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:
- Checklist: How Support determines comments privacy for inbound emails
- 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 CCs and followers resources.
Checklist: How Support determines comments privacy for inbound emails
Support performs a series of checks to determine comment privacy for inbound emails. These are the checks and the order in which they are performed:
- If the ticket is being updated (rather than created) and the ticket was
identified from the encoded ID in the email, and the author cannot edit the ticket:
- If the author is an agent and is not an assignee, follower, or CC on the ticket, the comment will be private.
- If the author is an end user and is not the requester or a CC on the ticket, the comment will be private.
- If the ticket is being updated (rather than created) and the ticket was not
identified from the encoded ID in the email, and the author cannot edit the ticket:
- The new comment will be suspended (and if/when recovered, it will follow similar rules outlined here from the top).
- If the author is a CC, and the requester was not a direct recipient of the
email:
- If Make email comments from CCed end users public is disabled, the comment will be private.
- If Make email comments from CCed end users public is enabled, but there were recipients other than a support address of the account, the comment will be private.
- If the author is an end user, the comment will be public.
- If the author is a light agent (or a role that cannot comment publicly), the comment will be private.
- If the Mail API was used with the #note command (for internal note), the comment will be private.
- If Agent comments via email are public by default is disabled, the comment will be private.
- If the ticket being updated is private, the comment will be private.
- If Support determines that the email contains content that was previously part of private comments, the comment will be private.
- If none of the criteria above is met, the comment will be public.
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 are meant to be seen by agents only and result in an internal comment, 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 the following 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 command is true,
so the reply will be public. A #public false command will make the reply
private. Also, you can use the #note syntax to make a reply into a private
comment. See Using the Mail API to update ticket properties from your
inbox.
33 Comments
There really needs to be a 3rd comment type brought into Zendesk where these fall into, Internal notes should just be for agents.
Agents automatically see an Internal note and instinctively believe its from an agent.
@... I agree with Elza. Forcing this 'Add CC' process to be manual really hurts process automation, which hurts the usability of Zendesk (especially in comparison to other systems we could choose to go to that have this as basic, foundational functionality). Zendesk initially had an 'Add CC' action, but it was removed in favor of 'Add Follower', so it's a feature that is already built out, but Zendesk is choosing to not allow users to access it. Add CC and Add Follower are completely different processes (one allows replies to be public; one forces replies to be private). Why did Zendesk choose to get rid of a feature that people obviously used and want to use to help their internal processes? It should not be a legacy item that was removed.
If a CC or third party replies to a ticket/email, how can I make these show as public and not internal comments? I have selected the option Make email comments from CCed end users public (not recommended) but this doesn't seem to have changed anything.
Thank you!
We are experiencing the same problem as Sara.
Can someone please inform about this?
--> When the other department ( non-Zendesk user) forwards a comment from the original client ticket, only to us ( using Zendesk) and deletes the end users e-mailaddress from the reply, the end users still receives this comment, even when removed from the e-mail field.
The comments will still appear like a private in the support instance, however, their replies are now public comments which means that the requester will be able to see the replies of the cc'ed user.
Please see this article for more information: Configuring CC and follower permissions
Regards,
Dion
Hello,
This statement:
Appears not to be true; I have had support exchanges with Zendesk Support where this has been shown not to work and yet this has been said to be working as intended. Therefore please can this page be updated with an accurate description of the behaviour, or can this setting be made to do what it says above?
Thanks!
I want that when the "Third-party replies to ticket notifications" - all next public comments will be sent to this "third party". IN other words, when 3-rd party replies to the ticket - he should become a CC in this ticket (be in the copy in all public responses).
HOW to achieve it? it was the only reason that I migrated to "cc and followers"...
With your use case, it is really necessary for your agents to manually add the responder as CC in the ticket for the succeeding responses to appear as a public comment. Zendesk does not have a way to identify the individuals that are part of a distribution list, as those are configured outside our system, therefore responses coming from email addresses that are not explicitly part of the ticket are expected to show as a private comment.
100% agree with Ash - we have run into this issue as well
Are you still using the old CC experience or you are now on CCs and Followers. However, there is an option to change the notification sent to CCs as described here: customizing default email notifications for CCs and followers. Also, the experience may differ if using the old placeholders or making use of the new threading experience where CCs are not getting the quoted message as we made some test.
Otherwise, please create a ticket further so we can review this inside your account. Thank you!
I've tried this setting, but it doesn't seem to work, at least not how I interpreted it should. The email response (from another CC, and missing CC of the requester) was still Internal.
Please create a ticket from this comment, to review our ticket https://kollmorgen.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/30922
I am getting some complaints from my customers around the behavior regarding whether an organization admin is able to see all replies to a ticket regardless of whether they CC the ticket requester or not.
Although I understand that side conversations between our customers and our agents that do not include the ticket requester might be valuable in certain circumstances, we have customers who would like to see all ticket activity by their team no matter what.
Perhaps a third response type is called for. I can personally attest that, as the Administrator of Zendesk, I get questions all the time about the counter-intuitive way that customers are able to create internal notes.
Customers are external. Why are they able to create something that is called "Internal"?
Hey Alison,
It looks like you were able to find the answer to your question and you created a feedback post here around this limitation: Differentiate between chat vs. support ticket in Agent Workspace
Let us know if you have any other questions!
Thanks Dane. Sadly this leaves no way of resolving the issue that follower replies end up private. I have a forum topic open on this too if anybody else affected by this issue would like to comment: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4420213914778-Allow-follower-replies-to-be-public
No, Zendesk won't automatically add the third party as a CC; an agent would have to do that.
When we cc other departments (non-Zendesk users) and they reply to the customer via email they were cc'ed on the private notes are included in the email thread. Is there a way to stop this?
Hello Zendesk Team,
Is there a way to disable an email response and refer to the Zendesk ticket # link as the only way to reply?
Thank you
Current state:
You are registered as a CC on this help desk request (highspot.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/51740).
Reply to this email to add a comment to the request.
Future State:
You are registered as a CC on this help desk request (highspot.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/51740). Please reply to this link to add a comment to the request.
Hello,
is it possible for light agent email replies (reply all from their own emails) to appear as a public comment?
When the reply is a private comment the ticket does not go from pending to open and that could be misleading for agents
thank you
@Gabriele, thanks for the response but unfortunately there is still no answer to my question.
I know that if my agent adds the 3-rd party as CC - since that moment he will receive all public notifications from the ticket.
BUT what I want is that IF requester forwarded the tickets to the 3-rd party > and then this 3rd party replied to the ticket > Zendesk will automatically add him as CC and also his response will appear as public.
Is there a way to achieve it?..
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408842992538/comments/4409440946074
If an agent replies directly from an email application and not through Zendesk, the internal notes will also be forwarded to the end user.
This is due to the email copy that the agent receives, which is different from the email copy that the customer receives when a notification is being sent from the ticket.
The Agent's copy contains the internal notes as it should be, therefore, if they reply directly from the email and not through the ticket, it is the same as they would be forwarding the agent copy to the customer which is why it is including the internal note.
Should you still have questions, please feel free to open a ticket with Zendesk Support.
As it turns out, even when on the CC list, any emails sent by Light Agents will be added as an internal note.
@Harrison,
We'd like to look into this. Can you contact support directly to investigate further?
Hello,
Is there a concept to differentiate chat vs. support tickets in the new agent workspace? Our chat agents have to manually select "chat" in the comment section when they receive a chat. When I enable the "Non-email conversations are public by default" in Ticket settings, our support team then has to switch to 'internal note' when taking notes on a ticket. It is an extra step for either team using two completely different forums of communication.
Thank you!
Alison
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I can see that a colleague is already helping you with this concern. Rest assured that we'll do our best to help you with regard to this concern
Hey,
Haven't been able to find this info anywhere else so asking here. We have an automation that fires off when a ticket has been set to Pending for > 2 days and there are no public replies (to prevent unactioned tickets). This automation runs off of a tag placed by a trigger. The trigger is:
We noticed that this automation fired off for a Messaging ticket (Social Media). It seems like the trigger is not being activated when we reply to a chat. Are Chats/Messaging tickets not recorded as 'agent replies'? Looking at the Events section it seems like it's a 'system' that's placing the comments in.
Thanks!
I had an agent create a proactive ticket for a user, and cc'd another user. When the CC'd user replied all, he was flagged as not part of the conversation and the comment was made internal. He clearly was part of the conversation as he was cc'd on the original ticket. Our agent's creating proactive tickets and cc'ing other users is a common occurance. We can't afford to be having users flagged and having to copy/paste their content for them. How do we ensure that our users don't get flagged? As far as I can tell the rules say this shouldn't be happening.
Please create a ticket from this comment, this is the current issue ticket https://stage32.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/66384
Hi Niclas,
I am creating a ticket on your behalf to investigate this for you.
Thank you for your patience.
Julio R. | Technical Support Engineer - EMEA | Zendesk
Hello, I have following use case:
We're dealing with an organization and send all of our pro-active ticket requests to one address (which on their end is a distribution list to various of their internal people) e.g. "support@thirdparty.com". Whoever picks up our request on their end would then reply with their personal email address "john@thirdparty.com"). This causes that these replies are flagged as Third party replies to our ticket. As these requests go back-and-forth all of their replies get lost in the email thread. This is highly confusing.
There is also no option for us to add all of their people to CC via a trigger. So I'm at a loss to how to deal with this? It's not an option to manually always copy various of their people to CC after the fact.
That is actually good product feedback. Currently, the internal note is for agents, and when end-users who are not part of the conversation have received the email, and will reply. The system will make internal for security reasons as also mentioned in the part "Third party replies to ticket notifications". You can submit product here to start with: Giving Product Feedback at Zendesk. Thank you!
The behavior for Make email comments from CCed end users public is only for end-users. Followers/Agents are not affected by this setting. I agree that it can be a bit confusing. I'll bring this up to the attention of our documentations team.
I have noticed that a ticket has already been submitted for this concern, Ticket #10595927. If you still need help, just reply back to the email that was sent by one of our Advocate to create a followup ticket.
Hi Luke,
I understand that this change negatively affected your workflow. If the workaround that was provided for you on this post did not work for you, feel free to provide feedback in the Community page.
This is to engage with other users who have similar needs and discuss possible workarounds. Conversations with a high level of engagement ultimately get flagged for product managers to review when they go through roadmap planning.
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