Side conversation notifications

@christian17 it is totally possible and recommended (because side conversations are quite discrete).

1- You have to set conditions:

side conversation is reopened or answered

2- You have to trigger action 

send e-mail to group (if nobody is assigned)

or send e-mail to assignee (if someone is assigned)

You can create 2 triggers:

1 with conditions assigned is  "-" (where you will send an e-mail to the group)

1 with conditions assigned is not  "-" (where you will send an e-mail to the assignee)

Best regards,

Raphael - Officers.fr

@raphael12

Thanks a lot for your reply! 

When you mention 'assignee' are you then referring to the main ticket or the side conversation ticket that's created? That's what confuses me about the trigger.

Let's say I create a side conversation and add one of the agents in the 'To' field. Will that agent then be the assignee that get's the notification? Or do I have to assign the original ticket to this agent? 

If I create this trigger: 

Rules

Side conversation is created

Assignee is not "-" 

Action

What should be the action in this case? 

"Send e-mail (user) to assignee"?

Hi @christian17,

The assignee in Zendesk always refers to the team member of your company whom the ticket is assigned to.

The assignee is not mandatory and if no ones assigns the ticket to an agent it can be empty.

Natively Zendesk doesn't assigns the ticket to an agent even if an agent answers to the customer.

But it can be done by a trigger also (such as "if" ticket is "updated" + assignee is "empty" + 'current user" is "agent" the assignee is "current user")

Also,

The requester refers to the "customer" of the ticket (and I recommend never to change the requester of a ticket) 

Best regards,

Raphaël

Hey Christian, 

We've created the following Trigger to address this:

Rules

Side conversation is created

Assignee is not "-" 

Action

Assignee is (current user)

It is then followed by a second Trigger (along the lines of what Raphaël mentioned):

Rules

Side conversation is Replied to

Action

Email user: (assignee)

Email Subject: Someone replied to a Side Conversation - Ticket # {{ticket.id}}

Email body: 

Someone replied to a side conversation in Ticket # {{ticket.id}}

{{ticket.title}}

Link to ticket: {{ticket.url}}

Hi. @raphael12!

Thanks for getting back.

With "assignee is not empty" is that Assignee is "-"? 

Thanks!

Hi, @Shmuel Holzman

Thanks for your input! 

I like your triggers, however I want to understand it a bit more: 

When you say 'Assignee is not "-" = There is an assignee to the main ticket, right? Can you elaborate a bit on the first trigger; why would the agent added to the 'To'-field in the Side Conversation get a notification this way? I mean; the trigger fires when an agent is added as assignee to the main ticket, right? And if I opened the ticket and added myself as assignee, because I want to resolve the ticket, then, according to your trigger, I'll be the current user and therefore get the notification. 

Am I wrong? 

It seems I may have misunderstood your question; I was under the impression that you are looking to have the agent who created the side conversation notified when there is a response. 

Are you looking to address a scenario where a side conversation is sent to an agent? If so, we use side conversations via email instead of side conversations via ticket. 

If you prefer to create side conversations via a ticket, your Trigger can be set up like this: 

Rules

Channel is Side conversation

Ticket is created OR Ticket is updated

Action

Email user: (assignee)

Email Subject: Someone sent a Side Conversation to you - Ticket # {{ticket.id}}

Email body: 

Here are the details of the side conversation:

Ticket #{{ticket.id}}

{{ticket.title}}

{{ticket.description}}

Let me know if this makes more sense! 

(Side note: If you remove the space between the # and the {{ticket.id}}, it will hyperlink the {{ticket.id}}. Just found this out today, thanks to Ahmed Zaid's comment here) 

@Shmuel Holzman

That worked. Thanks a lot! 

What if I then wants to have a mail being sent everytime the Side conversation is replied to? So for example: 

I'll start a Side conversation: Agent A gets first notification. Then Agent A answers this Side conversation, either through the ticket or directly through the mail. Then I want to receive a notification about this answer and so forth. 

Thanks in advance!

Glad to hear that it worked! 

You can add a Rule to the above Trigger `Assignee is not (current user)`. 

And then duplicate the same Trigger but with a small change:

Rules

Channel is Side conversation

Ticket is created OR Ticket is updated

Requester is not (current user)

Action

Email user: (requester)

Email Subject: Someone sent a Side Conversation to you - Ticket # {{ticket.id}}

Email body: 

Here are the details of the side conversation:

Ticket #{{ticket.id}}

{{ticket.title}}

{{ticket.description}}

Disclaimer: I have never tried this but in theory it should work. Let me know how it goes!

Thanks, @Shmuel Holzman!

I'll try it out. 

Would you mind explain a bit why you've chosen via e-mail instead of via ticket? :-) 

And do you have some good triggers I could see when using Side Conversations via E-mail? :-)

We generally use Side Conversations to communicate with stakeholders that don't use Zendesk; for stakeholders who use Zendesk we just communicate via Internal Comments on the ticket. 

Side Conversations via email works like as any other email service. The only Triggers we set up were the ones I mentioned at the top, here, to notify the Assignee when someone replied to the Side Conversation. 

Hope this helps!

Thanks once again, @Shmuel Holzman! 

I've one last question (I hope!) if I make the triggers for the e-mail side of things, would that in any way interfere the triggers made for the ticket side conversations?