Mentions: How to add !mentions function to your Zendesk | Community
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Mentions: How to add !mentions function to your Zendesk

  • December 1, 2014
  • 40 replies
  • 0 views
A

What?

There has been some interest in having a mentions function in Zendesk.  The idea is that by using !agentname in a ticket comment, the agent would receive notification of the comment.  Additionally, a team mention would allow anyone using !myteam to notify all members of the team.

 

Love it! - How? 

To add this function - follow the tutorial below.

 

Go to Settings > Triggers

Create a new trigger named Mentions !yourname  (replacing name as required)

Set conditions as follow...

  • Meet all of the following conditions - Status not changed to Closed.
  • Meet any of the following conditions - Comment text contains the following string !yourname (replace 'yourname' with your username or handle)
  • (optional) Meet any of the following conditions - Comment text contains the following string !yourname-alternative (maybe you want to cover your bases for a possible variation)

Set 'Perform these actions'...

Notifications: Email User > Select applicable agent user

Email Subject: Mentions on ticket {{ticket.id}}

Email Text: {{current_user.name}} mentioned you on ticket {{ticket.id}}

{{ticket.latest_comment_formatted}}

 

Obviously, repeat the process for each agent/username.  It is possible to extend this to notify non-agents, using email targets.

That's it - Enjoy!

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    40 replies

    A
    • Andrew42
    • Author
    • December 1, 2014

    To use the @team function, simply create a trigger for all members of the team and use the text condition with @yourteamname

    C
    • Colin17
    • December 1, 2014

    Thanks for the useful tip Andrew

    J
    • Jessie17
    • December 1, 2014

    Great tip! Thanks for sharing. :)

    Jennifer16
    • Jennifer16
    • December 3, 2014

    Love the tip, Andrew! Thanks for posting it!

    B
    • Blake20
    • December 5, 2014

    Did the same thing...

    Two additional tips

    1. Use a special suffix in the Subject like "MENTIONED {{ticket title}}"

    2. In the email body add something like -NoArchive-

    I use the -NoArchive- text so I can ensure that my gmail filter which applies labels and skips my inbox for support tickets (I like having a log in gmail... so when i search for a customer everything is there... but don't want it to clutter my inbox)...

    The reason for the unique subject is so that it doesn't get threaded with ticket replies afterwards.  If you want to follow it click follow when in the ticket.

    J
    • Jessie17
    • December 10, 2014

    Hey Blake! Thanks for adding your input to this! :)

    R
    • Ray20
    • January 23, 2015

    Fantastic tip here guys, always wondered whether it would be good to place on and how easy - much appreciated!

    A
    • Andrea17
    • April 8, 2015

    quick question

    you say use @yourname - would that be first name or first and last? 

    So for me, should it be @andrea or @andreasaez ? or @andrea_saez ?

    A
    • Andrea17
    • April 8, 2015

    oh nevermind, i just saw there's an alternate string option.

    i'm going to test this!

    M
    • Matthew67
    • April 14, 2015

    I put this in place for our team a couple of months ago and everybody loves it! We used to add internal people as CCs but would always forget to remove them afterwards. Now, we can simply and easily shoot a one-time message to the person we need information from.

    I put in 3 different versions of possible strings for each user so that almost any logical combination would work (using my name as an example):

    1. @matthew
    2. @matthewbriley
    3. @mbriley

    We have several people with the same first name, so I simply didn't include Option #1 for those users.

    R
    • Ray20
    • April 15, 2015

    Good shout there Matthew! I did the exact same - I put as many variations as I could, so for me it went as far as:

    @ray

    @rayroocroft

    @ray.roocroft

    @ ray.roocroft@yudu.com

    @raymond

    @raymondroocroft

    @ raymond.roocroft@yudu.com

    Of course there was a slight variation when people had the same name or common names.

    J
    • Jessie17
    • April 15, 2015

    Matthew and Ray, thank you so much for chiming in with your solutions! I'm sure lots of people will find them helpful. :)

    F
    • Frank31
    • April 18, 2015

    Great opportunity. If name standardization issue is resolved.

    A
    • Andrew42
    • Author
    • April 19, 2015

    @frank - there is no name standardization issue - you list the variations you require to cover for your agent in the triggers you create - ie. it is as specific or all-encompassing as you make it :-)

    If Zendesk implement this as a inbuilt option what would be really good would be a predicter function - just like in 'buddypress'. However - this wouldnt work for the end user or some agents (who use email etc). 

    Ray's variations seem to cover most possibilities :)

    J
    • Jake40
    • June 9, 2015

    Hey guys,

    Totally hi-jacking this thread (sorry Andrew!).

    So we're poking around this to see how we'd like to design this out, to be able to get this into the product proper.

    Which of these two make the most sense? Why? Argue:

    • If you were @mentioned in a ticket comment (or a forum post), would you expect to be notified once, or cc'd on that ticket/post for all future updates?
    • If you were @mentioned in a ticket comment (or forum post), how would you expect to be notified? Email? In Zendesk? Push notification? Other?

    Thanks guys!

    A
    • Andrew42
    • Author
    • June 9, 2015

    Hey Jake - great to see your smiling face :-)

    My two pence...

    I would say 'once only' and via email - it could also be good for this to appear in the update stream though.  

    To CC or not to CC: It may be a idea to have an option per agent whether they want to be auto-CCed or not when mentioned. Default to the less annoying one :)

    An option in the email to 'follow' and be added as a CC would be good (though CC is bad news for me - I delete CCs often)

    Content: I think I would lean toward full content.  Once again, options rule the day - allow us to configure the notification content (I have this option already running of course - using triggers)

    P
    • Plamen
    • June 28, 2015

    Hi,

    would be great to see the mentions functionality been added as official feature. 

    It would also be great if you add some sort of Notifications area, where every agent can see:

    1. mentions of his name
    2. notifications on updates of tickets where he is assigned
    3. notifications of ticket assignment

    At least in our organisation we are trying to reduce the mail usage to minimum, and using the e-mail to be notified for anything happening in Zendesk (except maybe SLA breaches) is needless as we anyway keep Zendesk in front of our eyes most of the time and notifications there would be easily seen.

     

    M
    • Matthew67
    • June 29, 2015

    @Jake:

    Here's my opinion:

    1. We use @mentions to shoot a one-time message to another user, so we definitely wouldn't want to be CC'd (we would just have to remove them anyway)
    2. We use the Zendesk Web-portal 99.9% of the time and we really dislike emails, so I'd love to get more notifications from inside Zendesk. I'd understand a summary email if the user hasn't been online for a period of time, but notifications from inside Zendesk is definitely option #1 for us.
    P
    • Plamen
    • June 30, 2015

    +1 for getting more notifications inside the Zendesk web app, instead of mail.

     

    At the end of the day Zendesk is a replacement of the e-mail.

    Matthew90
    • Matthew90
    • July 1, 2015

    I would love for the 'add CC' to be a configurable option on an @ mention (trigger / automation with different conditionals available).  For example, if an agent @ mentions me when working a VIP person / VIP ticket, I'd want to be kept abreast of any/all updates until the ticket is resolved.

    As far as how I'd be notified:  I'd like to see (configurable/choosable with conditionals): Email, Push, SMS, Slack

     

    P
    • Plamen
    • July 28, 2015

    Any expectations to see this feature in next releases?

    J
    • Jake40
    • July 28, 2015

    Yep, there's this other thing we have to finish first though.

    A
    • Akshath
    • September 11, 2015

    Hi Jake .. we would like to get push notifications inside Zendesk rather than emails. Our agents are logged into Zendesk at all times. Emails will be ineffective. 

    Agents can use the CC feature if they need to copy other agents anyway.

    J
    • Jessie17
    • September 15, 2015

    Hi Akshath!

    Have you seen our Chrome extension? It's not quite the same as in-product push notifications, but it might work for you! Check it out here: Zendesk Activity Stream.

    A
    • Anonymous
    • December 3, 2015

    Hi Jake - we would love to see mentions implemented in Zendesk and would want them to result in an email notification.

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