Customizing default email notifications for CCs and followers

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

Note: This article describes an updated CCs and followers experience. If your account was created before May 2019 you might need to migrate to this updated experience.

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.

Note: You can also create other, custom triggers and automations to send custom email notifications to requesters and CCs (see Creating business rules for CCs and followers).

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. 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 CC 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 of received request
• Notify requester 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 if a ticket update does not include a public comment. 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.

Note: If your Zendesk Support account was not migrated to the new CCs and followers experience (released in May 2019), be aware that for CC'd users to receive notifications agents must add a public comment to the ticket before solving it. For more information about migrating your account to the new experience, see Migrating to CCs and followers.

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 of received request and Notify requester 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

1. Admin Center > Objects and rules > Business rules > Triggers
2. Open and edit the text in the Notify requester of received request trigger.

   Change the email subject and body text, if needed. Placeholders are allowed. Remember to save your changes when you are done.

   

   Note: Be aware that the {{ticket.comments_formatted}} placeholder is suppressed if the ticket meets certain conditions. For more information, see Understanding placeholder suppression rules.
3. Open and edit the Notify requester of comment update trigger.

   Change the email subject and body text, if needed. Placeholders are allowed. Remember to save your changes when you are done.

   

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—Returns the name of CCs on the ticket.
• ticket.follower_names—Returns the name of followers on the ticket.
• email_cc_names—Returns the names of CCs on the ticket.

For more information about these and other available placeholders, see Zendesk Support placeholder reference. If you haven’t used placeholders before and want general information about how they work, see Using placeholders.

You can replace the text in the follower email template with 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

1. Admin Center > Objects and rules > Tickets > Settings
2. In the CCs and followers section, make sure that the Enable followers check box is selected.
3. In the Follower email subject field, type the text that you want to include in the subject line of email notifications to followers.
4. 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 default text.

5. Click the Save tab button.

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 privacy of comments created by follower replies, see Understanding when email replies become public or private comments.