How to allow email target responses to thread into existing ticket

Hello fellow Zendesk users!

Out of the box, Zendesk Support will allow agents to forward ticket information to an external source using email targets.  Natively, when the external source replies to the email sent from this target, the response will generate a new ticket in Support. In some cases this native functionality can make it difficult to track ticket information between multiple tickets - which can negatively impact the customer experience.

Below I will walk everyone through the appropriate steps for threading the target’s response into the existing Support ticket.

Create Email Target

Navigate to Admin>Settings > Extensions > Targets > Add Target > Email Target.

Enter the following information:

• Title (Name of the target you wish to create)

• Email Address (destination you’d like to forward ticket response to)

• Subject (The subject of your email you’d like to send followed by [{{ticket.encoded_id}}] . Be sure to include brackets on both sides of placeholder.)

Select Create Target and click Submit.

Screenshot of a sample target below:

Create Trigger

Navigate to Admin > Business Rules > Triggers > Add trigger

Enter the following information:

Meets all of the following conditions:

• Ticket > is > Updated

• Comment > is > Public

• Tags > contains at least one of the following > notify_email_target

Actions:

• Notify target > (Title of your target)
• Message: {{ticket.latest_comment_formatted}}

Select Create

Screenshot of a sample trigger below:

Note: Conditions may vary depending on your ticketing workflow.

Based on the conditions configured above, you will need to update your ticket with a public comment and add the notify_email_target tag.

Once the ticket has been updated, the agent can confirm the target has been notified by viewing the events of the ticket.

The recipient will receive an email notification including the ticket encoded ID in the subject of the email.

Finally, the target recipient can reply back to the email which will thread to the existing ticket in Support.

Note: Because the external user replying to the target notification is not CC'd to the ticket, their response would be added as an Internal Note. For the response to be public you would need to CC the target recipient. 

That’s it! Now that target responses are threaded, agents can efficiently and effectively work through the ticket without the hassle of tracking down the necessary information through multiple requests.

If you have any questions regarding the above steps, feel free to comment below :)