About side conversations

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<p class="p">Side conversations are spaces in a ticket where agents can have a side conversation with
a specific group of people, or discuss a specific area of concern or course of action.
You can use them to organize information about a ticket. </p>
<div class="p">Side conversations are only available if they have been
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408832279962" target="_blank">activated by an administrator</a>. <div class="note note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> Viewing and replying to
email side conversations are supported on the Android and iOS versions of the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408846407066" target="_blank">Zendesk Support mobile app</a>. You can still use the email
client on your mobile device to create side conversation notifications.</div>
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<div class="p">This article includes these topics:<ul class="ul" id="topic_idq_2j4_l2b__ul_pbv_5gg_gfb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_z32_jj4_l2b">Advantages of using side conversations</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_bj2_jj4_l2b">Recommendations about side conversations</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_w4b_ql1_rnb">About side conversation channels</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_kcb_svr_dvb">About support addresses used to
send side conversations</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">Related articles:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_idq_2j4_l2b__ul_wmg_cfg_4tb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408830838170" target="_blank">Side conversation resources</a></li>
</ul>
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<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_z32_jj4_l2b">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Advantages of using side conversations</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Problems often consist of multiple parts, and solving them often consists of
conversations with different people. It gets confusing for everyone involved when
all of the questions and answers are mixed together in one place without any kind of
organization. </p>
<p class="p">For example, let’s say you need to discuss something with your Legal team, but don’t
need or want other people involved. </p>
<div class="p">Using side conversations can make it easier to do things like: <ul class="ul" id="topic_z32_jj4_l2b__ul_aj2_jj4_l2b">
<li class="li">Find, organize, and manage information about a specific part of an
issue</li>
<li class="li">Have a conversation with the right people</li>
<li class="li">Find specific questions, answers, and replies. Ensure conversations happen
outside of the main conversation with the requester</li>
<li class="li">Have multiple standalone conversations that are separate from each
other</li>
<li class="li">Get outside help without pulling others into the main ticket directly</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_bj2_jj4_l2b">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Recommendations about side conversations</h2>
<div class="body">
<div class="p">Here’s some general advice about how to get the most out of side conversations: <ul class="ul" id="topic_bj2_jj4_l2b__ul_cj2_jj4_l2b">
<li class="li">The assignee should create and manage side conversations in the tickets
they're responsible for. This allows administrators to create triggers based
on the assignee role, and enables easier handoff between agents.</li>
<li class="li">Set up triggers to take advantage of the side conversation event conditions
to fully integrate them into your workflows and to keep agents on top of the
activity within them. See the <strong class="ph b">Ticket: Side conversation</strong>
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408893545882#topic_i3y_fkz_1cb__side_conversation" target="_blank">conditions</a> and <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408893545882#topic_ncz_4kz_1cb__side_conversation_action" target="_blank">actions</a>. </li>
<li class="li">Create trigger conditions for side conversations to make sure that assignees
know when a side conversation is created, closed, replied to, and reopened.
Without them, the agent assigned to the ticket (ideally, this person is also
the creator of the side conversation) may have a hard time knowing what’s
going on with a particular issue. </li>
<li class="li">Remember that the creator of the side conversation doesn't automatically
receive email replies to side conversations. That’s not the default
behavior. Also sending side conversations to your own support address is not
supported and will result in those side conversations ending up in the
Suspended tickets view. </li>
<li class="li">The creator of the side conversation receives an email reply if another
agent responds in an email side conversation. The other agent can manually
remove the creator's email address so that it's not included in the reply.
Agents might want to remove the creator's email address so that it's not
displayed in email replies.</li>
</ul>
</div>
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<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested1" id="topic_w4b_ql1_rnb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">About side conversation channels</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p" dir="ltr">When you create a side conversation, you can choose to have the side
conversation in one of these channels:</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_w4b_ql1_rnb__ul_nph_ql1_rnb">
<li class="li" dir="ltr">
<strong class="ph b">Email</strong>: Creates an email-based side conversation (see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4604286879642" target="_blank">Creating side conversations</a>).</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Microsoft Teams</strong> (if enabled): Creates a Microsoft Teams-based side
conversations (see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/5191537451290" target="_blank">Using Microsoft Teams in side
conversations</a>).</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">
<strong class="ph b">Slack</strong> (if enabled): Creates a Slack-based side conversation
(see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408844202778" target="_blank">Using Slack in side
conversations</a>).</li>
<li class="li" dir="ltr">
<strong class="ph b">Ticket</strong> (if enabled): Creates a side conversation child ticket
(see <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408836521498" target="_blank">Using side conversation child
tickets</a>).<div class="note note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> Side conversation child tickets can be routed by
omnichannel routing. See <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409149119514" target="_blank">About omnichannel routing with unified
agent status</a>.</div>
</li>
</ul>
<p class="p">Side conversations are created from the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408836526362" target="_blank">context panel</a> and can be <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408836523930" target="_blank">printed</a> from all channels.</p>
<p class="p"><img class="image img-screenshot" id="topic_w4b_ql1_rnb__image_s1m_dvx_wtb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/side_convo_select_MS_teams.png" width="300"></p>
</div>
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<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="topic_kcb_svr_dvb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">About support addresses used to send side conversations</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Side conversation notifications are sent from the <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408842868506" target="_blank">support address</a> associated with the ticket that the side
conversation is on (for example, support@<em class="ph i">yoursubdomain</em>.zendesk.com). If you
have <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408836507162" target="_blank">multiple brands and support addresses</a>,
side conversation notifications come from each of your support addresses (for
example,
support@<em class="ph i">brand</em>.zendesk.com).</p>
<p class="p">If you have internal email routing rules (for example, in Microsoft Exchange), we
recommend that you include references to each of your unique support addresses.
Otherwise, email notification for side conversations will not be routed correctly.
Check your allowlists and blocklists. </p>
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