If your customers occasionally send support requests to your email address instead of your support address, you can pass the email to the support address. By passing the email, a ticket is created with the original sender set as the requester. It also creates a new account if the user isn't registered.
You have two options for passing the email:
Redirecting email is not the same as forwarding it. Redirecting preserves the header information so that the email appears to be from the original sender, not from you. A ticket is created with the original sender set as the requester.
If you forward the email, the sender becomes you, not the original sender. Normally, the process creates a ticket listing you as the requester. However, two options are available to set the correct requester on the ticket.
Use this article if you want to handle the occasional email yourself. If you want to redirect all emails sent to an email address (not just the occasional one), see Using an external email domain in the Administrator Guide.
Forwarding an email
If you forward the email, the sender becomes you, not the original sender. Normally, the process creates a ticket listing you as the requester. However, you can use one of the following solutions to set the correct requester on the ticket:
- Enabling the forwarding option for agents in Zendesk Support
- Specifying the requester in the forwarded email
- Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2007 and 2010
Enabling the forwarding option for agents in Zendesk Support
Your administrator can enable an option that lets you forward an email in your inbox to your support address to create a ticket on behalf of the original sender.
Forwarding works for ticket creation, not ticket updates. Once a ticket has been created, users should reply directly from their email notifications.
Forwarding is only configured to look at the From field in the forwarded message. When an agent forwards an email and forwarding is enabled in the account, the forwarded email will not contain the original list of CCs (copied users) that may have been included on the ticket notifications.
When a non-restricted agent creates a ticket using agent forwarding, the ticket is unassigned. When a restricted agent creates a ticket using agent forwarding, the ticket will initially be assigned to their default group. Any group routing that would normally occur as a result of the requester's organization is ignored.
To enable the forwarding option
- Log in as an administrator.
- In Admin Center, click
Workspaces in the sidebar, then select Agent tools > Agent interface.
- Scroll down the the Email forwarding section and then select Enable email forwarding.
- Click Save.
Agents can add public comments to the ticket by replying to the email. To add private comments, agents can type the comment above the Forwarded message line.
Specifying the requester in the forwarded email
This solution works for all email clients. It involves inserting a simple instruction in the email body that specifies the requester. When creating the ticket, Zendesk Support reads the instruction and sets the requester you specified.
The solution works only if you're an agent and your email address is registered in your account. The command is ignored if the email is forwarded by an end-user. For more information, see Updating ticket properties from your inbox in the Administrator Guide.
- Select the email in your inbox and click Forward.
- Enter the following instruction at the top of the email body:
#requester {requester_email}
where
{requester_email}
is the requester's email address. Example:#requester gerry5@yahoo.com
Tip: You can copy the requester's address from the Forwarded Message section in the body.
- Clean up the email. For example, remove the FWD prefix in the subject line and the
Forwarded Message header in the body.
The requester instruction will be stripped from the ticket automatically.
- Enter your support address in the To field and click Send.
Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2007 and 2010
The Microsoft Exchange email server doesn't currently allow users to redirect individual messages. However, you can use the following workaround. It works for any normal user and doesn't require granting special permissions on the Exchange server.
- Select the message in your inbox and click Forward.
- Enter your support address in the To field.
- Click Options tab and click the Direct Replies To button.
- In the Properties window, change the value in the "Have replies sent to" field to the
name of the user submitting the request.
Tip: Click Select Names to search your Address Book.
- Close the window and click Send.
Tip: If you use this command frequently, select File > Options > Quick Access Toolbar, and add the Direct Replies To button to your toolbar.
Redirecting an email
Some email clients can redirect an email as if you never opened it, preserving the header information so that the email appears to be from the original sender, not you.
Note: If your email account is on a Microsoft Exchange server, redirecting a message is not possible currently in any email client. However, you can still forward an email and set the correct requester on the ticket. See Forwarding an email for details.
The following are some email clients that support redirection:
Gmail does not currently support redirecting indvidual emails. You can forward an email instead. See Forwarding an email.
If you know how redirect works in other clients, please share the information in a comment at the end of this article.
Microsoft Outlook 2007 and 2010
- Double-click the email in your inbox to open it in a new window.
- Select Actions > Resend This Message.
A warning appears about you not being the original sender of the message.
- Click Yes.
A message window appears.
- Enter your support address in the To field and click Send.
Mail (Mac OS)
- Control-click the email in your inbox and select Redirect.
- Enter your support address in the To field and click Send.
Tip: If you use this command frequently, select View > Customize Toolbar, and add the Redirect button to your toolbar.
Mozilla Thunderbird
- Install and use the mailredirect plugin at http://mailredirect.mozdev.org/installation.html.
Only Thunderbird 3 or later is supported.
- Select the message you want to redirect and choose Redirect from the Tools menu.
- Enter your support address in the To field and click Send.
Eudora
- Select the message in your inbox and choose Redirect from the Message menu.
- Enter your support address in the To field and click Send.
Evolution
- Select the message in the inbox and choose Forward > Redirect from the Actions menu.
- Enter your support address in the To field and click Send.
8 Comments
How can I forward emails from Microsoft Exchange to Zendesk? The content was removed from the page link provided: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/216954207
Hi Amy!
Unfortunately we do not have an article about forwarding from Microsoft Exchange specifically but we do have this one that describes how the forwarding process works: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203663316-Passing-an-email-to-your-support-address
Ultimately it is up to you your email client for what the forwarding settings are on that side.
Cheers!
Ray Roth
Senior Customer Advocate
I am having an issue I can't figure out.
1. Inside Zendesk if I create a new ticket for a customer manually it works great and emails the client as expected.
2. If I forward an email into Zendesk that someone sent to my personal work email, it sends the end requester a blank email when I do this. I know this is tied to the trigger for #1, but I don't know how to adjust the trigger to do #1 but not send on #2. On #2 I need the email to go in silently for the client, as then we will come back in the ticket to respond.
Any advice? Here is the trigger for #1, that also seems to catch #2...
Hi Benjamin!
When you forward an email to Zendesk from your personal email, the end-user will automatically be set as the requester of that ticket. Due to our outbound email rules, it is not possible to include a customer's message in the initial auto-reply back to them. This was possible before but this functionality was targeted by spammers to pass messages through Zendesk systems to your customers. Because of this, we have made some security changes to our outbound email rules to guard against this behavior.
This is also discussed in this article: Can I include the customer's original message in my auto-reply email trigger?
Hope this helps!
Hi, looking for assistance. We recently sent two seperate emails using Outlook copying one of our Zendesk support groups. As the email content was templated, for the second email, we deleted the initial addressee and add the new one. Zendesk combined both emails into the one ticket. Can you advise how this occured please? I've raised here as assumed the second email might have followed a redirecting path. Thank you
Hi Mags, thanks for writing in! May we know if you have submitted a ticket to Support about this for further troubleshooting? As it seems you have a different workflow which resulted in different behavior. You're sending an email and you CC'd your support address?
Hi Jupete, thank you for your response. I didn't raise a support ticket as upon further review on your support pages I came across this article Why do emails thread to the wrong ticket? – Zendesk help. which explained Zendesk's threading logic requires the user to copy any pertinent email content into a brand new email and that simply deleting and adding a new email addressee to an Outlook email template already used whilst copying in Zendesk would not suffice.
Hello Mags,
Yes, that is right. Zendesk threads that way when they receive emails. We're glad you found that article. Thank you!
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