If you are an administrator, you may want to enable side conversation child tickets, which allows agents to create separate tickets that are subordinate to a side conversation and that are assigned to a specific agent or group.
For an explanation of what side conversation child tickets are, and the inheritance pattern between parent and child ticket side conversations, see About side conversation child tickets.
This article includes these sections:
- Workflow example about side conversation child tickets
- Enabling side conversation child tickets
- Trigger conditions for side conversation child tickets
Related articles:
Workflow example about side conversation child tickets
Here’s an example of how you might use side conversation child tickets.
If an agent is working on a ticket that requires an approval from the Finance team and the Finance team also uses Support, a side conversation can be assigned to the Finance team. This creates a new ticket that is assigned to the Finance group, which then appears in the appropriate views for the Finance team, so they can triage the ticket and handle it however they normally do.
As the Finance team works on the ticket, any public comments they make are sent back to the originating side conversation. Any private comments (internal notes) or side conversations they make stay on their ticket.
This workflow lets agents leverage any other team working in Support to get the assistance they need, while letting those teams retain their existing processes and workflows. It also ensures that all communications are consolidated in Support, leveraging existing workflows and keeping everything in one place for posterity and reporting.
Enabling side conversation child tickets
Side conversation child tickets are disabled by default. If you want to use this feature, you must select the Enable child ticket option in your Admin settings first.
To enable side conversation child tickets
- In Admin Center, click the Objects and rules icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Tickets > Settings. - Scroll down to the Side Conversations section.
- Select Enable child tickets.
- Click Save tab.
Once you have enabled side conversations child tickets, you can define OLA policies using internal SLAs and side conversation child tickets, if needed.
Trigger conditions for side conversation child tickets
When side conversation child tickets is enabled, the following trigger condition is available:
Update via + Is + Side conversation
If you have a trigger with this condition, the trigger fires when a side conversation child ticket is updated because an agent replied to the originating side conversation and the reply was also added to the side conversation child ticket as public comment.
If side conversation child tickets is disabled, you won’t see this trigger condition in your account.
For information about other trigger conditions you can use with side conversations (see Setting up trigger conditions for side conversations).
13 Comments
Hi,
Thanks for this feature! How do I create a trigger that opens the parent ticket on reply of the child ticket?
This feature is not listed in Settings\Tickets as described.
Hi JC -
Sorry for the confusion! Side Conversations are included in our Suite Professional and above plan levels (as indicated by the graphic at the top of this article). If you subscribed to our standalone Support product prior to February 1, 2021, you may still be able to purchase the Collaboration Legacy Add-on by contacting our Sales team via the link in this article: About Zendesk product legacy add-ons
Otherwise you'd need to upgrade to our Suite. See How can I update my subscription?
I'm sorry I don't have an easier answer for you, but I hope that at least clarifies the situation.
Hi all,
Haven't been able to read through all the comments, so I'll ask myself:
Is there a way to populate fields like form and custom fields when creating a child ticket? IF I want to send a ticket to another team, I would like to be able to populate them correctly, so they fall under the right views and the receiving team doesn't need to manually edit them every time, is this possible? I don't even see the option to do it through macros.
thanks!!
Really good question @...:
There wouldn't be any ticket forms or custom field editing available when initially creating the child ticket beyond the assignee/group, subject and ticket description but: We could get somewhat close by setting up triggers to look for specific key words in child tickets and have that ticket info automatically added by triggers once the child ticket has been created.
For example: With a ticket subject like "Technical Support: Please assist", you could create a trigger that looks for "Subject text > contains the following string > technical support" and have its ticket form automatically changed to a tech support-related form.
Otherwise for a slightly more manual but precise approach, you could quickly open the child ticket once it's been created by clicking on the newly visible internal note in the parent ticket. From there, you'd be able to apply macros or modify ticket info as needed before the receiving team makes their way to the child ticket.
Thanks again Jorge, and let us know if there's anything else we can help out with!
Thanks Austin! I had thought of both, but trying to avoid automating based on manual work, any typo would cause the trigger to fail in this case, which is why I mentioned macros as another option. It is for a highly sensitive project (complaint handling) and failure to comply in this case can have serious consequences, so we need to make sure that the pipeline is pretty solid and escalable.
How to enabled Side tickets? I am into Setting>Ticket page, in the entire page there is no option for enabling side conversations?
Users with roles with only private comments allowed, child tickets are not allowed. Is this is a known limitation?
Hi Mark, thanks for writing in! Yes, it is a known limitation for agents with no public comments access. It looks like it is copying the Light agent permission. As per this article Using Side Conversations child tickets: Light agents cannot create, send, or be assigned side conversation child tickets. It is also mentioned this limitation in the above article:
We also tested it on our test account and we experienced the same behavior.
Thank you and we hope this helps!
Hi
Is there a way to suppress an email being sent to the ticket assignee when a side conversation is being replied to via a child ticket? ie:
Our agents primarily work in Zendesk and do not use email except for Company Communications. I believe this is the workflow for most Help Desks/support centres so the email that is also sent to the assigned agent is redundant and also clogs up their inbox. Is there a way to suppress emails that programming sends to agents on side conversations?
Zendesk uses default triggers to send those notifications, so it is possible to prevent that email from being sent to the assignee creating a trigger for side conversations or adding a condition in a trigger. As this require a bit more investigation, I have created a ticket on your behalf to continue working together.
Hello, I am reacting to Jupete Manitas answer. I understand from the answer that users with only private comments allowed, are not able to create child tickets at the moment. However, is it something that we can hope for the future? Even though it’s a copying the light agent permission, in the logic of this feature I don’t see a reason why an agent with only private comment allowed would not be allowed to create a child ticket and assigned it to another group.
When creating a side conversation child ticket, the composer doesn't have the option to toggle between internal and public notes. The side conversation page will only agents to write public comments and because of the inheritance pattern between parent and child tickets (as described in this article), private comments will not appear in the side conversation interface of the parent ticket.
As Light Agents do have permission to make private comments, it is possible for them to open an already existing child ticket in the Support interface and add a private comment to the ticket.
You can also visit the article Using side conversation child tickets to read more about this.
Hope this clarifies!
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