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.