Signature formatting and Side Conversations
While it looks like we can use Markdown to format signatures in our users' profiles for outbound ticket communication, if the signature is injected into a Side Conversations using Markdown formatting (which occurs by default), the formatting is then rendered into text and Markdown is disregarded - sending the recipient a textual version of the Markdown formatting, which is not ideal (and makes our communication unusual).
I've tried to commit to memory which areas of Zendesk permit HTML vs. Markdown formatting, but it's gotten more difficult to manage as there is a bit of overlap across the various outbound communication methods. For our purposes, ideally this would be standardized to support HTML across the board, but I see no way to enforce this from a global standpoint.
Thank you in advance!
-
Official comment
Hey all, thanks for the feedback here. I agree that the signature support in side conversations needs to be improved to handle the Markdown formatting. At this time the way the signatures are handled in side conversations is different than tickets in that they are inserted into the composer itself when authoring a message rather than being hidden and processed/inserted when submitted like with tickets. This is due to side conversations not going through the same processing system as tickets, which includes Markdown conversion and placeholder replacement. We are going to be looking into how we can do the same processing for the signatures at the time of insertion in the composer, but we don't have that in place at this time. We are definitely aware of this, though, and have plans to tackle it in the future.
In the meantime, if you'd like to have signatures in their current state disabled on your account you can let us know and we can make that happen.
A potential workaround is having us disable signatures and then setting up a macro with an action to initiate a side conversation with "signature" text at the bottom of the message body. Initiating side conversations with this macro instead of the + button will give you an approximation of a rich text, dynamic signature. This is by no means a full solution, and will only work on the initial side conversation message, but if that is adequate for your needs it may get you a better result than plain text.
-
Just noticed this on our end as well; testing side conversations and seeing that the signature comes through like shown below but is fine on main-ticket conversations. Would be great to have this be consistent across ZD platform.
-
This would be really helpful. At this point, side conversation emails do not accept the HTML branded email templates--so it is a very inconsistent appearance to our end users.
-
I'd love to see some input from a ZD PM on this. I've had several customers who've run into this issue and it's caused inconsistent branding throughout Zendesk.
I'd love for the agent signature to be pulled from the global agent signature, or the agent profile signature - whichever is present. Currently, it only pulls the agent profile signature and displays unformatted as plain text.
-
+1 I just updated all my agents' signatures with new Markdowns and formatting, and noticed that the Side Conversations are now unbranded. Can you please allow Markdown in Side Conversation signatures?
-
We'd like to use side conversations to send emails to vendors and external users but need to include a disclaimer. It would be awesome to have branding applied to the email as well so the experience is consistent for our end users.
-
Hi Toby,
Thanks for providing us with some insight into this. Regarding the workaround, when you say disable signatures, do you mean you will disable signatures on side conversations only and not on the whole Zendesk account itself so the normal agent signature still works on tickets without issues?
I'd be keen to try out the workaround on my test account to see how it all looks so I know what to expect and can offer it to customers if they need it.
Best,
Amie
-
@... that's correct, it would only disable adding the signature to side conversation message composers. In the meantime, you could try out the macro approach to dial in the formatting, and click the menu icon on the signature in the composer to remove it manually.
-
Is there an update for this? The signature requirements can be different from country to country and this is slowing us down quite a bit.
-
In case it's too complicated to fix the formatting, can you please just change the default to NOT show the signature? This is very irritating and especially when writing another comment to a side conversation, you first have to show the signature (it's hidden by default) by clicking on the menu button only to have the option to not send it.
Furthermore, the composer component should be able to understand and convert Markdown even when not just typing the markdown commands. This is also a major issue in the "normal" view when copy-pasting markdown-formatted text into a ticket reply. We then have to go back and make the composer "see" the markdown by removing the special characters and typing them again. Very annoying. -
Hello,
This error of side conversation is something that we have noticed as well while we are assisting a client to add there signatures. If you can please advise some possible solution to get the signature fixed. The option of removing a signature is something that can not work for the client as the signature is Mandatory keeping in the purpose of the email.
To give some context: Side conversation is used by the payroll team to verify the payments with the accounts team who can validate only if that comes with valid format which includes payroll officer signature.
Some solution to this is much appreciated.
Regards,
Hemali
-
Toby Sterrett Is there an update on this?
-
This would help us too. (be able to use a HTML signature or be able to deactivate the signature for Side Converstations or even better a specific signature for Side Conversations)
Any updates would be much appreciated :)
-
In my opinion it would be very helpful to add the signature to side conversation emails and in case we forward a comment via email. Very often those conversation to outside of my organisation and I have to add my title and contact details manually. Also it would be helpful to have a signature for outside and inside my organisation.
-
I think it would be very helpful to have the possibility to set up in the agents profile, if the signature should also be used for side-conversation as well. Or - similar to outlook, to define different signatures for public reply, internal reply, side-conversation.
-
Hey everyone, thanks for all the great feedback here!
We've done some exploration into being able to process the signatures so that the markdown and dynamic content can be hydrated. We need to work through how and when to do that hydration, as side convos go through a different processing pipeline than ticket comments. We have some ideas on next steps, though.
I've taken note of the comments in here with the different needs and will go over them with the team to see what some possible approaches could be. We don't have a timeline on this type of thing right now, but it's on our radar.
-
From my point of view it's a must because if you have to manage hundreds of Full Agents in a global company signatures are a very important thing.
-
So we worked on the suggested workaround with macro's (adding in a signature that way) and asked to disable the signatures.
... Only to see that the signatures do pop-up again with the use of macros. (So now we still need to disable the signatures manually)Toby Sterrett, I know you mentioned it not being a full solution. But this is quite ironic, no?
-
Toby Sterrett - Any update on this issue being tackled? This is preventing us from utilizing Side Conversations in many cases, because our dynamic content signatures don't render properly, which is unprofessional.
-
Toby Sterrett Any news about this matter? We're not able to use the side conversations for any outbound messages.
-
Dear Jorn,
We have the same issue, but we have created a work around: We have established a macro which creates a blank side conversation email with a signature and some dynamic fields (name, phone no., email, ...).
Maybe it helps but of course zendesk has to provide this function in the near future.
BR,
Markus
-
Markus Schulz Were you able to disable the auto created 'signatures'?
I'm in contact with a Zendesk agent, which repeatedly is telling me they can't remove it (despite Toby Sterrett 's message). -
No, we created a 'blank' macro without using the standard signature and we have implemented simplified signature in this macro. I have to mention that we use the side conversation email for internal and vendor communication only. In these cases a simplified signature is enough.
BR,
Markus
-
Jorn can you provide the ticket number? I can check it out and get the signatures removed for you. It's a bit of a manual process.
I'm going to be talking with the team early next week to see about getting the hydrated signatures into the side conversations editor. I'll post here when we have something to try out.
-
Hi Toby Sterrett. It was ticket number 11150901, but it got solved eventually.
Looking forward to your update!
-
Toby Sterrett any updates on supporting markdown in side conversations? The last update on this topic is from 7 months ago. Our support agents continue to look silly as their signatures are going out with what appear to be extraneous characters. Our team knows about removing the signature from outgoing side conversation emails, but this is a persistent annoyance.
-
Toby Sterrett Also commenting on here to check on updates regarding this issue
-
Clayton Waters I posted a possible workaround that works for my situation, it may be useful for you: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/5581699884826-Have-Separate-Signature-for-Side-Conversations-Public-Ticket-Responses
Please sign in to leave a comment.
28 Comments