You may be wondering how email notifications for CCs and followers work. For example, how and when notifications are sent to CCs and followers, and how to change the text in the email notification to be specific to your company’s needs.
By default, email notifications for requesters and CCs are controlled by two standard triggers in Support. These default triggers also define the email subject and body text that is included in email notifications. You can customize the text in email notifications to requesters and CCs by changing these default triggers.
Email notifications for followers are handled differently. Followers get email notifications when comments are added to tickets they are following. Followers don't receive email notifications for their own comments. There’s no way to disable email notifications to followers (other than to stop using followers by turning off Enable followers), but you can customize the text in email notifications to followers using the followers email template (see below).
This article includes these sections:
- Understanding how email notifications are sent to CCs by default
- Customizing default triggers for email notifications to requesters and CCs
- Understanding how email notifications are sent to followers by default
- Customizing the follower email template for email notifications to followers
- Using the ticket.follower_reply_type_message placeholder
For a complete list of documentation about CCs and followers, see CCs and followers resources.
Understanding how email notifications are sent to CCs by default
Triggers define when email notifications are sent to CCs (but not followers) by default. There are two default triggers in Support that control this behavior. They are:
- Notify requester and CCs of received request
- Notify requester and CCs of comment update
These triggers are important to CCs because they both include an action called Email user + (requester and CCs). This action (in particular the “and CCs” part) is what causes CCs to receive email notifications.
If you don’t have triggers that include the Email user + (requester and CCs) action, CCs do not receive email notifications. We recommend that you do not delete or modify these triggers without carefully considering how email notifications to CCs are affected. For more information about default triggers, see About the standard Support triggers.
It's also important to note that the trigger action Email user + (requester and CCs) is suppressed when internal notes are added to a ticket. The trigger still fires and performs any other actions that may be included in the trigger, but the email message is not sent. You must include a public comment if you want to use this action to send an email message.
Customizing default triggers for email notifications to requesters and CCs
You can customize the text in email notifications to requesters and CCs by editing the Notify requester and CCs of received request and Notify requester and CCs of comment update standard triggers. You must be an administrator to customize default triggers.
To customize default triggers for email notifications to requesters and CCs
- In Admin Center, click
Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Business rules > Triggers.
- Click the title of the Notify requester and CCs of received request trigger to open it.
- Change the email subject and body text if needed. Placeholders
are allowed. Remember to save your changes when you are
done.Note: Some placeholders are suppressed if the ticket meets certain conditions. See Understanding placeholder suppression rules.
- Repeat these steps for the Notify requester and CCs of comment update trigger.
Understanding how email notifications are sent to followers by default
By default, the follower email template (and subject line) include some placeholders. For example, here’s what the template looks like before you make any changes:
You can update the template to include any text that you want and use placeholders such as:
- ticket.cc_names or email_cc_names—Returns the names of CCs on the ticket.
- ticket.follower_names—Returns the names of followers on the ticket.
For more information about these and other available placeholders, see the Zendesk Support placeholder reference.
You can replace the text in the follower email template with the default text by clicking Revert to default.
Customizing the follower email template for email notifications to followers
The follower email template only appears and can be configured when then Enable follower option is selected. You must be an administrator to configure the followers email template.
To customize the follower email template
- In Admin Center, click
Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Tickets > Settings.
- In the CCs and Followers section, make sure that the Enable followers check box is selected.
- In the Follower email subject field, type the text that you want to include in the subject line of email notifications to followers.
- In the Follower email template field, type the
text that you want to include in the body of email
notifications to followers.
If needed, you can click the Revert to default link to replace the text in the email template with the default text.
- Click Save tab.
Using the ticket.follower_reply_type_message placeholder
When used, the ticket.follower_reply_type_message placeholder causes the Reply to this email to add a comment to the request or Reply to this email to add an internal note to the request to appear in email notifications.
For more information about the privacy of comments created by follower replies, see Understanding when email replies become public or private comments.
37 comments
Oscar Maynard
Is there a way to notify someone that they have been added as a follower please? I can't see a way to build a trigger that would do this?
1
Cheeny Aban
Hi Oscar,
As of the moment, there is no native way to set up a trigger or automation to notify the user that they have been added as a follower on the ticket. Notification is currently limited to the requester and CC. The good thing is! if a user was added as a follower, they will receive email notification of the ticket comments.
Further, I am marking your comment as Product Feedback. We truly value customer feedback and your voice and votes in the product feedback topics in the community help influence future Zendesk functionality.
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Bill Reed
Is there a way around this? This breaks some of our functionality for internal use-- such as if an agent in one group/dept has to create a ticket for another group/dept. By default, we have all agent comments set to internal note, but they don't get an email notification-- which may contain some information they need to see-- if they create the ticket with a private comment.
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Austin Killey
Hey there @...,
Really good question. In that particular workflow, how do you feel about an additional trigger that's set up to fire only for those internal notes? Instead of the "(requester and CCs)" action, you could use only the "(requester)" action if the ticket's requester happens to be another agent. In that situation, the trigger thankfully would fire and send out an email notification.
Combined with having Followers enabled, you could also have the setting Automatically make an agent CC a follower enabled, so that any other agents who are CC'd in the ticket would also receive email notifications due to their Follower status allowing them to be kept notified of any new internal notes.
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Joshua Barnard
"Understanding how email notifications are sent to followers by default" does not explain under what conditions a follower receives an email.
I can only see follower emails when public comments are triggered. I want followers also to receive emails when people leave internal comments. Since followers can only be agents, it makes sense for agents interested in a ticket to get notified of internal updates.
1
Puneet Misra
Is there a trigger that controls when the follower notifications will be sent? I have a case where we need certain internal comments to NOT send a notification to the follower. Looking to apply some conditions to which comments should notify the follower and which should not.
The trigger that I believe is sending the notification is Notify assignee of comment update.
1
Dave Dyson
I'm afraid there’s no way to disable email notifications to followers. If you'd like, please let us know about your use case by posting to our Feedback - Ticketing System (Support) topic, using this template to format your post. Thanks!
1
Puneet Misra
@... Thank you! Do you know if it is possible to modify a template or trigger of some sort to customize the messaging a follower/CC would receive?
0
Dave Dyson
0
Sirithorn Ruammaitree
I try to modify a template but not found Follower email template field in setting.
0
Venn Villanueva
Hi Sirithorn Ruammaitree, I'll be creating a ticket on your behalf to continue assisting you with regards on the Follower Email template field.
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Amanda Jenkins
Hi! Would it be possible to add a statement in this article that indicates that it is expected behavior for an internal agent who is a follower only to NOT receive an email notification (like other followers would) if they post an internal note and why that is? I think this is assumed behavior but for newer users or those with little training, having this be specified in the article is would be helpful! Thank you for your consideration.
4
Dave Dyson
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Erin Shevlin
I don't have these triggers configured to email "requester and ccs" yet it still emails the cc. Is there another setting that is allowing them to still receive these notifications?
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Yoram
Answering Dave on the use case for having control over the followers notification via a trigger.
I am a follower in a ticket and added a comment to the ticket.
There is no need for me to receive a notification the ticket was updated, I did it.
The lack of control on when a notification is sent to a follower creates basically a sense of spam emails that you have top open,
Thanks
Yoram
1
Dainne Kiara Lucena-Laxamana
Hi Erin Shevlin!
Only triggers or system emails are the one sending emails to the requester or anyone on the team. I went ahead & created a ticket on your behalf so we can review what could be sending the emails to the CCs. Please keep an eye out for our email!
0
Darren Taylor
When a ticket is in an open status and we add a CC to the ticket. Can we set up a trigger to email notify the CC that they have been added to the ticket? I've been playing around with it but can't seem to get the conditions correct.
0
Nacho Santana
As of the moment, there is no native way to set up a trigger or automation to notify the user that they have been added as a follower on the ticket. Notification is currently limited to the requester and CC. The good thing is! If a user was added as a follower, they will receive email notification of the ticket comments.
Further, you can leave your this Product Feedback here. We truly value customer feedback, and your voice and votes in the product feedback topics in the community help influence future Zendesk functionality.
0
Heather Valli
Can the ticket ID be turned into a link to the ticket in the email for CCed agents?
0
Thomas Busse
It seems that changes to the follower email template are ignored, the emails are still sent out with the default template. Is this a bug or am I missing something?
0
Rodger Bradford
If the initial ticket contains an attachment, is there any way to include the attachment in the CC notification email?
0
Zsa Trias
Hello Heather,
You can use the ticket.link or ticket.url placeholder instead of the ticket.id placeholder shown in the screenshot on this article, so that the notifications received by the CC'd agents would include the actual link to the ticket.
You can view our list of placeholders here.
0
Ashley M
We need to have the capability of setting a condition on when follower emails are sent.
Even just a tag which we can add to tickets would be something.
0
Amanda Gunn
How come when requester comments on ticket the requester and cc'd users are being notified about the ticket update - in this scenario we would only want the cc'd users notified.
I thought the requester is suppose to be suppressed in this notification?
0
Kiana Ayala
Hello,
Would it be possible to update the message for the ticket.follower_reply_type_message placeholder on notifications for public comments?
Current Message: "Reply to this email to add a comment to the request"
Updated Message: "Reply to this email to add a public comment to the request"
This is a small change, but it would help reduce confusion for new users who haven't yet mastered the terminology and don't realize that "comments" are public, while "internal notes" are private.
Thank you!
0
Anh Nguyen
Hi,
I was trying to set up the Notification to Follower. It works for most cases, except any tickets that are created via API.
Is there a way to make the notification works for ticket created via API?
0
Christine
I have created a ticket on your behalf so I can look into the issue more.
Kindly check your email for updates! Thank you.
0
Prathiba Sugumar
Hi there,
Under Objects and rules -> Settings, there is a CC email to customize the outgoing CC email. Can this be customised to customise the email depending on who is CC'd.
If CC'd user 1 has email domain abc.com, then the outgoing email should have certain information , and other CC'd users without the domain abc.com should not receive the email with the additional information. The below liquid works well if there is one CC'd person and the logic checks the email domain and includes or omits the special information but fails when multiple users are CC'd with different domains.
{% for cc in ticket.ccs %}
{% if cc.email contains '@abc.com' %}
CC'd person is {{ cc.email }}
The request is from: {{ ticket.organization.name }}
{% else %}
{% endif %}
{% endfor %}
{{ticket.comments_formatted}}
0
Gouthami Munugoti
Is there a way to notify someone that they have been added as a follower please? I can't see a way to build a trigger / Automation that would do this?
0
Gabriel Manlapig
Hi Gouthami,
We have confirmed that the system does not really send out an email notification upon adding a follower to a ticket, followers will only be sent a notification when comments are added to tickets that they are following.
For more information, see the article above, which states the following:
"Email notification for followers are handled differently. Followers get email notifications when comments are added to tickets they are following, and this happens as soon as you turn on Enable followers in your admin settings."
Also, there's no way to configure a trigger that will send an email notification to ticket followers only. The trigger action that sends a notification to followers is currently limited to the option 'Email user (requester and CCs)' only which includes the requester and any CCs or followers added to the ticket.
We would recommend you to leave Feedback in our Community. Our Teams are frequently looking through the posts in order to get ideas on future additions to the Software. The more a votes a post gets, the higher the chance that the feature will be added in the future.
0