There may be times when you need to open a ticket on someone else's behalf. For example, you may be providing support to someone using a telephone (and not Zendesk Talk, which creates a ticket for you when you take the call), and you want to capture the support request in a ticket. You can create a new ticket and then set the person you're providing support to as the ticket requester.
Also known as proactive tickets, tickets created on behalf of an end user can be public (the end user for whom it was created can view the ticket) or private (the end user cannot view the ticket until it's manually made public).
This article contains the following topics:
Creating a public ticket for an end user
When an agent creates a public ticket for an end user, they will need to add the end user as the requester. If the Requester field is not completed, the agent will be set as the requester. When the end user is added to the ticket as the requester, they can view and update the ticket.
When you create a public ticket for an end user, it triggers the following events:
- The end user receives a notification that a ticket was created on their behalf, if you have a trigger enabled for this action.
- The ticket appears in the end user's My Activities list.
- The ticket appears in the end user's help center searches.
In most cases, a public ticket cannot be made private. However, in some cases, it's possible. See Changing a ticket from public to private.
To create a ticket on an end user's behalf
- Hover over the +Add tab in the top toolbar, then select Ticket.
- If private ticket creation is enabled, click Public Reply so the end user can
access the ticket immediately. If private ticket creation is not enabled, the ticket is
accessible by default, and no action is necessary.
- If the requester is an existing user, begin entering the user's name, email domain,
phone number, or organization name in the Requester field, and the relevant results
appear. Select a user. Note: Alternatively, you can open the user's profile, then click User options in the bottom toolbar and select New ticket. The user's name automatically appears in the Requester field.
If the requester does not yet have an account, add them by clicking +Add user at the bottom of the search results.
- Enter the ticket data, then click Submit as New.
The requester receives the new ticket email notification, if you have a trigger enabled for this action.
Creating a private ticket for an end user
Agents can open a private ticket that is not visible to the end user for whom they are creating it, and can choose when (or if) to allow the end user to access the ticket. You can create private tickets in the ticket interface or through a create event using the Tickets API. Private tickets cannot be created through an inbound email message.
If private tickets are not enabled in your account, you might need to have an administrator enable this feature (see Enabling private ticket creation).
When a private ticket is created for an end user, the end user is included as the ticket requester; however, some notifications and other ticket-related events are not triggered. For instance:
- The end user is not notified that a ticket has been created on their behalf.
- Private tickets do not appear in the end user's My Activities list or help center searches.
These events are triggered when the ticket is made public.
Once your admin enables private ticket creation, you can create a new ticket on behalf of an end user.
To create a private ticket on an end user's behalf
- Hover over the +Add tab in the top toolbar, then select Ticket.
The Internal note option should be selected by default.
- If the requester is an existing user, begin entering the user's name, email domain,
phone number, or organization name in the Requester field, and the relevant results
appear. Select a user. Note: Alternatively, you can open the user's profile and click New ticket. The user's name automatically appears in the Requester field.
If the requester does not yet have an account, add them by clicking +Add user at the bottom of the search results.
- Enter the ticket data, then click Submit as New.
All comments default to Internal note (private) from then on, including comments added via email, voice recordings, and the like, until you make the ticket public.
Using private tickets internally
There are a number of internal uses for private tickets. You can:
- Make records of calls and meetings with your customers. These can be stored as tickets, meaning you get a more accurate picture of your Support team's effort, without bothering your customer.
- Take action on issues that you can't share. Sometimes tasks need to be carried out on behalf of a customer account -- investigations or corrective actions -- that might be sensitive. With a private ticket, it can remain internal.
- Prepare for an interaction before communications open up. Because private tickets can be shared just by adding a public comment, you can use the ticket to gather materials, prepare, or take notes, then make the ticket public when you're ready to address it with the end user.
- Send someone else a task. Throw together a private ticket, record some steps or actions that need to be taken, and assign it to someone else, or set it in a queue for the next available person.
You can associate a private ticket with a customer, meaning the record is there for future reference. You get the value of reporting, whether that's accurate accounting of what your team is doing, or the amount of work you're doing on behalf of a particular customer or organization, without involving the end user until you're ready.
Changing a ticket from private to public
Private tickets can be made accessible to the requester and any newly added CC'd end users. Once a ticket is made public, it cannot be made private again. However, internal notes remain hidden from end users, as usual.
To change a ticket from private to public
- Above the comment entry box, click Public reply.
- Enter your comment, then click Submit.
Changing a ticket from public to private
If a public ticket has only one comment, you can make the ticket private by changing the Public reply to an Internal comment. This works only on tickets where there is a single public comment.
Note that when you change a Public reply to an Internal comment, you cannot make it public again.
47 comments
ADMIN
How can we create the ticket automatically when there is a comment on an article.
0
Brett Bowser
Hey Demeter,
You will most likely need to use the Support API to accomplish what you're looking for. There's no way to set this up natively so I would recommend getting your developers involved to see if they can assist with setting this up.
Additionally, you could create a "community" email and subscribe that email to every topic in your community. Then add that email as a support address which I believe should create tickets in your account any time Gather sends a notification to your subscribed email address. I don't know how reliable this method will be but may be worth testing!
0
Graham Haire
When I manually create a ticket for a customer I fill in the data on the form much in the way described above either as a public or private ticket. I then Submit as New or as Open. In both cases, the ticket does not save the data in some of the ticket form fields. The next time I open the ticket those fields are blank and I have to enter that data again. If I do this and then submit the ticket (as Open) the data is saved with the ticket. Is this by design or am I missing something?
2
Adrian Joseph Magboo
Hi Graham Haire,
If I'm understanding this correctly, you are creating tickets and filling out the ticket fields but when you submit it as New or Open, the ticket fields doesn't have the value you selected for them but it will work when you try to save the ticket again.
If that's the case, I would like to investigate what's happening on your account. Please expect an email shortly about the new ticket I created for this.
Regards,
Adrian
0
Colina Insurance Limited
We have multiple support addresses in our instance, however agents are assigned to one address (group). HOwever Jane, who is a member of supportA@email.com has her proactive requests appear to come from Jane (supportB@email.com). How can we correct this?
0
DJ Buenavista Jr.
Hi DeAndrea,
Thank you for reaching out to Zendesk Support.
In regards to your concern, it's possible that the agent has two email addresses in her profile. I would advise checking her profile and make sure that the primary email address set is the correct one.
Thank you!
Kind regards,
DJ Buenavista Jr. |
Customer Advocacy Specialist |
-1
Colina Insurance Limited
Thank you for your response. She only has one email address in her profile and is only a member of one group.
Let's say she is a member of group apples. When a proactive ticket is created the header of the ticket says Jane Doe (Bananas) <bananas@company.com>. What should appear if Jane Doe (Apples) <apples@company.com>
How can I fix this? Thanks in advance
0
Mandy
I experienced this error while creating a new ticket, could you assist to guide me?
Thank you!
0
Jeff C
Hello Mandy,
This is usually caused if you do not have the right permissions set for your profile. Normally this is the case for Light Agents or if you have a Custom Role - its likely disabled. Best if you could reach out to an Admin in your account to confirm your Role permissions.
0
CJ Johnson
How can I do this via the API? I tried `"is_public":"FALSE"`, but it still made a ticket with a public comment for the first message. I have private tickets turned on, and the API threw no errors.
0
Greg Katechis
Hi CJ! The reason that didn't work is because the `is_public` parameter that you used is a read-only field, as we outline in our documentation. If you are looking to make a comment private, you need to use `"public": false`, which you can read about here.
0
CJ Johnson
Hi Greg Katechis
Unfortunately, I actually tried that too, with the same outcome. It still made the comment public.
0
Greg Katechis
Something else must be going on in that situation, since that should work. I'll open up a ticket with you so that you can share an example where this was happening and I'll investigate what went wrong.
0
Nicholas Wright
Under "Creating a private ticket for an end user" you needed to explain that the private option is not available unless enabled in Admin, which is covered here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408842918298-Enabling-and-disabling-private-ticket-creation
0
Client Manager
Have noticed that clients are not receiving the first public message (email) when a new ticket is created by the agent. Starting from the second message, client is receiving everything without any problems with delivery. Maybe anyone has the idea why that's happening?
1
Brett Bowser
It sounds like you just need to update your Notify requester of received request trigger in the Admin Center and add the Current User > is > (Agent) as well as Current User > is > (end user) conditions under Meets any of the following conditions.
It's also possible that by default you have the Ticket status > is not > Solved included as a condition in your trigger. If your agents are creating a ticket and marking it as solved right away, that would prevent the trigger from sending the email notification. If you remove that condition that should resolve the issue.
I hope this points you in the right direction!
0
Client Manager
Hello Brett,
Thank you for your assistance. Have re-checked the conditions of Notify requester of received request trigger and have added Current User > is > (end user) because there was only Current User > is > (Agent) condition, but suddenly it hasn't solved the problem.
Also such tickets usually have "Unsolved" status, because the client reply on this ticket is important or needs any additional actions from our or clients side.
Maybe there is anything else I can try to change to avoid this problem?
0
Brett Bowser
Can you share a screenshot of the trigger you have set up so I can take a look for you?
Thanks!
0
Nico Plinke
Hi,
We are using organizations to represent our customers businesses (we support a B2B product, and each business has multiple users that can make requests).
When we want to start a ticket, we don't always know who the requester is going to be, however we do know the organization.
Is it possible to start a ticket from the organization tab? or at least as a quick action from the userlist from that organization?
Thanks!
-1
Brandon
Hey guys.
If we're on the subject of proactive tickets, how can I remove the header stating "This ticket was created on your behalf"?
0
Elaine
Hi David,
As stated in the section of this article:
The trigger mentioned above is referring to one of the default triggers in Zendesk Support named Notify requester of new proactive ticket where the default email body contains the following line:
To make changes to a specific trigger like removing/changing a line from the email body sent to end-users, kindly see Managing triggers - Editing and cloning triggers.
Hope this helps! :)
0
Sylvia Barnekow
Hi,
Is there any possibility that a new Zendesk ticket is automatically created when I click a hyperlinked email address in another ticket? Right now, it opens my email account, but since I use Zendesk, it would be awesome if instead, it would create a new ticket with said email as requester.
Thanks!
0
Anne Ronalter
thank you for your Feedback on that.
A similar option like that is currently only possible by Creating a ticket from a comment on a knowledge base article.
0
Jason Christenson
We are 100% email based and use email forwarding by an agent a ton. I like the proactive ticket feature, and it works great if you use the web interface to do a ticket for a user. For us, forwarding the email is more efficient. Is there a way to do this same thing but based on emails our agents forward to become tickets? I haven't had any luck adjusting the triggers.
0
Zsa Trias
Hello Jason,
The feature you're looking for seems to be the one explained on this article: Forwarding an email message to your support address
When you enable the feature "email forwarding" for agents, and an agent forwards an email from a customer to one of your support addresses, the forwarded email will be created on behalf of the original sender rather than the agent.
0
Jason Christenson
We are using that feature. I want an email to go to the requestor if a ticket is created on their behalf by my forwarding an email.
This is the scenario I am after:
0
Zsa Trias
Hello Jason,
You can use Mail API to tag tickets that are agent forwarded to your support address.
Then, you can use this tag in order to build a business rule to send a notification when this tag is present. Just make sure that you exclude this tag on your normal notification trigger that runs on other tickets upon creation to avoid duplication.
For reference: Using the Mail API to update ticket properties from your inbox
0
Isamara M. | Logistics
Hello!
I have created internal tickets a couple of times, but it seems to be different now, it doesn't appear this page to fill in the form unless I send it first before filling the form, even thought the information is not showing up after that.
0
Christine
I created a ticket on your behalf so I can investigate the issue more. Kindly check your email for updates. Thanks!
0
Permanently deleted user
Is there a way to disable the first response SLA for tickets that are created on behalf of a requester? Since Support is initiating the communication, the concept of a first response SLA doesn't make sense, but it is getting applied to these tickets after the customer responds for the first time.
3