Activating and deactivating side conversations

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Quick Look: Admin Center > Workspaces > Agent tools > Side conversations

Note: If you have the Zendesk Agent Workspace activated, you can view and manage side conversations from the context panel. See Activating and deactivating side conversations in the context panel.

Side conversations are spaces in a ticket where agents can have a separate conversation with a specific group of people, or discuss a specific area of concern or course of action. Side conversations are stored separately from the main ticket thread and can include users who don't have account access. You can use them to organize information about a ticket. See About side conversations.

Admins can activate and deactivate side conversations. They're deactivated by default.

Side conversations are only available in Zendesk Suite. They're not available in Support.

Related articles:

• Side conversations resources

To activate and deactivate side conversations

1. In Admin Center, click Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Side conversations.
2. Select Turn on child tickets. This allows agents to create side conversation child tickets and assign them to a specific agent or group. See Using side conversation child tickets.

   There are additional settings you can turn on for child tickets. See Configuring side conversation child ticket settings.

3. Select Turn on emails outside the main conversation to make side conversations available from email.

   For information about using side conversations with email, see Using side conversations in tickets.

4. Select Turn on side conversations in Microsoft Teams to make side conversations available from Microsoft Teams.

   To use side conversations with Microsoft Teams, you must also have the latest version of Zendesk for Microsoft Teams installed. See using Microsoft Teams in side conversations.

5. Select Turn on side conversations in Slack to make side conversations available from Slack.

   To use side conversations with Slack, you must also have the latest version of the Slack for Zendesk Support app. See Using Slack in side conversations.

6. Click Save.

When side conversations are activated, they're available for all agents to use. On Enterprise plans, you can control access to side conversations by creating a custom role.

It's recommended to set up trigger conditions for side conversations to fully integrate them into your workflows and to keep agents on top of the activity within them. See the Ticket trigger conditions and actions reference.