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Email threading issues in Gmail

  • July 7, 2021
  • 10 replies
  • 0 views
O

We receive our support requests via a support email, which forwards incoming emails to Zendesk for ticket creation. From there, an agent comments on tickets and requesters are notified of comments via email, like a normal email conversation. The problem is, comment notifications are not threaded to original requests. Every time an agent comments and the requester is notified of the response via email, it begins a new thread in Gmail. We are not changing subject lines, so I don't know what is causing this.

How can we avoid this and make it so that all comments on a ticket are threaded in Gmail? We find this will be best for end users so they can see their past questions. Thanks!

      10 replies

      Zsa
      • Zsa
      • July 12, 2021

      Hello Oriol!

      This seems to be a configuration on Gmail's side.
      I have found this relevant article from Gmail Help about how to Group emails into conversations.

        O
        • Oriol12
        • Author
        • July 12, 2021

        Hello Zsa! Thank you for your help. I don't think this is on Gmail's side, as messages I send from Gmail do thread while messages I send from Zendesk don't.

        That being said, from the link you sent, I see that "A reference header with the same IDs as a previous message" is probably the criterion being changed by Zendesk.

        Any idea how to fix this? Thank you!

        Zsa
        • Zsa
        • July 13, 2021

        Hello Oriol,

        Let me create a ticket on your behalf so we can troubleshoot this further.

        Cesar23
        • Cesar23
        • January 18, 2022

        We are having the same issue here and getting complains from my users. 

        Have anyone found a way to solve this?

          Dane13
          • Dane13
          • January 19, 2022
          Hi Cesar,
           
          Regarding the threading issue. It's possible that some of your end-users have the conversation option turned off in their gmail accounts. Please have them turn it on and check the behavior again.
           
          Cheers,
          Dane
          A
          • Andrew97
          • January 31, 2022

          First, let's clarify the two different places where threading can happen:

          1. Threading in the sender's inbox (i.e. if you're Zendesk's GSuite / Google workspace connector, this refers to the inbox of the google workspace user that you've connected to).

          2. Threading in the receiver's inbox (i.e. your customers' inboxes)

          @oriol12 appears to be talking about #1. @cesar23 is possibly talking about #2, but I'm not entirely sure. Maybe they can clarify that.

          I'm only going to mention #1 here -- the senders inbox. This appears to be something that only Zendesk can fix.

          When using the Gmail Connector in Zendesk, Zendesk uses the Gmail sending API to send messages via that account. When viewing the inbox of the sending account, the emails sent by Zendesk using this API are not properly threaded with the original conversation. The reason this is happening is that Zendesk is probably not specifying the ThreadId when using the gmail API's send() function. More information can be found here:

          https://stackoverflow.com/a/33177031/9129863

          And the relevant documentation from the Gmail API can be found here:

          Note, this "lack of threading in the sending mailbox" problem will occur even if you modify the Zendesk triggers to maintain the same subject line as the original message, because Zendesk still isn't setting the ThreadId properly. It would be very good if Zendesk could correct this, perhaps as part of this new configuration: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408833860762-Using-simplified-email-threading-Early-Access-Program-

            Tammas
            • Tammas
            • February 21, 2022

            We are also having this problem. This is not a change that our users have made - it's happening to lots of them. 

            I've also had some of them check and conversation threading is still turned on. 

            Can this be escalated? We are getting heaps of complaints about this. 

            Dane13
            • Dane13
            • February 25, 2022
            @Tammas,
             
            A ticket has been created for your concern. Please wait for an update from one of our Advocates. 
            CJ99
            • CJ99
            • November 11, 2022

            Was there any resolution to this issue? 

            Dane13
            • Dane13
            • January 12, 2023
            Hi CJ,
             
            It seems that a full resolution has not been reached for the tickets that were created. It was due to no activity on the ticket that eventually led to it being closed.
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