Suffix in an email address using + | Community
Skip to main content

Suffix in an email address using +

  • March 6, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 0 views
Bulent

Hi there,

Our application sends correspondence to Zendesk using emails. Responses from Zendesk go back to our system where the sender can read the responses in our internal mail system.

The problem we're having is as follows.

  • When the user raises a ticket with Zendesk we use the API to create the ticket.
  • If the user doesn't exist, then we create the account on Zendesk automatically.
  • Each user has a unique system email address that we generate: 1234@emaildomain.com
  • When an agent responds to the ticket, it goes back to 1234@emaildomain.com
  • This allows our system to recognise the recipient and show them the response on our internal system.
  • However, if the recipient then responds back, we send it back as an email to Zendesk.
  • That reply email comes from 1234+XXXX@emaildomain.com as the XXXX allows us to track the email.
  • On the email headers, we're sending the email sender to be 1234@emaildomain.com but the respond-to email address is set to be 1234+XXXX@emaildomain.com
  • Zendesk is ignoring the Email-From field and is instead reading the reply-to email address.
  • So because Zendesk thinks the email is from 1234+XXXX@emaildomain.com, it thinks it's a new person and creates a new account.

In summary, we now have hundreds of 1234+XXXX@emaildomain.com accounts and they are not tied to the actual account of 1234@emaildomain.com

Is there any chance we could get Zendesk to actually pay attention to the email headers and instead of using the "Reply-To:" field to decide who the sender is, use the "From:" header as we would have expected to?

Or better yet, it would be good if Zendesk could ignore the "+" suffixes in email addresses.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    4 replies

    J
    • Jessie17
    • March 9, 2018

    Hi Bulent!

    Zendesk does actually use the email header to ensure that incoming emails are threaded to the right ticket. To clarify, that's the not the problem you're having, right? Just the fact that a bunch of new users are being created?

    I'm going to see if one of our email experts can weigh in on this for you to see what the source of the issue might be.

    R
    • Richard87
    • March 12, 2018

    Hi Jessie,

    The issue is that when determining who the user is on an incoming email it is using the `Reply-To` header in the email not the `From` as one would expect.

    The header mentioned in your link is actually `In-Reply-To` which is different and determines the "thread" of the conversation rather than the sender.

    We have workarounds for these issues, but it would be nice to know if using `Reply-To` to determine the sender is desired behaviour and if so, the reasoning behind that.

     

     

    G
    • Guy15
    • March 13, 2018

    Hi Bulent and Richard -

    Yes, we intentionally use the Reply-To header when present to determine the ticket requester, and it's expected that this supersedes the From header. The reasoning here is that, in an email sent between email clients, the address listed in the Reply-To header would be the recipient of any replies to the email, while in Zendesk Support, the ticket requester is the recipient of replies to the ticket. We therefore make the Reply-To address the ticket requester, under the assumption the email's sender intended to receive replies at that address.

    As far as automatically associating email aliases with existing users automatically, it's a bit of a slippery slope. While it would be desirable to ignore "+" aliases or "." characters in an address from a provider like Gmail, which respectively allows and ignores these things, it could potentially be disastrous for emails received from a provider which treats addresses literally. To ensure a predictable and consistent experience, we assume that email addresses which don't match represent users who do not match, as this is a safer behavior than assuming the contrary.

    That being said, a user in Zendesk Support can have multiple email addresses listed on their user profile. If there are known addresses or aliases from which you expect to receive email from a user, adding that address or alias as a secondary address will allow emails to be associated with the correct user.

    I hope this clarifies things a bit!

    R
    • Richard87
    • March 14, 2018

    Hi Guy,

    Thank you for your response, we can see the reasoning even if we don't necessarily agree with it but you have different challenges than others!

    Jessie's note about how you use "In-Reply-To" actually helped the most, since it pointed us towards the fact you also use that header to determine the thread, so we added it and can ditch the plus addressing in this case.

    Terms & ConditionsCookie settingsAccessibility statement