Using side conversations in tickets (Collaboration add-on)

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).

This article includes these topics:

• Advantages of using side conversations
• Recommendations about side conversations
• About side conversation channels
• Rich text editing in the side conversation composer
• Creating side conversations
• Viewing and replying to side conversations
• Closing and reopening side conversations
• Adding ticket comments to a side conversation
• The Support mobile app does not support side conversations

Related articles:

• Setting up trigger conditions for side conversations (add-on)
• Using macros to start side conversations (add-on)
• Using Slack in side conversations
• Collaboration add-on resources

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.

Using side conversations can make it easier to do things like:

• 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

Here’s some general advice about how to get the most out of 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.

About side conversation channels

When you create a side conversation, you can choose to have the side conversation in one of these channels:

• Email—Creates an email-based side conversation as described in this article.

• Slack (if enabled)—Creates a Slack-based side conversation (see Using Slack in side conversations).

• Ticket (if enabled)—Creates a side conversation child ticket (see Using side conversation child tickets (Collaboration add-on)).

Rich text editing in the side conversation composer

The side conversation composer is a rich text editor that includes a toolbar with options for editing and formatting your text. Rich text editors are sometimes called WYSIWIG (what you see is what you get) editors.

The formatting options in the composer vary a little depending on the side conversation channel involved (Email, Slack, or Ticket). For example, these are the formatting options for email:

The composer for Email and Ticket side conversation includes a full array of formatting options because email supports full HTML display. The composer for Slack side conversations includes fewer formatting options because Slack uses a subset of Markdown for formatting. With Slack side conversations, you can also use Markdown-style shortcuts while typing in the composer, and they will be converted to rich text. For example, if you type bold, bold is applied to the text in composer.

This table lists the editing options that are available with different side conversation channels.

Formatting option	Email & Ticket side conversations	Slack side conversations
Bold	Available	Available
Italic	Available	Available
Bullet list, Numbered list	Available	Available
Quote	Available	Available
Code span	Available	Available
Code block	Available	Available
Heading	Available	---
Outdent, Indent	Available	---
Link	Available	---

Note the following limitations with the composer:

• The composer doesn’t support inline images. You can, however, add images as attachments.
• If you paste complex rich text into the composer, you will likely lose some formatting.

Creating side conversations

If enabled, agents and light agents can create side conversations.

You can create side conversations on open or closed tickets. When someone replies to a side conversation on a closed or archived ticket, triggers won’t be run on it even if they have side conversation conditions, but a follow-up ticket is automatically created (see Understanding follow-up tickets for side conversations (Collaboration add-on)).

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 an email-based side conversation

1. From the upper-left portion of a ticket, click the plus sign (+) next to Side Conversations and then choose Email.

   

   For information about using side conversation channels other than Email, see Using side conversation child tickets (Collaboration add-on) and Using Slack in side conversations).

2. 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.
3. 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

1. From the bottom portion of the ticket, click the View side conversation button for the side conversation you are interested in.
   
   
2. Click the Side Conversations bar to see a list of side conversations. Click the one you are interested in.
   
   
3. 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.

4. 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.

Note: Side conversations do not support Markdown. If you use Markdown in a side conversation (including email signatures), the conversation will show the Markdown layout and not render images or links correctly. Also, side conversations do not support placeholders in email signatures; they appear as unresolved, bracketed text. For example, {{agent.email}}.

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

1. Open the side conversation (see Viewing and replying to side conversations).
2. 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

1. Start a side conversation. You can start the conversation from an individual ticket comment or from the upper-left portion of the ticket.
2. Click the comments icon ( ) at the bottom of the message.

   

   A page appears with a list of ticket comments to include.

3. Select the comments you want to include. You can select each comment separately, or select Ticket comments to include all comments.

   

4. 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.