You can create side conversation child tickets and assign them to groups that you have access to or specific agents within those groups.
A side conversation child ticket is a separate ticket that is subordinate to a side conversation. Child side conversation tickets are useful when you need a formal way to track and measure requests associated with a side conversation. Side conversation tickets can also be routed to agents with omnichannel routing.
Side conversation child tickets must be activated by an admin.
This article includes these sections:
- About side conversation child tickets
- Understanding light agent interaction with side conversation child tickets
- Creating side conversation child tickets
- Copying fields to child tickets
- Limitations
Related articles:
About side conversation child tickets
When you create a side conversation child ticket, you're creating a side conversation on the original ticket and a new, separate, subordinate ticket that is assigned to a specific agent or group.
Side conversation and child ticket definitions:
- Originating side conversation: The side conversation on the original ticket used to create a side conversation child ticket.
- Side conversation child ticket: A ticket created from a side conversation.
There's a connection between the originating side conversation and the side conversation child ticket. This is a parent-child relationship. The originating side conversation is the “parent” and the child ticket is the “child.” You might think of these as linked tickets.
The child ticket inherits replies from the originating side conversation. When an agent replies to the side conversation on the original ticket, the replies are added to the child ticket. Depending on how an admin has configured side conversation child tickets, replies may be added as public comments or internal notes.
Child tickets have a unique external ID which is used to link the child ticket with a parent ticket. If you change a child ticket's external ID for any reason, the relationship with the parent ticket is broken and the child ticket no longer inherits data from the parent ticket.
Child tickets don’t inherit other forms of ticket data from the parent ticket. For example, if the status of the parent ticket changes, the status of the child ticket doesn’t automatically change. The same is true for adding tags to a ticket, and adding or removing CCs.
Some ticket fields can be copied from the parent ticket to the child ticket at the time of ticket creation (see Copying fields to child tickets).
Generally, there isn’t a reverse connection between parent and child tickets. The exceptions are that public comments on a child ticket become part of the side conversation and events in the parent ticket, and the status and assignee of the child ticket is displayed on the side conversation in the parent ticket.
When an SLA is applied to a child ticket, marking the side conversation as Done in the parent ticket doesn’t fulfill First time reply and Next time reply metrics because the child ticket isn't updated by that action.
Understanding light agent interaction with side conversation child tickets
Light agents can't create, send, or be assigned side conversation child tickets.
Light agents have permission to make private comments, so it's possible for them to open an existing child ticket Support and add a private comment to the ticket. However, because of the inheritance pattern between parent and child tickets, that private comment won't appear in the side conversation interface of the parent ticket.
Creating side conversation child tickets
You can create, send, and be assigned to side conversation child tickets. The child tickets you create can be assigned only to groups that you have access to or specific agents within those groups.
You may notice some minor differences in the side conversations user interface, depending on which side conversation channels your administrator has activated.
Side conversations are created from the context panel.
- In a ticket, open the context panel and click the Side conversations
(
) icon, then click the plus sign (+).
- Select Ticket.Note: The composer opens immediately if no other side conversation channels are available.
The side conversation child ticket composer opens.
- In the To field, specify an agent or group. Note: You can assign child tickets only to groups that you have access to and the agents within those groups. Light agents can’t be assigned to child tickets.
- Fill out the subject and message body, including any inserted comments and attachments as needed (see Using side conversations in tickets).
- (Optional) Click the Set child tickets fields icon (
), specify which types of ticket field data you want copied from the parent ticket to the child ticket, and click Add. See Copying fields to child tickets.
- Click Send.
Copying fields to child tickets
When you create a side conversation child ticket, you may be able to copy the following ticket fields from the parent ticket depending on how an admin has configured your account:
- Tags: The tags on the parent ticket, at the time the child ticket was created, will be added to the child ticket.
- Followers: The followers of the parent ticket, at the time the child ticket was created, will be added as followers on the child ticket.
- Ticket form: The parent ticket's form and field values, at the time the child ticket was created, will be set on the child ticket.
- Requester: The ticket requester.
An admin may configure certain ticket fields to be copied to the child ticket by default. When this occurs, the default fields appear in the list of fields to be copied to the child ticket but aren’t available in the selector.
Copying fields to a child ticket is a one time-event that occurs only when the ticket is created. For example, if the parent ticket is updated later on, and the data in those ticket fields change, the child ticket is not updated to match.
To include ticket fields in a side conversation child ticket
-
Create a side conversation child ticket.
The ticket fields that are available to be copied appear in the Fields section
- Click the Set child ticket fields icon (
).
- Select the fields that you want to copy from the parent ticket to the child
ticket, then click Add.
- Click Send.
Limitations
- Notification emails will trigger twice.
- When side conversation child tickets are enabled, ticket triggers for side conversations will fire twice. For example, once for the originating side conversation, and once for the side conversation child ticket.
- For agents assigned to custom roles to create child tickets through side conversations, they must have permission to create side conversations and make public comments in tickets. See Creating custom roles.
- In certain cases, agents may be able to assign child tickets to groups that they don’t have access to. For example, if they use a macro that’s available to them that assigns a child ticket to a group to which they don’t have access.
- When a side conversation ticket is assigned to a private group, it is visible to members who don't belong to the group.
80 comments
Darius
Is it possible to correct this documentation? The side conversation icon doesn't appear in the Context Panel in the Agent Workspace.
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Lisa Kelly
Hi Daris,
This is not incorrect. As the article says:
Note: Side conversations in the context panel is currently in an Early Access Program (EAP). You can sign up for the EAP here.
1
Charmel Pace
Hello,
Can you please add the feature to create a child ticket but send the message to a customer (end-user) also? Our organization often needs to contact external sources in order to solve our client's queries and we need to keep track of these conversations also. A child ticket with an external source option would be of huge help!
Please consider this.
1
Shawna James
For future reference, I want to point you in the direction of our product feedback template which has been designed by community members and PM's to help users provide as detailed feedback as possible so that our teams can understand and highlight the most important aspects of your product feature request. You don't need to make any changes now but wanted to make sure you had this template for your reference for future posts!
Thank you again for taking the time to provide us with your feedback!
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Antonio Naddeo
Is it possible to change the requester of the side conversation child ticket, as opposed to assign it the the assignee?
We can have in the same messaging different conversation about different orders numbers, that needs to me monitored and reported.
If a customer contact us multiple time in the same messaging, we would like to create a child ticket via side conversation ticket, but the assignee remains the agent, whereas we want to create a brand new ticket where the assignee is the requester (customer), so we can create separate ticket a track all different orders.
Why the requester of the child ticket must be the assignee (agent) and not the requester (customer)?
For our business we receive requests for multiple order numbers, and for monitoring purposing we need to have a separate ticket with the corresponding number.
So we can have the customer continuing the conversation via the same messaging ticket whenever he/she wants, but we need the ability to create child tickets where the requester is customer (not the agent)
How can we solve this?
2
Customer Care
Hello
Is is possible to pass along the tags using the API?
Thanks
0
Cheryl Johnson
Several months ago, my team of Agents lost the capability to paste hyperlinks into side conversations. We now have to copy the text, then link to the URL.
This error only occurs in side conversations. We are still able to paste hyperlinks directly into comments on the ticket.
Could this please be fixed?
0
Lisa Kelly
Hi Cheryl,
If side conversations are not working as expected, contact Zendesk Customer Support so they can help you with your issue.
0
Antonio Naddeo
I am posting this again as I did not get any response on my previous message.
Is it possible to change the requester of the side conversation child ticket, as opposed to assign it the the assignee?
We can have in the same messaging different conversation about different orders numbers, that needs to me monitored and reported.
If a customer contact us multiple time in the same messaging, we would like to create a child ticket via side conversation ticket, but the assignee remains the agent, whereas we want to create a brand new ticket where the assignee is the requester (customer), so we can create separate ticket a track all different orders.
Why the requester of the child ticket must be the assignee (agent) and not the requester (customer)?
For our business we receive requests for multiple order numbers, and for monitoring purposing we need to have a separate ticket with the corresponding number.
So we can have the customer continuing the conversation via the same messaging ticket whenever he/she wants, but we need the ability to create child tickets where the requester is customer (not the agent)
How can we solve this?
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Dane
The only way is to change it manually once the side conversation ticket has been created.
Would you mind posting your use case to our Feedback on Support topic? We have a template you can copy and use in your post. This is to help get more visibility and votes on the idea. Then, others can share their use cases to further drive demand for that feature. Thanks!
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Antonio Naddeo
Hi Dane
I have left a post here asking a question and exposing our use case:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/6452230615706-Messaging-create-a-new-separate-tickets-for-each-different-issues-reported-in-a-messaging-conversation
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Daniel Seawright
I see this works when manually creating a Child ticket, but I do not see an option for this when creating a child ticket via trigger.
Is this possible?
0
Hiedi Kysther
Hi Daniel Seawright,
Absolutely! Using trigger to create a child ticket will also follow the same logic when you are manually creating a child ticket.
Hope this helps!
-1
Daniel Seawright
Hiedi Kysther,
It does not in my system. The setup contains an option to change text format but not the option to copy the ticket form.
In the child tickets created by the trigger, the form fields do not populate.
Whereas the manual creation of a child ticket has the option that can be selected.
0
Lloyd Norman
Hi team,
Will there ever be scope for an option to choose if the first child ticket creation is either a public reply or an internal note?
For certain sensitive escalations, we want to prevent any chance of comms going out to clients if on the rare chance someone CCs in a client.
Currently, to mitigate this - we put some generic information in via macro when a team member is setting up a child ticket.
Ideally, it'd be best if we had more control over whether that first comment should/should not be a public one.
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Tatiana Christensen
We hesitated using side conversation via child ticket for group-to-group communication because of the email that's sent to the agent that requests the child ticket. The posted solution to suppress email notification using the “update via is not side conversation” condition didn't work for us.
After some tinkering in the sandbox, we've ended up making a custom checkbox field that would be checked whenever a ticket is created via side conversation, and then exclude the checked tickets in the “update by agent-notification trigger. (tag = no go, as it can populate to subtickets when tags are transferred and result in unintended notification prevention.) bonus: now we have a child ticket identifier for business rules & reporting.
So, our collaboration set up is Group A asking a question to Group B by creating a child ticket and set the parent ticket on-hold. Group B will see the ticket in their view and reply as they would in a regular ticket. This reopens Group A's parent ticket with the latest comment. Group A keeps full accountability for the main ticket and can solve it after internal alignment. No emailing to and from Zendesk.
Next step in chasing collaboration improvements within the ZD instance will be to experiment with child ticket related views.
Hope it's helpful!
1
Dainne Kiara Lucena-Laxamana
Thanks for sharing at Tatiana Christensen !
1
Shannon Hayes
Hi,
We are switching child tickets via side conversations on, as we have recently been doing this via the linked ticket app. However when creating the child ticket via the app, my agents would use a macro to ensure that they were including the correct information at the time of escalating to prevent further touches etc, which also then assigned the child ticket to the correct group based on the macro selected.
My question is, can a macro applied into the body of the child ticket in the side conversation and if not, is there a work around?
Thanks!
0
Jennifer Rozenberg
Hi,
Is there a workaround to be able to assign a requestor to a child ticket? That would be very helpful for our workflow as we need to send a second form to a requestor sometimes. We would rather not have two separate tickets or ticket numbers. Thanks!
Jen
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Antonio Naddeo
I can see progress on the setup of child tickets, but I’m surprised the “To” field’s behavior hasn’t changed, or that the setup isn’t adjustable. Currently, it seems the only way to change it is by manually updating it after creation, which adds extra work for the agent and isn’t ideal.
When creating a child ticket, it’s only possible to send or assign it to a group or an agent, which works well for internal collaboration. However, this approach is limited for organizations (like ours) that need to work with external partners.
Question: Why isn’t it possible to send a child ticket to an external email address instead of assigning it directly to an agent?
While email side conversations allow sending to external addresses, this option isn’t available for child tickets. 🙄
Use case:The use case here is that we’re working closely with an external organization, so ideally, the assignee would remain the same as the parent ticket by default without the need of changing the assignee or type it manually (waste of time), and the “To” address could be set to an external organization.
Why this matters: Email side conversations don’t support custom fields or apps, whereas child tickets can map nearly all fields from the parent ticket, which is highly beneficial. We rely on various apps in the sidebar that only work with tickets, not with email side conversations.
Is it something on your radar Zendesk?
Appreciate your response on this feedback.
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