Side conversations are spaces in a ticket where agents can have a side conversation with a specific group of people, or discuss a specific area of concern or course of action. You can use them to organize information about a ticket.
This feature is only available if it has been enabled by the administrator.
The Collaboration add-on is required for side conversations. For more information about add-ons and light agents, see About add-ons (Professional and Enterprise).
Advantages of using side conversations
Problems often consist of multiple parts, and solving them often consists of conversations with different people. It gets confusing for everyone involved when all of the questions and answers are mixed together in one place without any kind of organization.
For example, let’s say you need to discuss something with your Legal team, but don’t need or want other people involved.
- Find, organize, and manage information about a specific part of an issue
- Have a conversation with the right people
- Find specific questions, answers, and replies. Ensure conversations happen outside of the main conversation with the requester
- Have multiple standalone conversations that are separate from each other
- Get outside help without pulling others into the main ticket directly
Recommendations about side conversations
- The assignee should create and manage side conversations in the tickets they're responsible for. This allows administrators to create triggers based on the assignee role, and enables easier handoff between agents.
- Set up triggers to take advantage of the side conversation event conditions in order to fully integrate them into your workflows and to keep agents on top of the activity within them. See Setting up trigger conditions for side conversations.
- Create trigger conditions for side conversations to make sure that assignees know when a side conversation is created, closed, replied to, and reopened. Without them, the agent assigned to the ticket (ideally, this person is also the creator of the side conversation) may have a hard time knowing what’s going on with a particular issue.
- Remember that the creator of the side conversation doesn't automatically receive email replies to side conversations. That’s not the default behavior. Also sending side conversations to your own support address is not supported and will result in those side conversations ending up in the Suspended tickets view.
Creating side conversations
If enabled, agents and light agents can create side conversations.
You can create side conversations on open or closed tickets. If someone replies to a side conversation on a closed ticket, triggers won’t be run on it even if they have side conversation conditions.
Any time someone creates a side conversation, a notification appears in the Zendesk Support interface for 60 seconds.
Side conversations must be enabled by an administrator.
To create a side conversation
- From the upper-left portion of a ticket, click the plus sign (+) next to Side Conversations.
- 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.
- An email address highlighted in red has incorrect formatting and needs to be corrected.
- 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 select From computer or From ticket.
Tip: Instead of downloading ticket attachments to your computer to include them in a side conversation, you can add attachments directly from the ticket.
- 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.
- Click the Send button.
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. See Recommendations about side conversations.
Viewing and replying to side conversations
Reply to side conversations from the Zendesk Support interface rather than from one of the email notifications generated by side conversations.
When someone replies to a side conversation notification created by a trigger, the reply becomes a public reply on the ticket, not a reply to the side conversation. This means that they are replying to everyone on the ticket, including any customers on the ticket, instead of a limited subset of people in a side conversation. This is especially important if your side conversations include sensitive information. Generally speaking, it’s a just a good idea to know who you're replying to.
Recipients of a side conversation can reply through email, just as they would to any other email. Side conversations retain the original formatting of incoming emails. The assignee on the ticket can also reply to a side conversation through the ticket from the Zendesk Support interface. Regardless of how a response was sent, it appears in the ticket for the assignee.
The people on a side conversation can be inside or outside of your organization.
You can create side conversations on open or closed tickets. If someone replies to a side conversation on a closed ticket, triggers won’t be run on it even if they have side conversation conditions.
To view and reply to a side conversation
- From the bottom portion of the ticket, click the View side conversation button for the side conversation you are interested in.
- Click the Side Conversations bar to see a list of side conversations. Click the one you are interested in.
- Scroll up to review earlier replies in the side conversation, if needed.
The conversation opens to the first unread reply for the agent viewing conversation. The most recent replies appear at the bottom of the side conversation.
- Update the list of recipients (if needed), add your reply and attachments, and then click Send.
Each message has its own set of recipients, which can be edited at reply time.
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 select From computer or From ticket.If you changed your mind and don’t want to send the message, click the delete icon (
). The delete icon () does not delete the entire thread. Once you start a thread, you cannot delete it.
All of the recipients on the side conversation receive an email notification with your message. The message being replied to is included as quoted content on outgoing emails.
This notification doesn’t automatically include the assignee of the ticket or the creator of the side conversation. See Recommendations about side conversations.
If you have an email signature set up, it is automatically inserted into the message. If you have personalized replies enabled, these settings are also included in your message. Conversations are sent from the support address associated with the ticket, and if configured, include the address name.
Closing and reopening side conversations
Closing a side conversation changes the status of the side conversation to Done. Closing and reopening side conversations does not result in any additional email messages to people on the side conversation. It’s also important to note that closing a side conversation does not prevent people from adding new replies.
Status information associated with a side conversation is meant only to help the agent. It is not for the benefit of the end user or other people on the side conversation. That's why closing a side conversation doesn't prevent people from adding new replies. They may have additional questions or comments later, even after the side conversation has been closed.
It is up to the agent to decide whether a reply to a closed side conversation requires reopening the side conversation.
You can create side conversations on open or closed tickets. If someone replies to a side conversation on a closed ticket, triggers won’t be run on it even if they have side conversation conditions.
Any time someone closes or reopens a side conversation, a notification appears in the Zendesk Support interface for 60 seconds.
To close and reopen a side conversation
- Open the side conversation (see Viewing and replying to side conversations).
- Click the Mark done button.
The side conversation status changes to Done.
If you want to reopen the side conversation, repeat step 1 and then click the Reopen button. The side conversation reopens and no longer includes the green Done label at the top of the side conversation.
Adding ticket comments to a side conversation
You can include one or more ticket comments as part of a side conversation. This prevents you from having to copy and paste relevant information.
To forward a ticket comment
- On a ticket, locate the comment you want to include, then select Start a side conversation from the drop-down 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 upper-left portion of 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 select Ticket comments to include all comments.
- Click Add.
The Support mobile app does not support side conversations
Side conversations is not supported on the Zendesk Support mobile app. You cannot create, view, or reply to side conversations from the Zendesk mobile app at this time. These tasks must be performed from Support on your computer's browser. However, you can still use the email client on your mobile device to receive and reply to side conversation notifications.
143 Comments
Hi,
We have recently purchased the add-on and are still very much interested in the side conversations.
The one thing we are worried about at the moment and would like to have your thoughts on is the following:
When within Kantar we are using Outlook to send messages, we share attachments with personal information using Accellion. Preventing sharing personal information within the email body of the side conversation is a human factor, but is there already a way the attachments send as part of the side conversation email will be shared encrypted?
Hi,
Is there any way to modify what gets sent to the person who gets involved in side conversation but is not an agent?
Currently if an agent engages somebody in a side conversation, this person simply receives an email from the Support address out of the blue. I would very much like an option to automatically preface that with an explanation of what it is that they are receiving and what will will happen when they reply, similarly like it is possible with triggered notifications.
Or at least include in the title that this is a side conversation. Otherwise, if an agent engages in a side conversation with a person who sometimes gets CC'd for other tickets and replies with public comments, this creates a lot of confusion fo the receiver - they do not understand when the answer will be added as side conversation, and when - as a public comment.
Yes, all of the above could be written manually by an agent starting the side conversation, but it takes way more time than it should.
@Edwin – we don't have support for encrypted attachments at this time. It'd be great to learn more about your workflow, though, to get some background into the requirements and how it could potentially be solved. Let me know if you'd like to talk about your use cases we could set up a call.
@Janis – I think the best way to do that currently would be to set up a macro that has all the information you think would be necessary to let the receipients know the nature of the email. Macros can let you initiate a side conversation with the subject and body pre-filled with whatever you'd like and then the agent could fill out their message. Then the agent would then invoke a macro to start a side conversation instead of the "start a side conversation" button. You can see how to set up macros here. Aside from that, we don't have plans to automatically add content to side conversation emails at this time.
Hi Toby,
I've just got a trial of Side Conversation and it looks interesting.
I noticed the comments in this thread from Jimmy Rufo which don't seem to have been answered i.e.
I completely agree with this.
Our use case is escalating to a developer to further investigate for us. The first thing they are likely to do is to go and read the full history of the ticket. So it would be a great help to have a way to include the ticket ID and/or link automatically.
David.
Hi,
Can these be reported on in explore?
Hi Emma,
Side conversation data within Explore is something the team is looking into but no ETA of when that would be available.
Cheers!
We have just started using Zendesk with the Collaboration app and side conversations are essential to us because we escalate a lot of tickets to a third party (software vendor).
When we get an automated response back to our emails initiated in a side-conversation, the third party puts their own ticket reference in the subject line. Unfortunately, it seems that the subject line itself is not part of the information stored in Zendesk as part of the side conversation thread. Consequently, we not getting this vital info from the third party.
Short of asking the third party to change where they put their reference, is there a solution?
We started using side conversations a few months ago and it has been a useful feature, however someone typed in an incorrect email address for one of our suppliers and now it autocompletes with that typo every time, the typo address is not listed as an end user so we can't remove it that way, is there any way to remove this from the autocomplete at all as we don't get notified that the side conversation failed to deliver?
Many thanks
@Richard I actually heard this exact same feedback from another customer this morning. We're looking into maintaining subject changes.
@Garyfor now you can contact support@zendesk.com and we can remove any bad cached email recipients for you. We're investigating ways of surfacing that to account admins as well.
Hey All,
How does Side Conversations handle bounce back emails? Example being that I send a Side Conversation to someone, but the attachments are to big for their system and the message is not delivered. I am having users say that they don't get any notification of an undeliverable message. Just wondering what I should be looking for in these scenarios.
Thanks in advance,
Jason Fouchier
Is there any way to get side conversations to send as the assignee of the ticket. We want to use side conversations to communicate with a vendor email list, but we don't want to add our ticket email address to that list as then any other email threads would create support tickets.
-ray
@Ray we don't have a way to send emails from the agent's email address. The general use case is to always send from a generic address in order to protect the individual agents' addresses and to be able to thread replies back into the side conversation.
We do work to detect if any email replies to support addresses are indeed replies to side conversations and route them accordingly instead of creating tickets. Are you concerned that the vendor will send out new emails to members of the list which will then create tickets?
@Toby
That is my concern. The vendor uses the email group for all communication to us. They send us product updates for example, or we may be having other conversations. Is there a way to at least use a different email than the default ticket address?
-ray
@Toby - can you comment on Jason's issue about bounced emails? This is important for us as well, as this is an issue even with sending comms through the ticket itself. I was hoping side conversations would be a solution for that.
Also, to piggyback off Ray's question..... are we able to at minimum choose which support address the side conversation sends out from? We have many different distros connected to Zendesk, and depending on the team the agent is on and who they are communicating with, we may need to use a different email address (i.e. merchants would receive emails from merchant-support@[company].com, and customers would receive emails cs-support@[company].com) We would want the agent to be able to select where our message appears to come from.
@Ray it is possible to send side conversation emails from a different address using the Select an Address app. However, this is due to the fact that side conversations try to send from the same address that email notifications would be sent from on a ticket. So if you want the side conversation to send from a different address you'd have to set up a support address in your instance, change the ticket to it using the app, send the side conversation, and then switch it back.
@Amber it sounds like the Select an Address app would help you as well since it affects the ticket notifications.
As for bounces, there are some historical reasons for bounces getting suspended. What would you expect? Side conversations to act more like "regular" email and include the bounces in the conversation? Is it important so you can then contact someone else or something along those lines?
Hi @Toby
I don't know about Ambers particular needs, but in my case we had emails being rejected and agents not knowing that it was never delivered to the intended recipient which led to more messages back and forth as well as department finger pointing. I have pushed all our agents to use the tools we have available in Zendesk so that all our case information stays together for easier searching for all agents in the future. Due to the nature of our business, the lack of an undeliverable notification caused delays in some project approvals and sign offs which is a huge deal for us. I don't need Side Conversations to be everything an email client is, but a notification that a message was undeliverable is very important to our workflow and our business.
Thanks,
Jason Fouchier
Thanks Toby. Thanks for sharing this app, this will actually be helpful for us in processes currently unrelated to side conversations.
But do add some context as far as bounceback issue, the comms in questions are regarding time sensitive issues related to merchants accounts, and can result in pause or closure of accounts. Bouncebacks are important because if we happen to get some sort of delivery error messaging or vacation reminder then we know if maybe there was a typo, or if we have to find alternative point of contact. Or, simply allow extra time incase they are not available to a certain date. Otherwise, we are making critical decisions about a merchants account, assuming they are unresponsive.
Hi All
I'm interested in potentially using side conversation and have a few questions (apologies if these have been answered elsewhere, was unable to locate it?)
Background - we escalate a lot of tickets to suppliers but do this by agent A flagging to agent B and agent B then creating a ticket to send to the supplier.
By having a read of this article and the macro article, is the below understanding correct please?
Agent A can use a macro on a new ticket which initiates a side conversation to the supplier direct
If the above understanding is correct, I have a few questions please:
Thanks :)
Hi, Dawn!
If you'd like to apply a specific SLA policy for tickets with side conversations, you need some specific element to identify it as such (e.g. in my case we have a custom checkbox field that is selected via trigger whenever a SC is created in a ticket)
Please let me know if something isn't clear :-)
Hi Pedro
Thanks for the update, from the work I have been doing with SLA this will only apply when there is a public comment from an end user - as it will be agents who will be creating tickets and submitting the first request then how would the SLA get applied?
From looking at the SLA options I can't see which one would trigger it? Can you help identifying this please?
We need to be able to record from the ticket being opened so we can report on the length of time it has taken for the supplier to reply to the ticket.
Also, as the agent has to create the ticket then they would need to fill in all the mandatory fields (subject, brand etc) - the macro would only fill in the specified fields that are created to push to side tickets?
Thanks
Dawn
"this will only apply when there is a public comment from an end user - as it will be agents who will be creating tickets and submitting the first request"
If what you mean is specifically First Reply Time in proactive tickets, then I can confirm that specific metric won't be calculated, or better yet, it's immediately fulfilled.
"We need to be able to record from the ticket being opened so we can report on the length of time it has taken for the supplier to reply to the ticket."
That would be either Requester Wait Time (if you want to consider status = On Hold) or Agent Work Time (New, or just Open in the case of proactive tickets).
"Also, as the agent has to create the ticket then they would need to fill in all the mandatory fields (subject, brand etc) - the macro would only fill in the specified fields that are created to push to side tickets?"
Sorry in advance if I'm not understanding your question. By side tickets I'm assuming you meant "side conversations", right?
If it's about the same macro filling in ticket fields and then using those values to populate the side conversation message... Yes, it's possible :-)
What advances have been made on the ability of reporting on side conversations?
Today we manage all our escalation to our external partners with father/child solution. For one incident we always have 2 tickets (1 from the client and 1 from the partner).
Partners tickets have a specific tag and thanks to that we are able to run several report on resolution time, to monitor performance of our partners.
If we use side conversations we will move away from the need to having 2 tickets (1 customer and 1 for the partner), but we will have only 1 single ticket.
How we will able to monitor the resolution time of our partners with side conversations?
This is really important for us.
Hi team,
Side-conversations and light agents... do they see them?
Context: online support team are agents, all stores and staff are light agents.
Internal comments are always private, great.
Except - sometimes there may be a case that the store has screwed up royally. There technically isn't a place to make a true comment on the ticket then without causing some consternation/angst e.g. store may get mad at the charachterisation of how they screwed up.
So - with Slack EAP integration - w/ side-conversations, I can make a private channel for "private-store-notes", so my agents can leave private notes when engaging with the stores. Great!
My question is though - all stores use email, and are outside zendesk... BUT if they were to be signed into zendesk, and on the ticket in future, would they be able to see the side-conversation (internal-private-store-notes-w/slack?)
Hey Conza,
Light Agents can see any ticket assigned to groups they're part of, or are added as a follower too.
So, if your staff is added to the Online Support group (or if tickets are not limited to groups), they can see these ticket when they login to Zendesk.
Consequently, if any Side Conversations are added to that ticket, the staff can also see side conversations for those tickets.
We use side conversations all the time, but when we receive a reply, most often the agent is working on another ticket or taking a call. How can we find the ticket the reply came into after the notification is gone from the screen?
Hey Larry,
Easiest way we found:
Create a trigger that checks for an updated side conversation and then reopen the main ticket.
This way it appears back in the open ticket list and agents can find the ticket easily.
See: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001455627-Setting-up-triggers-for-side-conversations-Collaboration-add-on-
Hi Team...we have been working with side conversations for a while, and my ops team have a couple suggestions:
1. We would like to have a predefined list of allowed email address in that can be selected in the side conversation because the agents are selecting the wrong persons due to many addresses being similar. Managers/Team Leads should have the ability to build this list. Because of the agents select the wrong email address, we are sending PII info to the wrong people. (They do not like the fact that it pulls from and autofills with an end-user email, because our end-users should not be getting our side conversations).
2. The side conversations should not show anyone who does not have an email address defined. This would cut down on a lot of scroll.
3. Need to see the email addresses more clearly. Would lie a larger font size or a different color so that it shows clearly on the grey background. They are again choosing the incorrect person to email because the email is difficult to read against the background.
Thanks for your consideration...
Shannon
Thanks for sharing Shannon!
Hello
There is an issue with a response to a side converstion on a closed ticket.
As the agent to does get the info that someone replied.
We thought we could have a trigger on the event so that we could inform the person replying to use an other entry point.
But the trigger does not work either.
Very disapointing. This really breaks the relationship.
In the end, this means that we need to keep tickets in solved status for at least 60 days.
We have enabled side conversations, but some replies from the 3rd party create new tickets, while some update the side conversation.
Can we have some clarity on what allows you to identify and merge the side conversation replies?
Subject? Email address?
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