Using side conversations for Slack

What's my plan?

This feature is available only if the administrator has installed the latest version of Slack for Zendesk Support and activated side conversations.

As an alternative to email-based side conversations, agents can use side conversations in a ticket to initiate and participate in Slack threads. The Slack side conversations you initiate are viewable in the ticket and the Slack application. Like email conversations, Slack side conversations are recorded as ticket events, and can be used as ticket trigger conditions.

Note: If you invite your bot and external users to a Slack Connect channel owned by an external workspace, side conversations won't work. To ensure side conversations work correctly, invite your bot and external users to a Slack Connect channel owned by your workspace.

This article includes these topics:

• Creating a side conversation using Slack
• Deleting a Slack side conversation
• About limitations and breaking the link between Support and Slack

Related articles:

• About side conversations
• Side conversation resources

Creating a side conversation using Slack

When creating a side conversation, you choose between using email or using Slack.

Note: You may experience some delay in updates that occur between Slack and ticket side conversations. Typically, the delay is about 5 seconds, but can be 30 seconds or longer.

To create a side conversation using Slack

1. In a ticket, open the context panel and click the Side conversations () icon, then click the plus sign (+).

   If you don’t have the Agent Workspace, in a ticket click the Side Conversations plus sign (+) in the upper-left.

2. Select Slack as the conversation type.

   

3. Enter the Slack channel and your message. You can also add attachments.

   

   For more information about the composer, see Rich text editing in the side conversation composer.

   You start a side conversation in one Slack channel at a time. You cannot combine Slack and email conversations. If you have a lot of Slack channels, it may take a few moments to display the list of available channels.

   If you have multiple Slack workspaces connected to Zendesk Support, the workspace appears after the channel name. For example: #support - Workspace A, #general - Workspace A, #support - Workspace B, #general - Workspace B, and so on.

4. When you’ve finished composing your message, click Send.

   The team in the Slack channel can view your message and reply to the thread directly, without logging into Support.

   

   The Slack replies are automatically included in the ticket’s side conversation.

   

   The conversation can continue back and forth, as long as necessary, until you get the information you need.

5. When the side conversation is complete, click Mark done in the ticket to close the side conversation.

Deleting a Slack side conversation

To delete a Slack side conversation, you must be the agent who created the Slack side conversation or an administrator. When you delete, the side conversation is removed from the ticket and Slack. Side conversation messages that are edited or deleted in Slack are also reflected on the ticket.

To delete a Slack side conversation

1. In a ticket, open the context panel and click the Side conversations () icon.

   If you don’t have the Agent Workspace, in a ticket click Side Conversations in the upper-left.

   A list of side conversations for the ticket appears.

2. Select the side conversation you want to delete.

   You can only delete Slack side conversations. You cannot delete email side conversations.

3. Click the options menu icon () on the right side of the conversation, then select Delete.

   

4. When a confirmation message appears, click Delete to confirm the deletion.

About limitations and breaking the link between Support and Slack

Slack side conversations have the following limitations:

• Only ticket comments with 1,000 characters or less can be inserted into a Slack side conversation.
• Slack @mentions are supported, but they don't autocomplete. You must enter the user's Slack member ID in angle brackets. For example <@U1H63D8SZ>.

  To find an agent's Slack member ID, go to the agent's profile in Slack. Click the options menu (), then select Copy member ID.

  Alternatively, you can include @here to notify everyone currently logged in or @channel to alert every channel member.

• Rich text formatting and Slack Markdown text entered in the side conversation composer may not always display as intended in Slack.

The following Slack features are not supported:

• Direct messages

  As a workaround, the administrator can set up private Slack channels with only one member, such as #lkelly-private, and add them to the Slack for Zendesk integration.

• Emoji reactions
• Typing indicators

If the link breaks between Zendesk and Slack, for example, if an admin removes the Zendesk app from a Slack channel or if they archive or delete a Slack channel that you used for side conversations, you can still open and view these side conversations in a ticket, but you can no longer use that Slack channel to send or receive updates to side conversations.