Priority changed to urgent" rather than "Priority is urgent" is so that only one notification gets sent in this ticket thread. If we use "Priority is urgent", then everytime there's an update to the ticket, it'll send an external notification as well.
And finally, let's test it to make sure it works!
- Open an existing ticket.
- Change the priority field to urgent.
- Click Submit as open .
- Reopen ticket.
- Click on Events .
- Notice that an email has been sent to the target.

Email Security Department when "About" field is "Security"
In the next example, we're going to create an end-user editable custom field called "About" with a "Security" option. This field will then show up on the "Submit a request" form, so when an end-user selects it, a notification will be sent to your security department. This is an example of an end-user initiated notification.
To create this, first let's create a target:
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Settings > Extensions > Targets .
- Click Add target .
- Select Email target .
- Fill in info (example shows below).
- Select Create target and click Submit .

Next, let's create a custom dropdown field:
- Select Manage > Ticket Fields .
- Enter title of field.
- Check Visible and Editable .
- Enter field options.
- Click Add Field .


Note: For more info on creating custom ticket fields, check out the following article: Adding and using custom ticket fields .
Then create a trigger that will notify the target:
- Click the Admin icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Business Rules > Triggers .
- Click Add trigger .
- Fill in conditions and actions , like in the example below.
- Click Create trigger .
Note: The reason we use "Ticket is created" is so that this notification only gets sent the first time the ticket is created. If you want each following update to also send a notification, you can remove this condition.
And finally, let's test to see if it works!
- Log out of your agent interface and go to the web portal.
- Click Submit a request .
- Select Security in the dropdown field.
- Click Submit .
- Log in to your agent interface.
- Open ticket that was just created.
- Click on Events .
- Notice that a notification was sent to your security department.

Useful tips when creating your own notifications
Now it's your turn to create your own custom notification. Here are some useful questions you can ask yourself to clarify what notification to create:
- Who do I want notified? (Target)
- When do I want them notified? (Custom field)
- Do I want this triggered by an agent or end-user action? (Custom field restrictions)
- What information do I want sent in the notification? (Trigger)
Once you have clarified the notification you want to create, you're ready to start implementing. Here's a summary of the process:
First create a target for the email address you want the notification sent to.
Next create any custom field you want available to initiate the notification. Be sure to make the field editable or it won't show up on the "Submit a request" form.
Then create a trigger to send out the notification, and finally, test to make sure it works!
Happy target notifying!
40 Comments
Its a great tool for sending text messages for urgent tickets or after-hour phone calls. Is there a trick to modifying the url to open on a mobile device. The url opens an unsupported media type, then I have to select full site to open the ticket..
Hi Sean,
I've taken a look at your concern about the URL in your text messages. I've decided to take a deeper look into your specific issue and created a ticket. I will be sending you the information shortly.
I'm using Brands and when sending emails using this feature it is sending the email from our Default email address. Is there a way to set it to the email address of a specific Brand instead? My concern is that the emails look like they are coming from our Default email and Brand and not the correct Brand.
Hi Emily!
If I'm understanding you correctly, it sounds like you're proactively emailing your customers in this scenario, rather than responding to something they've sent to you. If this is the case, there's an app you can add to your Zendesk that will let you choose which Support Address your communication should be coming from. You can find it here: Select an Address.
It's a very simple, straight-forward app, but it's important to note that it's one of our Zendesk Labs apps so it's not officially supported
Please let me know if you have any other questions, or if I misunderstood your question!
Hi Jessie-
Thanks for the suggestion of the Zendesk Labs app but what I want to do is set the FROM email address for messages sent to External Targets using Triggers, not from within Tickets. Since we have several email addresses in our system and use Multibrand it is confusing for the Targets to get an email from an email address that is not associated with the correct Brand. The system uses my Default email address and there doesn't seem to be a way within the "Notify Target" option to set which FROM email address is used.
Emily, take a look at the post below. I have not tried it in this precise scenario and the fact that yes have stressed the external notification element may suggest that the recipient field of a ticket is ignored in this scenario.
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/203464558-Setting-the-default-reply-email-address-using-a-trigger
Right now I've got this setup to notify an external vendor when a certain custom field is selected by an agent; however I can't stop the trigger from firing after every update to the ticket. This is resulting in multiple emails to the vendor and causing a lot of confusion. Is there a way to set the trigger to only fire once on a ticket? I know I could change "Ticket is..." from "updated" to "created" but the custom field is usually not set at time of creation.
Hi Brad!
You should be able to fix this by adding a tag to the ticket.
You can add an action to the ticket that adds a tag when the trigger fires the first time. You'd then add a condition to the trigger as well, that specifies that the trigger will fire only when that tag is NOT present.
Please let me know if you have any other questions!
We are using triggers based on specific text in comments to send an email outside of Zendesk for various purposes.
For example, we often find that we need to route questions through other team members who aren't Zendesk users in our organization, or sometimes we want to notify a requester's manager, but we don't want to actually add that person as a cc on the ticket, nor do we want the requester to be notified of the email exchange.
So, we are adding text like "@internal" to a comment, and this then fires off a trigger with the ticket details to the assignee (presumably the assignee is the same person who needs to send the external email). From there, the assignee has all of the info they need and can forward through their regular email client, like Outlook.
This solution isn't perfect. Obviously the trigger is only flexible enough to send emails to specific people or email addresses, but it's a work around.
We, too, are really hoping for something simple like a button to "send ticket to default email client".
We use this feature a lot, but as I read through this, I was thinking that it would be simpler to lift this functionality up into the trigger and automation directly. Add a Notify Email action that effectively builds the target in the workflow.
Usually what gets me with Targets is that there is a subject line established on the target. If I need to send a different email to the same email address, I have two targets and two triggers instead of just two triggers.
I think that triggers take a little bit of time to understand, but it's something most Zendesk admins likely have to learn. However targets abstracts even further and most users probably don't have to use this feature so the value proposition of emailing an external email address isn't there.
Another pain point I have with email targets is that I'd love to use placeholders in the email form. We have employees that have the same email structure networkid@domain.com where networkid changes, but it's a field we know. Most of our employees don't send from this address, but they can receive emails at it and it's built into several internal systems because it's the easiest way to guarantee someone gets the email. I'd love to be able to add a {{user.custom_fields.networkid}}@domain.com option into the email field. (the placeholder is probably not correct with how the placeholder structure is actually in place today, but it should get the point across).
Overall, this feature works, and works well. Just a few recommendations from me.
Is there a way that when the external email is notified, that when they reply back to that email, that it either
1. It replies back to the zendesk ticket that it came from
2. it replies back to the requester of the ticket
We're trying to create a workflow where when an employee fills out the ticket form, and if he/she selects a specific category, that his/her question is redirected to an external email (like our insurance broker). But right now, when the insurance broker replies to that email, it generates a brand new ticket into ZD.
Hi Robert!
Thanks for the question. There are a couple ways you could do this, using CC or Triggers. I'm pulling this into a ticket, since I may need to look at your account to get this going. You'll hear from me soon!
Hi Daniel,
I have precisely the same question as Robert.
Please talk a bit about the options you mentioned... I wasn't able to find a method to allow target replies to be threaded into the original ticket based on your mentions of CC or triggers.
Thanks,
David
Is there a way to enter multiple emails in the Email Address field for Email target? I tried a comma and semi colon with no luck.
Hi Nicole,
Unfortunately, email targets are limited to a single email address. We use distribution groups for this. However, if you are okay CCing the other email addresses you could do something that auto cc’s certain users. Take a look at this community post for an idea on how you could implement something if CC is an appropriate solution for you.
Hi Nicole!
Daniel's distribution list idea is really good. That would make it really easy to add or remove people from the list as needed, too.
Great tip, Daniel. :)
Hi, I've been trying to get this to work and push to an internal Zendesk email, to create a different ticket, but so far it's not working. I've tested the email and the target with a different email address, and on both occasions, everything worked, except when I set the target with the internal email. Is there something preventing this configuration from working when notifying an internal email is in question?
Hi Valentina!
Just a quick point of clarification here...are you sending it to an email that's set as a Support address in your Zendesk?
Hi Jessie, yes, that is what I'd like to do. I'd like to setup an automation that would generate a ticket by sending to documentation@domain.zendesk.com from support@domain.zendesk.com after the support ticket has been solved and if the ticket is tagged with a 'not_documented' tag. I've configured all the triggers and the automation seems to be working for addresses with a different domain but not the same domain. I've been advised by Zendesk support that this is due to a filter disabling the system from sending to itself, so I'm fairly sure that this can't be done unless we were to configure a different domain in the same Zendesk instance, correct?
Hi,
I use the notifying external email address feature to do things like forward DMCA takedowns or invoice requests to the proper department.
However, the person who receives these emails has to manually add the user's email to reply and remove our support@ email address (If they don't, it creates a new ticket on my end as if my colleague is the requester).
Is there a way to set the reply-to header of the email they receive to the actual requester? If not in the trigger section, would there be some workaround with the APIs?
Thanks,
James
Hey James!
I think you should be able to do this! I did some hunting around and I found this article, that talks about creating webhooks using an HTTP target in Zendesk Support. You should be able to code up something to do exactly what you need it to!
Hey maybe a redundant question here --
Has Zendesk added the ability to choose the "sender/ sent from" email address when Notifying External Targets?
We have a workflow where an external notification is necessary ... but would prefer to have some control over which of our "zendesk addresses" sends the notification. (instead of simply the original receive address of the ticket). But I'm not sure if this is possible.
@Chris
Unfortunately there is limited customization when it comes to designating which email address appears to be the sender of your external target notifications. At this time, it appears that the "sender/sent from" email address will be your default Support address, as listed under Admin > Channels > Email.
Hi, I have a question about this type of solution...
Is there a way for us to send an e-mail notification to a dynamic recipient address? Let's say, using placeholders?
The solution described here doesn't appear to support this functionality.
The scenario in our case is that we have many customers (represented as Organizations), and each Organization (customer) has their own preferences about the way they work with our helpdesk.
Some customers want to receive a summary of each solved ticket to their inbox.
So theoretically, we could add a custom Organization field to indicate which email address should receive summaries (which isn't necessarily the requester), and then add a trigger that fires once a ticket is solved.
That ticket would send an email to the organization custom field using a placeholder (let's say "ticket.organization.custom_fields.summary_recipient"), with "ticket.comments_formatted" in its content.
Also, is it possible to send an email to a ticket's CC recipients using a trigger? All I see in the options is "(requester)" and the agents. Because if what I asked in the previous paragraphs isn't possible, then maybe we could, at the very least, implement it using CC's?
Thanks,
Eitan
I agree – it would be great to have the option of placeholders in the email address field. That would make this tool and approach much more powerful and flexible. Thanks!
Hi,
Is it possible to notify external email addresses as part of a macro? I didn't see in the macro actions the option to use "notify external target"...
Thanks!
Hey Julian,
We created workflows where the macro adds a tag that is used in an automation or trigger that notifies the external email address based on the presence of the tag, then removes the tag. It would be cool if the macro could notify the user without the need for a trigger to do the actual notifying.
@Julian as Gary mentioned, you would need to set up a Trigger that notifies the target. Tags are the best way to control when this external target is notified so I would definitely recommend going that route.
Let us know if you need more guidance for setting up this Macro/Trigger.
Cheers!
While adding target notification in Triggers is workable, is there any specific reason why End Users cannot be added to cc via Triggers? You can End Users to cc via the e-mail or via the UI. Why not Triggers?
Hello Neil,
What you described is not possible as the base product currently stands. I would recommend posting in our Product Feedback forum so our developers can consider this request for a future update.
Support Product Feedback
Best regards,
Devan
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