Customers sometimes enter sensitive information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, passwords, attachments, or other sensitive information in tickets when they shouldn't. In addition to being visible to anybody with access to the ticket, the sensitive information automatically gets stored in a database with the rest of the ticket.
In the Zendesk Agent Workspace, you can use ticket redaction to redact personal data. You don’t need to install a separate app. You must have the Agent Workspace activated to use ticket redaction.
This article contains the following sections:
- About ticket redaction
- Ticket redaction limitations
- Redacting ticket content
- Redacting ticket content in side conversations
Related articles:
About ticket redaction
Admins and agents in custom roles with permission can redact, or remove, sensitive information found in ticket comments and attachments so that your account stays secure and compliant. This helps keep confidential information out of Zendesk. On plans without custom roles, agents with permission to delete tickets can also redact.
Ticket redaction works on:
- Side conversation emails, child tickets, and Microsoft Teams messages
- Social messaging channels enabled through Sunshine Conversations
- Web and mobile messaging
- Ended chat conversations from the Agent Workspace
- Public comments
- Internal notes
- Images (attached and inline)
- Attachments (with some limitations)
- Content in archived or closed tickets for messaging, email, API, and webform channels
- Tickets created through the Sunshine Conversations SDK.
Ticket redaction does not currently support redaction of entire tickets. Also, make sure you redact all sensitive content before merging tickets:
- If you redact content in the original ticket after it has been merged with another ticket, the redacted content will be removed from the original ticket, but not from the merged ticket.
- It is not possible to redact information, including attachments, from the internal note that is created when you merge a ticket.
When a ticket comment is redacted, the original email for that comment is no longer viewable. The original email is also not viewable for additional inbound email comments on that ticket. However, it is viewable for comments that were added before redaction. See Understanding when the original email is not viewable in Zendesk.
If you redact a Zendesk message or a message created via the Sunshine Conversations SDK, the Support ticket interface shows the redacted areas of the messaging conversation, all within the context of the unredacted content. From the customer side, the entire message is deleted.
Redaction events are noted in a ticket’s event log so customers can be aware data has been deleted. In addition, when you redact ticket content, a redacted_content tag is automatically added to the ticket. When you redact ticket content, this causes an update to be made on the ticket using the same channel associated with the content that was redacted. For example, redacting a WhatsApp comment from a ticket. This behavior can cause triggers to fire if your trigger conditions are set to look for updates on a specific channel.
If you redact content on a ticket with an AI-generated summary, the summary can be removed from the ticket by refreshing the summary or closing and reopening the Agent Workspace tab. The summary is immediately removed from Zendesk's systems when a redaction is performed on a ticket, but the summary continues to appear in the browser until the page is reloaded.
Ticket redaction limitations
- Messages in an active messaging conversation or chat
- Messages stored in the Zendesk bot service and in third-party bot services
- Channel framework-enabled tickets
- Ticket comments created from Mobile SDK, including those submitted through Zendesk's support apps
- Tickets created from Slack Business Connect
- Slack side conversations
- Content in archived or closed tickets for live chat channels
- Quick reply and carousel steps displayed in the Agent Workspace ticket interface
Additional limitations include:
- You must have a chat role to redact ticket content in chat conversations.
- When you redact a ticket comment sent from an email channel, Zendesk does not redact the content of the original email in the email provider's channel (such as Gmail or Yahoo). Only the text hosted in Zendesk is redacted.
- When redacting a ticket, the underlying conversation is not edited on the social messaging platform and third-party integrations. It is redacted only within Zendesk-controlled systems. This also means that an end user, depending on how they communicate with your agent, may still see unredacted content themselves when accessing a message through different channels. For example, in Facebook Messenger or a 3rd-party Chat bot.
- Redaction of messages exchanged between Zendesk bots, third-party bots, and end users is not supported.
- If triggers are configured prior to redaction taking place, redacted content may persist in the channels launched by these triggers. For example, email conversations.
- Ticket redaction for the Chat history may not be instantaneous and may be delayed by up to 10 minutes due to database replication.
- Bulk redaction is not supported.
Redacting ticket content
To redact ticket content
- Open a ticket and scroll to the conversation thread that contains the content you want
to redact.
You can only redact content in one thread at a time. Not all tickets can be redacted. See Ticket redaction limitations.
- Hover your mouse over the thread to display the options menu icon (
).
- Click the options menu icon (
) and choose Redact.
A redaction pane appears.
- Select the content you want to redact, then click Mark for redaction.
The content you want to redact is highlighted.
- Continue to select content to redact and Mark it for redaction.
You can include multiple text strings, attachments, and images as part of the same redaction.
If you mark something for redaction by mistake, click the content and select Unmark for redaction.
- When you’ve finished selecting the content you want to redact, click Redact.
The ticket is updated with the redacted content. Ticket redaction is not reversible.
When you redact ticket content, a redacted_content tag is automatically added to the ticket. You can search for this tag to get a list of redacted tickets.
Redacting ticket content in side conversations
- Microsoft Teams
- Child tickets
- The redaction is only applied to the content in the side conversation. The content isn't redacted on the external channels on which it was delivered, such as an email or Microsoft Teams message.
- When you redact content on a side conversation child ticket, the redaction only takes place on the side conversation. You must separately redact the content in the child ticket.
- The redacted_content ticket tag isn't automatically added to the ticket.
Side conversation redaction in the Agent Workspace:
Side conversation redaction in the standard agent interface:
120 comments
Harper Dane
Like other commenters mentioned, we also really need to be able to give agents permission to redact content without also allowing them to delete tickets.
These need to be 2 separate permissions with their own toggles.
2
Lisa Kelly
Hi Harper,
![](/hc/user_images/01HCFNF0XQRFMHQB5KWGDV9BD2.png)
For Enterprise plans, the redact and delete permissions are separate, but not for other plans. See below. For product enhancements, we encourage you to post your request on the Zendesk Community site. See Feedback - Ticketing System (Support).
-1
Stephen
Hi,
Are there plans to build out redaction on Ticket Fields?
For example, if you have Text field / Number field, Regex field, Text box or Date field, a customer or Agent could potentially include sensitive data in one of these fields.
0
Veena Priya
Hi Team,, Is there any way to automatically encrypt the customer email ID and SSN from every ticket?
0
Camilo Gomez
As we shift more and more of our interactions to Messaging we will need to redact more content is there a plan or a workaround available to redact content that is added by the system (Answer Bot) during a messaging conversation. At this time we are being forced to delete the tickets all together to redact this content.
6
Anunay Sinha
Stephen Per current plans, redaction will be limited to ticket comments. For ticket fields, would clearing the field value and saving the ticket not work for you?
Veena Priya To confirm, did you mean "encrypt" or "redact"? In Q1 2024, we are going to launch an advanced redaction feature, which would leverage AI/ ML to highlight the PII in ticket comments, allowing the agents to easily redact one or all of them at their discretion. In the first launch, email ID will be covered but not SSN. We are exploring the use case of "automatic redaction" and would be happy to get additional details about your requirement.
Camilo Gomez Currently, we haven't planned to enhance the coverage of redaction. We'll have this logged in our backlog for future prioritization.
0
Stephen
Hi Anunay, I appreciate the feedback on this.
Yes, just clearing fields and saving the ticket works, but my concern is once tickets are closed / archived tickets. Having no way to update the content of text boxes could cause issues in the future.
0
Anunay Sinha
Hi Stephen, Please note that the ability to edit closed tickets will be available in upcoming quarters as well. It would be a phased roll-out, meaning not all fields within a closed ticket would be available for edits immediately. We are also currently exploring the feature of "automatically redacting sensitive content upon closing the ticket", which would avoid this issue for existing open tickets.
0
Jimmy Rufo
Hi Lisa Kelly, All,
I tried reading through the comments, but we will be likely moving to agent workspace in the next year, and are considering a solution to delete/redact tickets of a certain age for security purposes. Is there an article / workflow that describes how one would use the API to bulk redact ticket content based on a certain age?
0
Lisa Kelly
Hi Jimmy,
For deletion, Zendesk now supports the ability to set ticket deletion schedules via the user interface. See below.
Create ticket deletion schedules (beta) or buy the Advanced Data Privacy and Protection add-on which includes Advanced Data Retention policies.
With ticket deletion schedules, which is a bundled feature, you can have only one time-based ticket deletion schedule active at a time. With the add-on, you can have multiple active schedules and also segment by brand.
For information about using the API to bulk redact ticket content, I'm adding Samir Shah to this thread to see if he has any information about this.
1
Jimmy Rufo
Thanks Lisa Kelly. I've signed up for the Beta and looks like a great feature.
0
Kris
We are unable to redact content in followups to closed tickets (Channel is Closed Ticket). The ticket itself is not closed, but the ticket it originated from is. I didn't see it on the list of exceptions. Is this expected?
0
Sydney Neubauer
We are seeing the same thing regarding being unable to redact follow up tickets
0
Noly Maron Unson
Hi Kris and Sydney.
I've created support tickets in your behalf in order to discuss this further. Please check your email for my message.
Thank you.
0
Dana B
Hi
Although Zendesk complies with privacy, I agree with Chris Wooten. I would like my agents to be able to redact, however, to be able to delete tickets... No way! Redacting is the protection of all parties involved and has nothing to do with the ability to delete a ticket.
Is this roadmapped?
Thanks!
Dana
1
Lisa Kelly
Hi Dana,
On Enterprise plans, you can create custom agent roles that separate Redaction permission from Deletion permission. See this comment earlier in the article.
If you're looking for that feature in other plan types, I'm not aware of anything on the roadmap for this. I recommend posting your request on our product feedback forum for our Support ticketing system where we collect product feedback and where our PM’s review feedback from our customers. Here is our product feedback template to get you started. Thank you!
-1
Dana B
Hi Lisa
Although I appreciate that it is available to Enterprise, the cost of Enterprise outweighs the benefits for our medium-sized support team.
I will add it to the product feedback forum.
Thanks!
Dana
1
Lex
Hi Anunay Sinha, clearing the field value and saving the ticket isn't the same as redacting. If the original field value contains sensitive data, it'll still be visible within the ticket's Events. Are there plans to be able to redact ticket field data from Events?
0
Anunay Sinha
Hi Lex Redacting ticket field data from Events hasn't been roadmapped yet. But, we'll add it to our backlog for future prioritization.
0
Peter Hochstrasser
Hey Zendesk
This new redaction "tool" has to be a very bad joke... It basically makes the user execute manually, step by step, what the old redaction app did automatically.
I just found that I have forgotten to remove an e-mail address from a log snippet.
The address is visible multiple times.
In the old app, I'd type in the address, and it would search and redact everything, so it's GONE EVERYWHERE in the ticket after I click redact.
Now, I have to select manually each and every occurrence of the problematic text.
I think that I'm not the only admin who has better things to do than play search and replace using bad tools.
0
RomIT
Hi Anunay Sinha, you have posted last November that Zendesk will release an advance feature to highlight PII in the ticket so agents can easily bulk redact. Is this still happening this first quarter of 2024? And do you have an ETA? We're waiting for this feature! Thank you!
0
Anunay Sinha
Hi Peter Hochstrasser
We understand your concern and would like to assure you that the bulk redaction (within a ticket as well as across the tickets) will be added as enhancements to the Advanced Redaction functionality in the upcoming quarters.
Hi RomIT
The EAP of the Redaction Suggestions feature is planned for launch in Q1 24, with a fast follow GA planned for early Q2.
0
Peter Hochstrasser
Hi Anunay Sinha
You take away functionality, and offer some bad replacement.
Then you let us steam for some time so we can see the replacement is really as bad as it first seemed.
Finally, you add the functionality back for an additional fee.
Nice practice.
Which functionality will be next?
I assume that this is all related to Customer Care...
2
Hannah Lucid
Hi! I may have missed this in the comments and or article itself, but once a redaction has happened, is there a way to unredact that information? I am asking explicitly because I don't want people to be able to do this or would want this to be permissible.
0
Kolten Kittleson
Hello Hannah Lucid
We do actually mention that topic in this article! Ticket redaction cannot be reversed and is removed, so we urge some caution when marking content for redaction.
0
Hannah Lucid
@... thank you so much for letting me know!! Would you also know if there is any potential/update on separating the permission to redact from ticket deletion?
0
Kolten Kittleson
Hey Hannah Lucid
I do know the team recently launched new granular permissions for deleting and redacting tickets with custom roles, however I do not know if they have plans to expand the scope (I just happened to see your question around reversing redaction and since I knew the answer, I wanted to chime in quick). I can circle back with you on that after I check with the team who manages that area!
0
Hannah Lucid
@... thank you so much~
0
Bethany Gray
We experienced a similar thing to Χρήστος Νίτσας. We merged two tickets, the attachment was redacted on the merged ticket (now closed), but shows, and is openable, in the active ticket. There is no redaction option on the merged ticket, and from what I understand there is no way to unmerge a ticket.
1
Anunay Sinha
Hi Bethany Gray,
Thanks for raising this feature request! Merged ticket redaction is on our roadmap with no precise ETA just yet. We will update this post when the feature has been selected for development and a more accurate timeline is available. In the meantime we recommend redacting content before merging tickets.
1