Question

I’ve noticed that some tickets created through my help center don’t display the email address of the end user. For this reason, agents can respond publicly but not through an email. Why don’t end user email addresses appear in some tickets created from the help center?

Ticket created via help center

Ticket created via web form

Answer

Customers can submit tickets from a variety of channels, such as help center, web form, email, or API. Each channel assigns a via attribute to indicate its source:

For tickets created in the help center by agents, the via attribute includes a specific marker, such as source.rel set to help_center
For help center tickets created by end users, this marker is often absent due to system limitations

Tickets submitted through web forms, email, or API use different via settings, which prompt the system to display the requester's email address. Zendesk uses the via attribute to determine if it displays the end user's email address and if agents have the option to reply through email.

What does this mean for you?

This behavior doesn't prevent you or your agents from the using the platform or providing support to your customers
It mainly affects how easily agents can see the requester’s email and send direct email replies within the ticket interface for tickets created in certain ways
If emails aren't visible, agents can still find the requester’s email in the context panel