To prevent agents with custom roles from starting and replying to side conversations, you must disable the permission to do so. Otherwise, all agents are able to start and reply to side conversations.
You may want to do this if, for example, you have multiple tiers of agents, and only the more advanced agents need to be able to reach out to external partners as part of the escalation process. Creating a custom role for lower-level agents that doesn't include side conversation permissions prevents them from sending emails to anyone outside of the tickets they're working on. This helps them stay focused on their tasks by not presenting a new tool to work with. Note that disabling this setting doesn't change an agent's ability to see all of the side conversations on a ticket. There is no setting that restricts the visibility of side conversations to certain agents.
To disable side conversation permissions for custom agents
- In Admin Center, click the People icon (
) in the sidebar, then select Team >
Roles. - Locate the role you want to edit and click Edit.
- Scroll down to the the Agent
workflow section,
and then disable Contribute to side
conversations.
- Click Save.
13 Comments
Is there anyway to have a private side conversation with either the end user or one of the light agents within the ticket so all other cc'd light agents aren't able to see it? I've tried side conversation using email, and assigned ticket to just myself as the sole agent, and cc'd other light agents. Any and all Light agents where able to see the side conversation email.
Since light agents are still considered as part of your account, even though they have limited access, they can still view ticket comments within their group. We understand your need for this functionality so I am marking your comment as Product feedback. We truly value customer feedback and your voice and votes in the forums help influence future Zendesk functionality.
So light agents are able to log into platform to see ticket thread even if they were not assigned the ticket. I only assigned the ticket to myself and no other group. I only cc'd some light agents through public reply. Some of the cc'd agents were able to log in to the platform through email, some could only reply through email thread. Bit confusing
It would depend on your light agent role settings. You can check the settings from Admin Center>Account>Team>Roles> Light Agents>Edit>Ticket they can access.
Light agents should have access to your account and can only add a private comment on the ticket, provided that they are using Support. If they are listed as the requester of the ticket or the side conversation, they can only send a public reply if made outside Zendesk. More information about light agents can be found here: Understanding and setting light agent permissions
Thank you Cheeny,
I am familiar with some of the permissions of light agents. I guess my question is; Is there any way to have a side conversation where myself, as the sole agent assigned to the ticket, is able to privately talk with whomever I'm having side conversation with, so no other followers, cc's, or any light agents that may be in group that was assigned the ticket can see the side conversation?
Sorry this sounds bit confusing.
Thanks
Dante
It would boil down to agent permissions.
An agent may access tickets in one of the following ways:
So if you want that your conversation would only be able to be the one you are talking to then the best option would be to manage the agent ticket permissions. It would either be that they can only view tickets that are assigned to them (This would include searching for tickets. Even if they search for the ticket # they won't be able to view it). You could also create multiple groups. This would be the same for end-user and agent groups alike.
Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.
Thanks,
Dainne Lucena | Customer Advocacy Specialist
Hi! Some of my agents are unable to reply to side conversations started by another. I had assumed that this was an issue with permissions, and that the "contribute to side conversations" option was unchecked, but I can't find where to update this.
It looks like the layout of the Admin Centre has changed since this article was written?
So two questions:
Thanks in advance for any help you can give!
Hello Thomas, thank you for your question!
Indeed you are correct, being able to contribute to side conversations is a permission that can be granted or revoked for a Role.
Also, as of this writing this article has been updated with the latest version of the Admin Centre. You can find where to edit the roles by going here:
And editing the role that you wish to grant or revoke side conversations permissions.
I hope this was helpful!
Hi Beto,
Very helpful, thankyou 🙂
I don't see the "roles" option in my Admin Centre. Is this option unavailable to us in our Professional plan?
Thomas! I am truly sorry, I should have specified that.
This is correct, I'm afraid this functionality is not included in your current subscription. As you can see on this article: Creating custom roles and assigning agents, creating custom roles is only included in the Enterprise and Enterprise Plus subscription. This means that specifying the access for side conversations depending on the role is only available for these subscriptions levels.
I hope this was helpful!
In my case, our agent and end-user base are internal to my company. I can see a use case for side-conversations where we can utilize it to reach out to third parties, such as suppliers. Is there a way to restrict who can be contacted via side conversations, such as whitelisting a certain domain or even individual email addresses? An example concern is to make sure there is no accidental IP leakage by way of sending a side conversation email to someone they should not have by using the wrong email address.
Hi David Brown
Since side conversations are limited to only your team, you don't have to worry about adding your end-users to side conversations. You may add the 3rd parties that you've mentioned as a light agent with their own custom role. From there you can create the restriction using custom roles.
We're interested in locking down side conversations (we use the Slack side conversations functionality) and not allowing Light Agents to see them at all. However, we're not able to change permissions for Side Conversations on Light Agents. AND there doesn't seem to be a way to limit viewing of Side Conversations even if we could change this. We have ~900 Light Agents which we pay for the add-on but don't want to pay for a full license just to turn this off and still not be able to limit their ability to view side conversations.
Are more appropriate permission structures and flexibilities being worked on?
Are
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