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Understanding CCs and followers



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Colleen Hall

Zendesk Documentation Team

Edited Jan 13, 2025


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We used to be able to prevent external users from adding CCs to a ticket.  Is that no longer possible?

We've found that allowing CCs to add further CCs can lead to data breaches.

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Christine

Zendesk Engineering

Hi Alex,
 
It is not possible to allow only agents to add CCs to tickets. When the Enable CCs option is checked, both agents and end users can add CCs to the email thread. This is a hard-coded restriction as one of the goals of the CCs and followers experience is to make CCs behave more like they do in emails.
 
If this is a roadblock in your workflow, you can roll back CCs and followers for the old experience.

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Thanks - it appears we will need to do this. I think the option to only allow agents to add CCs was there for a good reason and it is a pity to see it has been removed.  We would have liked to have used the followers functionality but we cannot afford that loss of control.

Can I ask another question? On enabling 'CCs and followers', agents currently CCd on a ticket are automatically converted to followers.  If we rollback, will they be switched back to CCs?

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Christine

Zendesk Engineering

Hi Alex,

When you 'Opt out of the CCs and Followers experience', as also outlined in the article I shared above:

After a few minutes, refresh your browser and open a few of your tickets to verify that the Follower field in the sidebar has been replaced by a CCs field. Existing ticket Followers will still be present on the ticket as CCs.
 

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Question regarding CCs and Users.

We have a closed system, where all of our users are registered. If a registered user sends us an email with a CC to a person who is not registered, does the CC automatically become a user in our zendesk?

We disabled CC's to prevent this from happening, in our current application. If this is still the way cc's are handled then we won't be able to migrate to the new application.

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Tony

Zendesk Customer Care

Hi there!
So, according to this article, I don't believe it should happen.
 
Best,

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Hi there, I have a question about the CCs and Followers behaviours,

Say Person A (external client) emails to our registered support email in Zendesk and creates a support ticket. Then, the generic support team (Team B) CC'ed Person C, who is a light agent and/or contributor to take over the said case separately via Outlook as light agents/contributors are unable to send public replies to the requester directly. The issue I encountered is person C is unable to view the identity (email address) of Person A as when the generic support team (Team B) loops in Person C. Hence, when person C wants to take over/follow-up with the said case, he/she is unable to identify/know who is he/she responding to. Is there a workaround to this/settings that I overlook?

Be glad to hear your advice on this soonest! Thanks

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Joyce

Zendesk Customer Care

Hello Jee Han,
 
When a Light Agent or Contributor is CC'd on a ticket, they receive notifications via the Followers notification. These notifications are sent separately from the "Requester and CCs" email notifications, which is why the To: field appears blank in these emails.
 
Here's a workaround to make things easier: You can add the requester's name and email in the follower notification. You can do this via the Admin Center > Objects and rules > Tickets > Settings. This way, Light Agents/Contributors can see who the requester is without having to check the ticket details in the Support interface.

 
You can check this article for information about the Zendesk Placeholders.

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Is it possible to fully prevent the automatic addition of followers? There is a privacy concern with a ticket moving through a normal email system and eventually getting to an agent who was not involved in the original ticket but then forwards it back into Zendesk, resulting in a public reply on the original ticket since their forwarding automatically makes them a follower. In most cases you may want an agent's emails to the system to be public, but in this case they have no idea they are going to contribute a ‘third party’ response to the existing ticket.

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Francis Casino

Zendesk Customer Care

Hello Bryan,
 
Fully preventing the automatic addition of followers in Zendesk is not straightforward due to certain built-in behaviors and dependencies within the system. However, you can significantly reduce or control this behavior by carefully configuring settings and permissions. Here’s a more detailed approach:
 

Steps to Control and Minimize Automatic Addition of Followers

  1. Disable the Setting for Automatic CC to Follower Conversion:

    • Navigate to Admin Center > Objects and rules > Tickets > Settings.
    • Locate the option Automatically make an agent CC a follower and ensure it is turned off. This prevents agents added as CCs from being automatically converted to followers.
  2. Modify Triggers and Automations:

    • Go to Admin Center > Objects and rules > Business rules > Triggers and Automations.
    • Review all triggers and automations to ensure none are set to add followers automatically. If such rules exist, modify or deactivate them.
  3. Customize Roles and Permissions:

    • In Admin Center > People > Roles, customize roles to restrict the ability to add followers.
    • Ensure that only certain roles (e.g., admins) have the permission to add followers.
 
By taking these steps, you can greatly reduce the automatic addition of followers and maintain better control over ticket notifications. However, a complete prevention might not be achievable due to inherent system behaviors and dependencies on how certain actions trigger follower additions.

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