As described in Understanding CCs and followers, your internal and external users can use CCs to copy other users when replying to ticket notifications by email. Internal users (agents and admins) can also add followers to tickets. Followers receive email notifications about updates to the ticket, but their names and email addresses don't appear in email notifications to other people on the ticket. They remain invisible to external end users.
You can configure different settings for CCs and followers. You may need to use only some of the options described in this article.
This article covers the following topics:
Configuring settings for CCs and followers
To configure settings for CCs and followers
- In Admin Center, click
Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Tickets > Settings.
- In the CCs and followers section, configure the settings you want to use for CCs and followers, then click Save tab.
Setting | Description |
---|---|
Enable followers |
Allows agents to add followers to tickets from the ticket interface. Adds the Followers field to the ticket interface. |
Follower email subject Follower email template Revert to default |
Type the text to include in the subject line and body of email notifications to followers. Placeholders are allowed (see Using placeholders). You can use Revert to default to replace text in Follower email template (but not in Follower email subject) with default text. All of these options are only available when Enable followers is selected. For more information about the follower email template, see Customizing default email notifications to CCs and followers. |
Enable CCs |
Allows agents and end users to add other users as CCs on tickets. Adds the CC line to the ticket interface. |
CCs and followers blocklist |
You can prevent specific users from becoming CCs and followers by entering their email address or domain name into a blocklist. Use spaces to separate the addresses. This option is only available when Enable CCs is selected. The CCs and followers blocklist prevents addresses from being added as a CC, but it does not prevent them from being ticket requesters. Users on the CC blocklist can still submit their own tickets with other addresses CC'd. To completely block an address, use the account blocklist. |
Enable light agents to become CCs on tickets |
Enables ticket requesters, agents, and existing CCs to add light agents and contributors as either CCs or followers on tickets. When enabled, light agents and contributors can be copied on tickets from the ticket interface and from ticket notifications. However, light agents and contributors are not allowed to add or remove themselves from the CC list—this must be done by another agent who isn't a light agent or contributor. Regardless of whether this setting is activated or deactivated, when followers are enabled, light agents can be added as followers, and they can add or remove followers from tickets. |
Enable CCs for end users on help center |
Allows signed-in end users to copy (CC) users in these places:
If this option is enabled, but the Anybody can submit tickets option is deactivated, non-registered users who are added as CCs will not be copied on the ticket and they won't receive an email notification about the ticket.
Note: This feature is not available on trial
accounts.
|
Automatically make an agent CC a follower |
When an agent is CCed on a ticket via email or the ticket interface, they are also automatically added as a follower.
Note: If the agent is CCed from a ticket form in your help center or via
the API instead, then they are not also added as a
follower.
|
Changing the default comment privacy for end user CCs
If an end user CC replies to a ticket notification from email using Reply (instead of Reply all), the reply becomes a private comment on the ticket. However, if the Make email comments from CCed end users public (not recommended) option is enabled, the behavior changes and the reply becomes a public comment instead. (The requester must be included in the reply; otherwise, the comment will be flagged as a potential risk.)
We don’t recommend using the Make email comments from CCed end users public (not recommended) option because a requester might see content that wasn’t meant for them. For more information about email replies, see Understanding when email replies become public or private comments.
To change the default comment privacy for end user CCs
- In Admin Center, click
Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Tickets > Settings.
- In the Comments section, select Make email
comments from CCed end users public (not
recommended).Note: This setting is only available if CCs is enabled.
- Scroll down and click Save tab.
For information about other ways you can change the default privacy of ticket comments, see Changing the default privacy of ticket comments.
Using placeholders with CCs and followers
If you want to list the names and email addresses of CCs and followers in ticket notifications, you can do so by adding these placeholders to your business rules (triggers, automations, and macros):
- email_cc_names or ticket.cc_names—Returns the names of CCs on the ticket.
- ticket.follower_names—Returns the names of followers on the ticket.
If you add or update your placeholders, we recommend using the
email_cc_names
placeholder instead of
tickets.cc_names
. They do the same thing,
but email_cc_names
is newer.
For more information about CC and follower placeholders and where exactly you can use them, see Creating business rules for CCs and followers and Customizing default email notifications to CCs and followers.
26 comments
Kyle Madden
Why are ticket follower names ( as returned by ticket.follower_names) concatenated with no space between names? e.g First Last1First Last2First Last3 ? Is there a simple way to comma delineate, e.g. First Last1, First Last2, First Last3 ?
2
Ankita Desani
Hello, We recently went with multi-layer support structure in ZD where Support level 1 submits ticket to support level 2.
Even after updating triggers, CC notification text is always from settings/tickets instead of what is set in Triggers.I tried to remove it but no luck - it only appears with default text.
"You are registered as a CC on this request ({{ticket.id}}). Reply to this email to add a comment to the request.
{{ticket.comments_formatted}}"
We don't want this text to appear in tickets that are submitted internally from Level 1 to Level 2.
Is it possible to achieve this?
0
Beau P.
Hello Ankita,
While you can change the "email user" operator in notification triggers to include "requester and ccs" as opposed to solely "requester", the trigger-side notification will always be superseded by the cc notification as defined in cc settings under Admin>Manage>Tickets. To consolidate to triggers-only and the notification form language therein, you'll need to migrate your account to the upgraded ccs and followers experience, details here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360002113728
Beau | Customer Advocate
Ask our Zendesk Community
0
Katie Meek
I have several instances of end users with multiple email addresses ie a husband and wife and the user requests we send the email to both addresses on file. When we try to add the secondary email as a CC, because it does not have its own end user profile, the cc is not added. Is there a setting I can modify to allow agents to add this secondary email?
0
Brandon Tidd
Hi Katie Meek -
Although not an ideal solution - setting up unique user profiles for each family member would solve for this, but would obviously create two streams of communication. Another option here might be to put both users in the same organization "AKA - Smith Family" - this would allow you to keep the profiles separate, but tie all of the tickets together at the organization level.
Hope this helps!
Brandon
-1
Dave Dyson
0
Guerrero Diaz
We've several times run into an issue where an agent mistakenly put to a copy a user from another organization. This is a big problem for us, because that ticket may contain private information from the other organization. Can I restrict who can be added to a copy? Ideally, it could only be a user with the domain fits inside the organization of the ticket.
0
Elaine
Hi Guerrero,
There's currently no native way to restrict agents on who they can add as CC into a ticket.
If it would be of help, you can encourage your agents to look up the email domain of the user that they're trying to add into the CC line and then search for the specific user from there.
I highly recommend you to read the articles Getting started with CC and followers for admins, and Best practices for using email clients with CCs and followers for more information about using the CC feature in Zendesk.
Hope this helps! Stay safe!
0
Michael Amromin
Hi Guerrero,
I guess you can achieve your goal with Restrict CC app. It can restrict who can be added as a copy by the organization domain. https://www.zendesk.com/apps/support/632185/restrict-cc
0
Molly Katolas
Referring to "Comments by users not explicitly added to the ticket will be flagged":
Was there a big UI update for this? We're seeing big red banner alerts instead of the small triangle warning icon when a user who was not added to the ticket by the requester/agent replies to a ticket. Are these alerts the same, or is this something new/different?
0
Dave Dyson
These alerts are related to new anti-phishing measures: Using ticket alerts to help defend against email phishing attacks
0
Jason Brown
Can end-users who are added to CC and receive a notification add additional users to CC in the ticket? Or is only the requester allowed to add users to CC in a ticket?
0
Christine
Yes, CC'd users can also CC additional users and they will be added as CCs on the ticket.
As outlined in our article: Copying internal and external users on tickets
All copied users (CCs) can:
I hope this clarifies!
0
Jason Brown
Thank you Christine. We have examples of this not working so I have reached out to Support to look into this.
0
Lara McCaleb
After enabling cc's and followers, we lose the ability to add a cc using a macro. We have light agents that need to be cc'd on certain ticket types to respond externally/outside of ZenDesk. Is there a way for followers to respond to by email for tickets they are notified on and continue to the conversation in their email account. Is the recommended use case in this instance to not utilize followers but rather the legacy cc functionality? Is there a way to also leverage adding a cc as part of a macro?
0
Joyce
When you migrated to the Enhanced CC and Followers Experience, the "Add CC" condition will be replaced by the "Add Follower". When an agent is added as a follower on a ticket, he will receive an email notification to which he can respond and the reply will be posted as a comment on the ticket, which works the same as when an agent is added as a CC.
Hope this clarifies!
0
Joe
Hi,
Some of the tickets we receive may need 3 of our support groups to answer the query.
I need all 3 groups to be working sometimes on the same ticket.
What is the best way to get around this?
Thanks
Joe
0
Dane
On our end, aside from utilizing followers, we also utilize the use of Child Tickets.
0
Shlomo Partouche-Sebban
Hi,
Is there a way to enable end users to add CCs to requests they submit using email?
0
Dane
Once CC is enabled, any email added as a CC by an end-user when submitting a ticket via email channel will also be added as a CC on the ticket.
1
fabricio aquino
Hi,
I realized that my update notifications to team members are not sending the internal notes, only the public replies even using the placeholder {{ticket.comments_formatted}}.
When the "Follower" notification (template) is sent, it works fine, but if the user is a follower and also a CC, the follower notification doen't fire, only the trigger one and then this one is not sending the whole ticket history, including the internal notes.
Someone has gone through this situation?
Thanks
0
Gulzar Shikalgar
As per Statement on Zendesk portal
"When enabled, agents and admins can add and remove other agents to existing tickets as followers. Active followers receive notifications when ticket updates occur."
What does ticket updates mean over here ? Is it only comments ? Does changing of ticket field or ticket status attributes to ticket update ?
We tested this and notification are only sent when we add a comment .
0
Zsa Trias
Hello Gulzar,
Followers would receive notifications when comments are added to the ticket they follow.
Also for reference: Customizing default email notifications for CCs and followers
0
Judy Correia
The setup to enable CCs for end users seems unnecessary/useless feature. This will remove the ability to add CCs when a form is submitted, but once the ticket is created, when an end user replies via email they can CC any number of email address and these emails are no CC's on the ticket. Issue here is also the new emails are added as end users. This makes maintaining users much more cumbersome.
0
Patrick Beebe
This is not working: the box is checked but not showing on Forms = getting absolutely no help from Zendesk
1
Kyle Pease
I'm not able to check this box, its greyed out.
0