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Implementing simplified email threading for email applications

Charles Nadeau
  • Edited
Zendesk Documentation Team

What's my plan?

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Note:If your account was created on or after June 15, 2022, you already have simplified email threading in your account.

Zendesk introduced simplified email threading on June 15, 2022 to make conversations in modern email applications such as Gmail easier to follow and more productive for both end users and agents. To learn more about the change, seeUnderstanding simplified email threading.

If your account was created before June 15, 2022, you can still implement the simplified threading experience in your account to try it out. If you decide you prefer the original experience, you can switch back to it.

This article describes how to implement simplified email threading in your account. It contains the following topics:

Planning

In Zendesk, emails are created using a combination of triggers, automations, and email templates. To implement the enhanced email experience in your account, you need to identify and update any active triggers and automations that send email to users or groups. You also need to update the email templates.

Because of the potential for duplicate emails and an inconsistent email experience while you're in the process of making the changes, choose a time when you get a low volume of support requests to make the changes.

To minimize the time it takes to implement the changes, prepare ahead of time with the following steps:

  1. Create a list of triggers and automations to update.
  2. Clone the triggers and automations on your update list and deactivate them.
  3. Make the necessary changes to the deactivated clones.

When you're ready to implement simplified email threading in your account, you can quickly activate the clones and deactivate the originals. You can also update the email templates at the same time.

Listing the triggers and automations to update

The first task is to create a list of all the triggers and automations that need to be updated to support simplified email threading.

Triggers and automations are rules that specify actions to take when certain conditions are met. Dozens of possible actions are available. Two of them, “Email user” and “Email group,” send email to users and groups when certain conditions are met.

You need to update any trigger or automation that meets all of the following criteria:

  • The trigger or automation is active
  • The trigger or automation has an “Email user” or an “Email group” action
  • The email body of the action contains one or more of the original comment placeholders listed inOriginal comment placeholders to replace

Example trigger to add to the update list:

Zendesk has a number of default triggers and automations that meet these criteria. SeeDefault triggers and automations to update. Add any active ones to your update list.

Your account may also have custom triggers and automations. You should review them for any that meet the criteria.

You can use Admin Center to find the triggers and automations to update. You can also use the Zendesk API. SeeUsing the API to find triggers and automations to update.

To find the triggers and automations to update

  1. ReviewDefault triggers and automations to updateand add any active ones to your update list.
  2. Open the Triggers or Automations page in Admin Center.
    • Triggers:InAdmin Center, clickObjects and rulesin the sidebar, then selectBusiness rules > Triggers.
    • 自动化:InAdmin Center, clickObjects and rulesin the sidebar, then selectBusiness rules > Automations.
  3. Ignore any inactive trigger or automation.
  4. 忽略任何违约组织er or automation you added to your update list in step 1.
  5. Open each remaining trigger or automation and look for an “Email user” or an “Email group” action. If it doesn't have one, skip to the next trigger or automation.
  6. If one of the actions is present, check whether the action's email body contains one or more of the comment placeholders listed inOriginal comment placeholders to replace. If it has one, add the trigger or automation to your update list.

Using the API to find triggers and automations to update

You can use theList Active TriggersandList Active Automationsendpoints to get all the active triggers and automations in your account. You can then filter the list for the ones that match all the update criteria.

The equivalent update criteria for the API responses are as follows:

Admin Center criteria Equivalent criteria for the API
The trigger or automation is active Theactiveproperty of the trigger or automation is true
The trigger or automation has an “Email user” or an “Email group” action Thefield财产的操作对象是“notification_user" or "notification_group"
The email body of the action contains one or more of the original comment placeholders The third element of thevaluearray in the action object contains one or more of the placeholders listed inOriginal comment placeholders to replace

Example trigger:

Original comment placeholders to replace

If the email body of an “Email user” or an “Email group” action contains any of the following placeholders, add the trigger or automation to your update list.
  • {{ticket.comments}}
  • {{ticket.latest_comment}}
  • {{ticket.comments_formatted}}
  • {{ticket.latest_comment_formatted}}
  • {{ticket.latest_comment_rich}}
  • {{ticket.public_comments}}
  • {{ticket.latest_public_comment}}
  • {{ticket.public_comments_formatted}}
  • {{ticket.latest_public_comment_formatted}}
  • {{ticket.latest_public_comment_rich}}

Default triggers and automations to update

This section lists the triggers and automations that might need to be updated to support simplified email threading. They might not all be active in your account. You only need to update the active ones. If you decide to activate a deactivated trigger or automation on this list later, remember to also update it for simplified email threading as described inUpdating the triggers and automations.

The following default triggers meet the criteria to be updated:
  • Notify requester and CCs of comment update: Sends the requester and CCs an updated email message when a public comment is added to the ticket.
  • Notify assignee of comment update: Sends the agent assigned to a ticket an email notification when a comment is added to the ticket.
  • Notify assignee of assignment: Sends an agent an email notification when the agent is assigned a ticket.
  • Notify assignee of reopened ticket: Sends the agent assigned to a ticket an email notification when the ticket is reopened.
  • Notify all agents of received request: Sends all agents an email notification when the ticket is received.
  • Notify group of assignment: Sends all agents in a group an email notification when a ticket is assigned to the group.
  • Notify requester of new proactive ticket: Sends the requester an email notification when a proactive ticket is created by an agent on behalf of the requester.

The following default automations meet the criteria to be updated:

  • Pending notification 24 hours: Sends the requester an email message that their request has been pending for 24 hours and awaits their feedback.
  • Pending notification 5 days: Sends the requester an email message that their request has been pending for 5 days and awaits their feedback.

Updating the triggers and automations

Updating the triggers and automations consists of replacing all the content of the action's email body with one of the following placeholders for simplified threading:

  • {{ticket.latest_comment_html}}

  • {{ticket.latest_public_comment_html}}

To determine which one, seeSimplified threading placeholder map.

Zendesk recommends updating all the triggers and automations that contain any of theoriginal comment placeholders. Updating only some of them may give unexpected results in email applications.

Before you start, make sure you create a list of triggers and automations that need to be updated. SeeListing the triggers and automations to update.

To update a trigger or automation

  1. Open the Triggers or Automations page in Admin Center.
    • Triggers:InAdmin Center, clickObjects and rulesin the sidebar, then selectBusiness rules > Triggers.
    • 自动化:InAdmin Center, clickObjects and rulesin the sidebar, then selectBusiness rules > Automations.
  2. Clone the first trigger or automation on your update list.

    The clone is not created yet. You can edit it before creating it.

  3. In the cloned trigger or automation, replace "(copy)" in the name with "(simplified)" or something else that makes sense to your use case.
  4. In the "Email user" or "Email group" action in the Actions section of the clone, replace all the content in the email body, including any original comment placeholder, with the simplified threading placeholder specified in theSimplified threading placeholder map.

    In the following example, the email body of the "Email user" action contains some text and the original{{ticket.comments_formatted}}placeholder:

    TheSimplified threading placeholder mapspecifies that the simplified threading placeholder for{{ticket.comments_formatted}}is{{ticket.latest_comment_html}}. Make the change in the email body by replacing all the content in the body with the single placeholder:

  5. After making the changes, clickCreateto create the clone.

    Clones are activated by default.

  6. Immediately deactivate the cloned trigger or automation to prevent duplicate emails.

    Click the options menu icon () and selectDeactivate.

  7. Make the same changes to the next trigger or automation on your update list.

Simplified threading placeholder map

Replace each comment-rendering placeholder with either the{{ticket.latest_comment_html}}or{{ticket.latest_public_comment_html}}placeholder depending on the existing placeholder. Use the following map to determine the correct simplified threading placeholder:

Existing placeholder Simplified threading placeholder
{{ticket.comments}}

{{ticket.latest_comment_html}}
{{ticket.latest_comment}}
{{ticket.comments_formatted}}
{{ticket.latest_comment_formatted}}
{{ticket.latest_comment_rich}}
{{ticket.public_comments}}

{{ticket.latest_public_comment_html}}
{{ticket.latest_public_comment}}
{{ticket.public_comments_formatted}}
{{ticket.latest_public_comment_formatted}}
{{ticket.latest_public_comment_rich}}

The simplified threading placeholders work as follows:

  • {{ticket.latest_comment_html}}:对于代理商,占位符显示only the last comment (public or private). For end users, it renders only the last public comment. The comment includes attachments.
  • {{ticket.latest_public_comment_html}}: For both agents and end users, the placeholder renders the latest public comment. The comment also includes attachments.

Updating the email templates

To implement the enhanced email experience in your account, you also need to update the following two email templates used to create messages for email applications:

  • The follower template or the CC template, depending on your account settings
  • The account-level HTML and plain-text email templates

Back up your email templates by pasting them in text files and saving the files. If you later decide to go back to the original email experience, you can restore the original templates from the backup files.

Updating the follower template or the CC template

Updating the follower or CC template consists of replacing original comment placeholders in the template with one of the two simplified threading placeholders listed in theSimplified threading placeholder map.

你有追随者模板或CC template depending on your account settings. If the CCs & Followers experience is enabled in your account, you have the follower template. Otherwise, you have the CC template.

To update either the follower template or the CC template

  1. InAdmin Center, clickObjects and rulesin the sidebar, then selectTickets > Settings.
  2. Scroll to either the "CCs and Followers" or the "CC" settings.
  3. Copy the content of either theFollower email templateorCC email textfield and paste it in a separate text file and save it.

    You can use this backup file to restore the template later.

  4. In either theFollower email templateorCC email textfield, replace anyoriginal comment placeholderin the content with the corresponding simplified threading placeholder in theSimplified threading placeholder map.

  5. ClickSave tab.

Replacing the account-level email templates

The last step is to replace the two account-level email templates. One template is for displaying email content in HTML and the other is for displaying the content in plain text. The new HTML template introduces font changes and removes unnecessary padding.

To replace the account-level email templates

  1. InAdmin Center, click渠道in the sidebar, then selectTalk and email > Email.
  2. Scroll down to theEmail templatessection.
  3. Replace the HTML content of theHTML templatefield with the content below.

    The content below doesn't include an email delimiter placeholder (the delimiter is disabled by default). If you enabled email delimiters in your Zendesk account, you mustadd the delimiter placeholder to the email template.

           
     {{content}} 

     
     {{footer}} {{footer_link}} 

     {{quoted_content}}
  4. Customize the template as desired.

    For details, seeCustomizing your templates for email notifications.

    The replacement template is HTML5 compliant. To learn more about supported HTML5 elements, see theHTML5 Elements Referenceon www.w3docs.com.
  5. Scroll down toText template, copy the content into your backup file, and replace the content with the following placeholders:
    {{content}} {{footer}} {{quoted_content}}

    SeeUnderstanding the system placeholders.

  6. ClickSave.

Restoring the original email experience

This section assumes you created clones of the original triggers and automations, and backups of the original templates.

To restore the original email experience
  1. Restore the original email triggers and automations by activating the originals and deactivating the clones.
  2. Restore the original follower or original CC template from the backup file.
  3. Restore the original account-level email templates from the backup file.

    Avoid using theRevert to defaultlink for each template. This will revert the template to the one used for simplified email threading.

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    70 Comments

    • James Clark

      Hello - I wanted to confirm, I have some triggers using the "Notify Target" action (not the email user/email group actions), but do include the placeholder {{ticket.comments_formatted}}. Should these be update as well? Thanks

      0
    • Marcus Åberg

      Hi,

      We are new to Zendesk. I tried to follow this guide as this is in line with how our customers would expect email-responses to look. However I have the issue that images from the email history does not display in the end-user's outlook. Is this a limitation or is it something I have done wrong? Anyone else experiencing this?

      Thanks in advance!

      1
    • Nick Algner

      In Apple mail is not enough space on the left side. Can we somehow manage to create a little space there? Our customers mostly use apple therefore it would be very helpful, thanks!

      0
    • Vladimir Kochkovski
      • Edited

      @nick I had the same issue.

      As a workaround, I used this template that's a hybrid from the older version with the proper padding for Apple email and the new version with the Simplified Email Thread.

      Here is how it looks:









      {{delimiter}}

      {{content}}

      {{footer}}


      {{quoted_content}}





      Hope it helps.

      Make sure to test and make any changes needed to match your template before using it though.

    2
  • Nick Algner

    Thanks, but it doesn't help at all. I already added a margin left, that works.

    Just a question: Why is this update just good for Google Mail and not Apple mail? Because no one's using Apple mail anymore?

    Thanks anyway. Maybe there will be an update where it just looks like a normal email template.

    0
  • Dane
    Zendesk Engineering
    Hi James,

    As per the article, it's only for "Email User" and "Email Group".

    Hi Marcus,

    I noticed that a ticket has already been submitted for this concern. Please continue to work with our Advocate for the resolution.

    Thank you.
    0
  • David Allardyce

    DaneMarcus ÅbergI see the same in my {{quoted_content}} section since changing to simplified email threading. I have just logged a support ticket but was wondering if you'd had a resolution.

    1
  • Eddison
    • Edited

    Vladimir Kochkovskiif you remove the delimiter check box you won't need to add the delimiter in the HTML code and it will work.

    I had the same issue as you and this fixed it.

    1
  • Vladimir Kochkovski

    Eddisonthank you so much for the mention and for the solution! I appreciate that.

    If possible, it would be nice if the original article can be updated with the additional info, just to make it easier for the users

    0
  • Marcus Åberg
    • Edited

    David Allardyce

    I raised a ticket and got the feedback that it was not supported at the moment. From Zendesk support September 12, 2022 11:53:

    "...I understand that you want the images to show on your simplified email thread.

    Our Engineering has investigated this behavior and confirmed that Simplified Email Threading currently does not support inline image previewing in an email thread."

    I raised a feature request for this, you and anyone else that would have use for this are very welcome to upvote here:

    https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4950206706970-Simplified-email-threading-Make-images-render-in-the-email-thread-history

    2
  • Eddison

    Vladimir KochkovskiNo problem! I think what Zendesk should do is put the settings of the other options, as it seems that if you have an older account a lot of changes are made, and the articles do not necessarily solve it right away.

    That being said I found another issue.Dane, I am hoping you would be able to shed some light here.

    I made a fake email account under "M" and did a conversation with my zendesk account. For context, both the fake email account and zendesk account automatically adds email signatures.

    Everything works up to the fifth email chain, where Gmail all of a sudden stops showing the "..." functionality, which makes it slighlty confusing. I circled these areas in blue. The red highlights block out sensitive information.

    Im thinking to remove the quoted content placeholder however, upon checking regular email functionality I have a feeling I should keep it. If I remove it, I could see that the following instance would not work properly. If I add someone as a CC mid-email, they will not have any context whatsoever if I remove the {{quoted_content}} placeholder.

    4
  • Vladimir Kochkovski

    Eddisonthank you for the reply.

    In my own workflow, that's exactly what I did. I removed the quoted_content placeholder from the template.

    I found that most tickets either have CC added from the very beginning or not at all (so nobody misses anything).

    Also found this to be compatible with most email clients, including Gmail and Apple Mail, and their way of grouping conversations.

    However, I'm not sure if it's something I can recommend to everyone, as their workflow might be different

    2
  • Eddison

    Vladimir Kochkovski

    Sounds good I think I will have to revert to that if nothing else works. In the meantime hoping Zendesk can give me a solution that allows Zendesk to perform like a regular email client.

    2
  • Jamie Noell
    When agent manually creates ticket in ZD, first notification looks great. However, on all subsequent notifications, Zendesk seems to add a gray box with that "ticket format - name, date/timestamp" around the initial reply from the agent.
    By contrast, if the customer emails in, on subsequent agent replies, ZD does not add the gray border box. If there is a way to prevent the gray border and the "ticket formatted header" on a manually created ticket?
    0
  • John E

    Hello-

    I am in the planning process of implementing the simplified email threading. One concern I have is the instruction stating,

    Updating the triggers and automations consists of replacingallthe content of the action's email body with one of the following placeholders for simplified threading:

    {{ticket.latest_comment_html}}
    {{ticket.latest_public_comment_html}}

    我的一些通知触发有文本除了to the placeholders, but the instructions state to replace ALL of the content. Will the emails render incorrectly if I leave other text in the comment section of the trigger?
    2
  • Jamie Noell

    John E, we have other text in our triggers with this placeholder, which works just fine.

    0
  • John E

    Thanks for your commentJamie Noell- I tried it, and it seems to be working without issue. Cheers.

    0
  • Ben Levine

    This thread is great and has helped us a lot. Wondering if you know how to make it so when we send a reply to our clients that it does not come in on a separate email everytime? Would be great to have he email stay as on email conversation, just updated?

    2
  • Anselm Engle
    • Edited

    So, I love this change, but it's seriously lacking in practical function for us. :(

    Here's why:
    Right now, I'm using {{ticket.latest_public_comment_formatted}} to show end users the latest comment from us. It's pretty great- they see our response, but don't see their own email to us.

    However, it doesn't include any background, so if the customer forwards the email to anyone, there's no quoted background to get context from. This is a problem.

    So I'm going to use {{ticket.public_comments_formatted}} because that includes the entire history behind a quote... but it *also* includes the comment the current comment is responding to (so: one comment ago) in the body. That's not idea, but it works.

    Then I find `{{ticket.latest_public_comment_html}}`, which is great, because it gets rid of all the headers and names and stuff above the responses, and makes it all much more compact and sleek. This is great! Except...

    ...there's no way to include a quoted history. I'd love to use something like {{ticket.public_comments_html}} to skip the header names, but still include the background behind a quote, but that doesn't exist and doesn't work.

    Can we get something like that set up? Ideally, moving the previous-to-this comment into the quoted text as well? So the customer sees our responses, without header names, but ALSO has the option of expanding the quoted text to show history? That would be amazing!

    1
  • Jim Uomini

    Is it necessary to clone all notifications and activate the new versions all at once? Or can we go slowly with both types in use and roll over slowly one trigger at a time?

    Thanks

    0
  • Jupete Manitas
    Zendesk Customer Care

    Hi Jim, thanks for writing in! This feature is already enabled for new accounts but for accounts created before June 15, 2022, this is still optional if you want to use the simplified threading. It is not necessary so you can go slowly based on your workflow or internal process one trigger at a time. Than you and I hope this helps!

    0
  • Hannah Voice

    Hi there,

    I've been testing simplified email threading in our sandbox and hoping you can help me understand a couple of things. I've updated the trigger that sends the notification I'm testing, as well as the follower template and the account-level email templates.

    I sent an email from Gmail to our Zendesk sandbox, and then sent a few messages back and forth.

    Gmail

    Why does each reply from Zendesk include the start of previous message historywithinthe reply? It has the 3 ellipsis right underneath but in the highlighted sections in the screenshot below, for example, I think "Second message from the customer" should be hidden under those ellipsis. Is this related to the quoted_content placeholder?

    亚博

    Why do the customer replies in the Zendesk interface include the previous messages? This would be really confusing/cumbersome for agents.

    Thanks,

    Hannah

    2
  • Ronald
    • Edited

    So I've gone through this process and everything is looking great and working as expected.

    However, I'm thinking I might keep using the legacy placeholder {{ticket.comments_formatted}} for certain internal Zendesk group notifications. They go mainly to groups of Light Agents and are just intended as an alert for them to take a look at the ticket in the Zendesk environment directly. For these I think it's a lot more helpful to provide the entire comments history rather than the most recent comment.

    Is there any problem with using the old {{ticket.comments_formatted}} placeholder for this purpose? I've tested it out and it seems like it still works like it always used to even with the new email templates applied.

    0
  • Anh Le

    Couldn't you have a easier and better way to implement this instead of reading and following such a very long article?

    0
  • Ronald

    Anh LeTLDR - Update your email templates and swap out the comments placeholders.

    The article does make it feel a lot more complicated but I think a thorough walkthrough is necessary to address all possible users.

    But one thing the article leaves out is that you should be mindful of the subject in your email notifications, even those that don't use any of the placeholders in the list, if you wish to have a single conversational thread for each ticket.

    0
  • Greg Clapp

    These instructions seem flawed. It does't seem like the CC template should use the latest comment token. It needs to include the full comment thread, and especially the first comment/description. How is the CC recipient supposed to know what the original request was if they're brought in 5 comments later??? This just wreaked a whole lot of havoc in my organization until I "fixed" it.

    0
  • Benjamin Kirsch
    Zendesk Product Manager

    Hi Gregory, are you using the {{quoted_content}} placeholder within your account level email templates? That will include the thread history within the ellipses at the bottom of an outbound email. There is also some more info about the quoted content and message history in theUnderstanding simplified email threadingarticle.

    0
  • Julie Hinrichs

    Hello,

    I have a couple questions...

    1) Is there a way to reverse the comment thread so that the newest comments show at the top of the email to the customer? Maybe I set up the email threading wrong, but the newest comments go to the bottom of the email thread on the customer's end. Our agent comments sometimes are long and so to have the most recent comment at the bottom means the customer has to scroll to the bottom of the page.

    2) What setting is used so I don't see the email thread duplicated within the same email thread? See example below?

    I'd like to get rid of the below example and not repeat it in the thread.

    Thank you!
    Julie
    1
  • Tatiana Christensen

    We are experiencing an issue with Forwared e-mail content from Outlook not showing in ticket, as ellipsis dissapers. Have created a post here for more details:Ellipsis missing when "Forward" from Outlook with no "

    Charles Nadeau, do you know if activating e-mail threading might be a solution? Is is something you'd be able to test? Zendesk support concluded that there is no solution, but I wonder if e-mail threading could be a workaround that they didn't consider.

    0
  • Julio H
    Zendesk Customer Care
    Hi Julie,

    谢谢你的评论。

    1- Each email provider handles the conversation mode differently. This behaviour can not be changed from Zendesk side, this can only be configured from the end user's email address.

    2- I believe you are seeing the reply within Zendesk interface. Is this correct? The email thread will always show information from previous replies.

    For further clarification. Please contact us as per the following documentation:

    Contacting Zendesk Customer Support

    Greetings.
    0

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