Understanding when email replies become public or private comments

Fastpath: Admin Center > Objects and rules > Tickets > Settings

Note: This article describes the new CCs and followers experience. This experience is available to all accounts, but some accounts have the experience enabled by default and others don't.

This article assumes that you are using the CCs and followers experience. When using the new experience, there are a few rules that Support follows to determine whether a reply to a notification sent from email becomes a public comment or a private comment.

A private comment appears in the agent interface as an internal note. Private comments and internal notes are the same thing. This article uses the term private comment to describe these types of comments.

This article includes these sections:

• When replies become public comments
• When replies become private comments
• Using "Reply" instead of "Reply all"
• Third party replies to ticket notifications
• Using the Mail API

For more information about using CCs and followers with email clients, see Best practices for using email clients with CCs and followers.

For a complete list of documentation about CCs and followers, see CC and followers resources.

When replies become public comments

Replies to ticket notifications sent from email become public comments in these cases:

• If a requester replies to a ticket notification, the reply becomes a public comment. It doesn’t matter whether the author of the email is an end user or agent.

• If a CC replies to a ticket notification, and the requester is on the reply, the reply becomes a public comment. It doesn’t matter whether the author of the email is an end user or agent.

• If an agent or follower replies, the requester is on the reply, and Agent comments via email are public by default is enabled, the reply becomes a public comment.

When replies become private comments

Replies to ticket notifications sent from email become private comments in these cases:

• If a CC replies to a ticket notification, and the requester isn’t on the reply, the reply becomes a private comment. If the recipient of the ticket notification is a follower, and the ticket already includes private comments created from email, the reply becomes a private comment. However, if the Make email comments from CCed end users public setting is enabled, the behavior changes and the reply becomes a public comment instead.

• If the recipient of the ticket notification is a follower, and the most recent comment on the ticket is a private comment, the reply becomes a private comment.

• If the person replying to the ticket notification is not currently the requester or a CC, the reply becomes a private comment. For example, this can happen if the recipient of the ticket notifications forwards the notification to someone else, and then that person replies. For more information, see Third party replies to ticket notifications (below).

• If an agent replies, and the Agent comments via email are public by default is disabled, the reply becomes a private comment.

• If the agent is a light agent or an agent with custom role that only allows them to make private comments, the reply becomes a private comment.

Using "Reply" instead of "Reply all"

When someone replies to a ticket notification from their email client using Reply (instead of Reply all), the reply becomes a private comment (internal note) on the ticket.

For example:

• By default, when an end user CC replies to a ticket notification using Reply (instead of Reply all), the reply becomes a private comment on the ticket because the requester is not on the reply. CCs are not removed from the ticket. However, if the Make email comments from CCed end users public setting is enabled, the behavior changes and the reply becomes a public comment instead.

• Follower replies follow the rules for followers (and the Agent comments via email are public by default setting) that were mentioned earlier in this article, regardless of whether Reply or Reply all is used.

• Assignee replies follow the rules for agents (and the Agent comments via email are public by default setting) that were mentioned earlier in this article, regardless of whether Reply or Reply all is used.

Third party replies to ticket notifications

In some rare cases, your end users may forward ticket notifications to a third party. A third party is someone who isn't the requester or a CC, assignee, or follower on the ticket. This scenario is not common.

If a third party replies to a ticket notification from an email client, these things happen:

• A warning like this appears in the ticket interface (click the icon to expand the menu and see the message):

  

• The reply becomes a private comment (internal note) on the ticket.

• The third party is not automatically added to the ticket as a CC.

As a result, agents may need to do these things:

• If the reply needs to be a public comment, then the agent must manually copy/paste the text into a public comment on their behalf.

• If future replies from this person need to be public comments, then the agent needs to add them as a CC from the ticket interface.

Using the Mail API

You can also use Mail API commands to make a reply into a public or private comment. By default the value of the #public Mail API comand is true, so the reply will be public. A #public false command will make the reply private. Also, you can use the #note short syntax to make a reply into a private comment. See Using the Mail API to update ticket properties from your inbox.