Workflow recipe: Notifying External Email Addresses

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:

1. Click the Admin icon ( ) in the sidebar, then select Settings > Extensions > Targets .
2. Click Add target .
3. Select Email target .
4. Fill in the fields, like in the example below.
5. Select Create target and click Submit .

 

Next, let's create a trigger:

1. Click the Admin icon ( ) in the sidebar, then select Business Rules > Triggers .
2. Click Add trigger .
3. Fill in conditions and actions, like in the example below.
4. 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!

1. Open an existing ticket.
2. Change the priority field to urgent.
3. Click Submit as open .
4. Reopen ticket.
5. Click on Events .
6. 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:

1. Click the Admin icon ( ) in the sidebar, then select Settings > Extensions > Targets .
2. Click Add target .
3. Select Email target .
4. Fill in info (example shows below).
5. Select Create target and click Submit .

 

Next, let's create a custom dropdown field:

1. Select Manage > Ticket Fields .
2. Enter title of field.
3. Check Visible and Editable .
4. Enter field options.
5. 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:

1. Click the Admin icon ( ) in the sidebar, then select Business Rules > Triggers .
2. Click Add trigger .
3. Fill in conditions and actions , like in the example below.
4. 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!

1. Log out of your agent interface and go to the web portal.
2. Click Submit a request .
3. Select Security in the dropdown field.
4. Click Submit .
5. Log in to your agent interface.
6. Open ticket that was just created.
7. Click on Events .
8. 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!

Tip: To find out more about how replies to target notifications work, you can check out this article.