How to Forward or CC automatically to Specific Non-Agents
In some workflows, it is necessary to pass ticket information to users outside of your support team who are not Zendesk agents.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to implement automatic emails to specific users outside of your helpdesk, and give an example of how this could be used.
Limitations: Each person you wish to notify will need a separate target made, so this is somewhat limited to predicable persons and by logistics of the number of persons to be included.
Mail Extension: It is possible to extend this so that a single target can be used in Zendesk, but this requires configuration in a mail system outside of Zendesk and may not be available to all users.
The Problem
When adding outside users as a CC to a ticket, notifications are only emailed if the comment is public, thus the End User also sees the comment.
The Plan
In this tutorial, we will show you how to use targets, tags, triggers and macros to send notifications to a predefined non-agent users.
By creating the outside targets, we are able to define the persons we expect to be notifying, in this example, Mike in our admin team.
The Steps!
Create the Target
1) In Zendesk, navigate to Admin > Settings > Extensions > Targets
2) Select ‘Add Target’
3) Give you target a descriptive name. Example: ‘Mike – Private Email Notification’
4) Enter the email address. Eg: mike@mydomain.co.nz
5) Enter a Subject, you can include placeholders. Eg: Private Notification - {{ticket.title}}
6) Test the target, then select ‘Create Target’ and Submit.
Target completed!
Note: You will need to create a target for every email address you want to be able to notify.
Create the Trigger
1) Navigate to Admin > Business Rules > Triggers.
2) Select ‘Add Trigger’.
3) Select desired conditions.
This could be used in a number of ways. For this example we select the following:
- Ticket: Is… Updated
- Ticket: Tags Contains at least one of the following mike_notify
- Ticket: Status Less than Closed
4) Select the actions to perform. Example below.
- Notifications: Notify target ‘Mike – Private Email Notification’ (As created in above target sample)
- Message:
Please contact the client below to address this issue.
View here {{ticket.url_with_protocol}}
Email: {{ticket.requester.email}}
Phone: {{ticket.requester.phone}}
Previous communication as below.
{{ticket.comments_formatted}}
- Ticket: Remove Tags mike_notify
- Select ‘Create Trigger’ and Submit
Trigger completed!
Note: You will need separate triggers for each target, unless of course you are wanting to notify a group of people rather than just one.
At this point, you have a manually activated target. You can now manually add the tag mike_notify to your ticket, and submit with any other changes, including a Private/Internal comments. However, we would always prefer to make things as simple and agent-proof as possible, so the following Macro will make this example complete.
Create the Macro
In this example, I am wanting to close the ticket by referring to Mike and will expect him to take over. Personally I would make this a public comment, so that the customer knows what is happening. You can easily set this to private if this suits your needs.
- Navigate to Admin > Manage > Macros.
- Select ‘Add Macro’.
- Enter a Marco Title.
Example: ‘Notify Mike and Solve’ - Perform these Actions.
Ticket: Status Solved
Ticket: Add tags mike_notify
Ticket: Comment Mode Public (or Private as you prefer)
Ticket: Comment/Description - as below…
-------------------
Hello {{ticket.requester.first_name}},
Your request has been referred to Mike in our admin team.
This ticket on our online system will now be closed and Mike will contact you via phone or email to continue to assist you.
Thank you for contacting us!
-------------------
Macro created!
All set
You now have a VERY simple way to move a request outside of your Zendesk!
